bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Teachers' experiences using networked technologies for teaching
Authors: Cutajar Maria
Published: October 2024

At a given Maltese Higher Education complex there is increasing drive to encourage teaching academics to incorporate networked technologies in their teaching therefore expanding face-to-face campus-based education to blended and online provision. This paper reports on research findings of an explorative study investigating variation in academics' accounts of their experiences using networked technologies for teaching in this local context. Twenty-seven participating academics were purposively chosen from different faculties, institutes, centres and colleges. The sample was also balanced in terms of tenure, ranking, gender and age. Phenomenographic analysis of interview transcript data led to a configuration made up of 5 hierarchically inclusive categories describing the act of using networked technologies for teaching as: (i) Accumulating subject content for passing on to students for learning; (ii) Motivating and accommodating students to understand subject content in learning; (iii) Building a positive teacher-student rapport in extending students' learning; (iv) Modelling behaviour inspiring students to exploratory learning; (v) Fostering a community of learners participating and convening in dialogic learning. These categories of description are also configured as structurally threaded by three critical themes of expanding awareness including perceived affordances of networked technologies for teaching, human roles in teaching, and teaching pedagogic strategy. This phenomenographic description suggests a watershed between the third and fourth categories going from the incorporation of networked technologies in teaching activity for their auxiliary capacity for learning - teaching as transmission (of subject knowledge, of understanding, of empathy), to the incorporation of networked technologies as a seamless facet of teaching activity - teaching as participation (in exploratory learning, in dialogic learning). This description of variation in teachers' accounts of their experiencing using networked technologies for teaching confirms previous research but also adds new detail and insight. Besides, the resultant configuration projected as an emergent progression of expanding awareness is reckoned a means for positively inspiring network enhanced development of teaching practices. The thinking about variation in teachers' experiences as promoted by this research is potentially a means to encourage and facilitate the professional development of teaching academics steering away from pressure for change. Potentially it evokes a constructive outward view in the attempt to support best practices in HE teaching.
Understanding the variation in MBA students' experiences of using Learning Technology in Pakistan
Authors: Timsal Ahmad , Hodgson Vivien , Shah Uzair
Published: October 2024

Today, technology is increasingly being viewed as a key resource for enabling innovation within teaching and learning approaches. Social media platforms and applications such as Facebook and Twitter, WhatsApp, Skype and Viber have emerged as one of the most popular mechanisms for developing the social perspective in learning. Some recent studies even refer to this phenomenon as the development of a ‘parallel infrastructure’ to institutional offerings such as Moodle. However, when any artefact (such as technology), is introduced into a learning environment, there is a possibility that it will be responded to and utilised in different ways. This paper presents the initial analysis from MBA students’ experiences of using learning technology within their studies in a Pakistani business school, to see if technology has any impact on the learning approaches, in terms of the way and the purpose for which it is being used. Phenomenographic analysis revealed some initial categories of description, which include ‘access to learning materials and other information sources’, ‘organisation of course-related activities’, ‘improved communication and connectivity’, ‘developing cooperation and collaboration’ and ‘means of overcoming socio-cultural barriers’. The degree of variation within these categories can be related to the established concepts of deep and surface level approach. For example, there were students who preferred to use technology ‘as and when required’ by their teachers, and within the same environment there were others, who appeared to take a 'deep level' approach that involved some critical thinking about the use of technology and its subsequent influence on learning approaches. Our analysis highlights that students in relatively less developed regions are also making efforts to change themselves from ‘passive recipients’ of knowledge to active participants, who can support the learning activities of each other, using diverse forms of technology. We argue that while students may be developing an ‘alternative or parallel infrastructure to their institutional offerings’, there is no disconnect between them. It is this blend in using different forms of technology, which is encouraging the students to develop ‘informal networks’ among themselves – in an environment, which is majorly instructor-led. However, for addressing a possible 'dis(connect)' in students' use of various forms of technology, there is still a need for educators to ‘temper’ the enthusiasm of students, to develop a better understanding of how they should interact with technology, as this may provide some new insights for networked learning.
Learning in the wild
Authors: Esteve Del Valle Marc , Gruzd Anatoliy , Haythornthwaite Caroline , Kumar Priya , Gilbert Sara , Paulin Drew
Published: October 2024

The theoretical lenses, empirical measures and analytical tools associated with social network analysis comprise a wealth of knowledge that can be used to analyse networked learning. This has popularized the use of the social network analysis approach to understand and visualize structures and dynamics in online learning networks, particularly where data could be automatically gathered and analysed. Research in the field of social network learning analysis has (a) used social network visualizations as a feedback mechanism and an intervention to enhance online social learning activities (Bakharia & Dawson, 2011; Schreurs, Teplovs, Ferguson, de Laat, & Buckingham Shum, 2013), (b) investigated what variables predicted the formation of learning ties in networked learning processes (Cho, Gay, Davidson, & Ingraffea, 2007), (c) predicted learning outcomes in online environments (Russo & Koesten, 2005), and (d) studied the nature of the learning ties (de Laat, 2006). This paper expands the understanding of the variables predicting the formation of learning ties in online informal environments. Reddit, an online news sharing site that is commonly referred to as ‘the front page of the Internet’, has been chosen as the environment for our investigation because conversations on it emerge from the contributions of members, and it combines perspectives of experts and non-experts (Moore & Chuang, 2017) taking place in a plethora of subcultures (subreddits) occurring outside traditional settings. We study two subreddit communities, ‘AskStatistics’, and ‘AskSocialScience’, in which we believe that informal learning is likely to happen in Reddit, and which offer avenues for comparison both in terms of the communication dynamics and learning processes occurring between members. We gathered all the interactions amongst the users of these two subreddit communities for a 1-year period, from January 1st, 2015 until December 31st, 2015. Exponential Random Graph models (ERGm) were employed to determine the endogenous (network) and exogenous (node attributes) factors facilitating the networked ties amongst the users of these communities. We found evidence that Redditors’ networked ties arise from network dynamics (reciprocity and transitivity) and from the Redditors’ role as a moderator in the subreddit communities. These results shed light into the understanding of the variables predicting the formation of ties in informal networked learning environments, and more broadly contribute to the development of the field of social network learning analysis.
A Flipped Classroom Model for Inquiry-Based Learning in Cyprus Primary Education Context
Authors: Loizou Raouna Maria
Published: October 2024

In this article, we present the outcomes of the pilot phase of a multi-case study being conducted in Cyprus. The study aims to develop and propose universal design principles of using a Flipped Classroom (FC) approach as a pedagogical structure of Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) applicable across primary education context in Cyprus. The universal design principles refer to the general guidelines most primary teachers can follow when designing their lessons by integrating the two instructional models of FC and IBL, and to the specific pedagogical strategies teachers can use for different school subjects to motivate and improve their students' learning processes through Networked Lerning (NL) opportunities. Providing teachers with those principles (i.e. guidelines and strategies) is particularly important given the lack of instructional experiences of Cyprus primary school teachers in implementing a FC model in their classroom practices and a wide range of subject matters that those teachers need to teach. There has been a limited focus, in previous research concerning the FC model, on its effectiveness within the primary education context and also in relation to the NL technologies used. The pilot study aims to primarily address this research gap, develop the IB-FC model and present potential benefits of using the IB-FC model in primary school context. The learning process based on the IB-FC model includes pre-class, in-class and after-class activities. During the pre-class phase, students explore the learning content provided by the teacher at home and obtain an entrance ticket which is used during class time for the IBL facilitated by a series of classroom activities, which require the students to be creative and collaborative. Forums and other features of online learning platforms are utilized so as to promote NL through collaboration and communication. The after-class phase involves self-assessment procedures and the completion of an e-portfolio page. After the first pilot-nature of iteration of implementing the model, participant students’ learning experiences and perceptions on this new learning scenario were collected through focus groups and reflection forums. Based on our findings from the pilot study, the IB-FC framework including important pedagogical principles and additional instructional tools have been developed and offered to seven primary school teachers in the current stage of our multi-case study, through which the framework will be further developed and refined.
Mapping AI and Education debates
Authors: Eynon Rebecca , Salveson Cory
Published: October 2024

The role of artificial intelligence for learning is again attracting attention in policy and academic fields; a renaissance fuelled in part by the proliferation and availability of big data, alongside advances in computational techniques and the need for a new ‘technical fix’ for Education (Robins and Webster, 1989). In the public domain, dramatic headlines abound proclaiming the end of education as we know it in utopian and dystopian terms. Yet, in the academic sphere important advances are being made that educators need to pay attention to in order to have a more nuanced and ‘responsible response’ (Biesta, 2013) to the role that artificial intelligence can and should play in Education.This presentation aims to contribute to that goal through reporting findings from an ongoing study that aims to identify and explore academic studies that are concerned with artificial intelligence and Education. Through the use of a number of machine learning techniques we aim to map and visualise the current areas of research in this area and identify the underlying philosophies of learning and education embedded within these activities, drawing on Anna Sfard’s acquisition and participation metaphors for learning (Sfard, 1998).Through primarily computational analysis (including network analysis and natural language processing) of the citations, titles and abstracts (where available) of around 8500 books, chapters, papers and conference presentations alongside small scale qualitative coding of a sample of papers we highlight the different ways that people define and talk about AI in Education and demonstrate how the vast majority of work in this area is primarily promoting an ‘acquisition’ based view of learning, promoting individual cognition over collaborative, networked forms of participation. We argue that while this is not necessarily a problem as acquisition is an important aspect of learning; discussions of the use of artificial intelligence in Education would be significantly advanced if far more attention was placed on ways of thinking about learning and Education that promote a broader social-cultural view. This would enable more discussion of if, and how, the use of artificial intelligence in Education could advance knowledge in a Network Society alongside the use of artificial intelligence to make knowledge transfer more efficient; and further advance theoretical debates in Networked Learning.
ThreadED: A Networked Learning Initiative
Authors: Kearney Alison , Mentis Mandia , Carvalho Lucila , Hartnett Maggie , Erueti Bevan
Published: October 2024

ThreadED is a networked learning initiative designed to promote connections between teaching staff, students and digitised resources, as well as to support teaching and learning at Massey University Institute of Education in New Zealand. ThreadED is framed around three strands (and related teacher and student competencies) identified by the Institute as important foci for their programmes: equity, cultural responsivity and digital literacy. Resources and artefacts such as website links, articles, videos and apps are being identified, developed and catalogued at various levels of granularity, and linked to key competencies. A platform to archive and curate artefacts and resources has been developed, incorporating design principles that focus on maintaining autonomy and freedom of access to resources, for all teaching staff. Templates were also developed to provide support and guidelines for the annotation of each resource. These resources and artefacts will be used and curated by teaching staff for different teaching and learning purposes, across courses within the Institute of Education. A number of benefits are anticipated when the initiative begins operation in 2018. These include the adoption of the three key foci across all of the teaching programmes within the Institute of Education; the reduction in work and duplication associated with staff each producing the same content in different courses; staff having a greater awareness of each other’s work and a strengthening of relationships; and the creation of synergies between staff that may lead to other opportunities in teaching and research. Finally, it is anticipated that ThreadED will enable personalised, self-directed and flexible teaching and learning practices by allowing teaching staff to select – from a range of quality learning objects – a resource that best meets individual needs and learning goals of the courses that are taught within the Institute. This paper introduces this initiative, discussing its key underlying principles as well as strategies used to facilitate staff’s participation and contributions to a joint venture of knowledge creation. The initiative aims at reframing isolated academic practices at the Institute of Education towards an evolving participatory learning community, where everyone is able to build on each other’s knowledge and expertizes, sharing resources and practices related to equity, cultural responsivity and digital literacy.
The teacher as designer? What is the role of ‘learning design’ in networked learning?
Authors: Konnerup Ulla , Ryberg Thomas , Sørensen Mia Thyrre
Published: October 2024

This paper explores various strands of ‘Learning Design’ and the understandings of Learning Design that have been developing or are emerging across research fields. We aim to understand the differences and similarities that have developed within various areas, such as Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL), networked learning, designs for learning and draw out their development and branching to understand potentially different ontological or epistemological roots they draw on. Further, we wish to inquire into how the area of ‘Learning Design’ relate to or distances itself from the philosophy and values of networked learning.
Increasing Teacher Engagement in Learning Platforms through Future Workshops
Authors: Dirckinck-Holmfeld Lone
Published: October 2024

The paper explores a methodical approach to implementation studies of learning platforms in Danish Schools, that combines Future Workshops (FWs), Activity Systems Analysis (ASA) and design interventions. The study documents a specific combination of approaches, new to the participatory design (PD) community, which provides ownership and creates meaning among participants in the implementation process. Further, the findings support that the meaning of using the platform is not given or determined, but is a negotiated enterprise under development in interaction with the plasticity of the platform and how the platform, principles and practices are combined with the teachers and the implementation process. The platform offers built-in design principles and pedagogical values and, as such, the materiality of the platforms afford certain practices. However, FWs, ASA and the design interventions also documented that the meaning construction is shaped under use (and no use). A critical and constructive appropriation of the learning platform is therefore strongly linked to participatory implementation methods in which teachers are exploring and experimenting with the learning platform in their professional practices.
“The project will focus on creating coherence between the schools’ intentions and visions and the intentions behind the introduction of learning platforms (…) The project combines methodical approaches from Future Workshops, user involvement and design-based research, and will thus develop effective solutions that highlight and address problems and opportunities experienced in practice. At the same time, the project creates reliable and robust knowledge about how learning platforms affect teaching and learning in Danish primary school”. (Misfeldt, 2016 p. 2, my translation)
Dashboard literacy
Authors: Bennett Liz , Folley Sue
Published: October 2024

Dashboards are the graphical interface that manipulate and present data about students’ learning behaviours (attendance, visits to the library, attainment etc.). Although only a few UK HEIs have developed a dashboard for students, most other UK HEIs have an aspiration to develop their use (Sclater 2014). Hence it is timely and significant to understand the ways that students respond to seeing data presented to them in the form of a dashboard. 
This paper discusses and conceptualises the findings from a small scale study, funded by Society for Research in Higher Education. The study involved twenty-four final year undergraduate students in a single faculty in a UK University. The study focussed on the ways that students interpret and respond to seeing data about their learning presented via a dashboard. Sutton’s (2012) three pillars of feedback literacy: knowing, becoming and acting, were employed to understand the potential of dashboards for supporting students’ motivation towards their learning.
The paper suggests that, similar to feedback literacy, there is a type of literacy associated with dashboards that has components of knowing, becoming and acting and that employing these concepts helps us to understand how students’ respond to dashboards. By identifying students' engagement with dashboards as a literacy practice rather than a technical skill or understanding, the paper argues that we need to focus on students' growing identity that is embedded into a sense of being and is individually experienced and constructed. Hence the notion of dashboard literacy suggests that institutions need to work with students to develop their personal and reflective processes to enhance the way that dashboards are interpreted. 
The paper provides evidence that students may be motivated by seeing their data presented in a dashboard format and this can lead to changes in behaviour which are likely to lead to improved student outcomes and attainment. It also illustrates how students’ engagement with dashboards is highly individual and dependent on their personal disposition and orientation to learning. Hence their use needs to be treated cautiously recognising the power that these tools have to shape impact on students' well-being alongside their potential.
Symposium 1: Using Philosophy of Information to look at teaching, technology and networked learning
Authors: Norberg Anders
Published: October 2024

In this conceptual paper, Luciano Floridi's philosophy of Information (PI) is interpreted and used for generating and presenting alternative or deviating, even provoking, understanding and scenarios on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), in connection with teaching and networked learning, today and in the future. The relation between teacher and technology and the functions of networked learning are here in focus for the application of Philosophy of information (PI) on issues of teachers, learners and technology. We are as humans, according to Floridi, presently changing our self-understanding, as we also have done at earlier occasions during history, for adapting to scientific and technological developments while still keeping but also changing our agency as humans. Humans are seen as the only known "semantic engines" in the world. The digital technology we presently use, with ICTs who process information and communicates in networks to other ICTs, changes our position and role as humans, as information-processing earlier was purely human activity. Now we have ICTs that are "syntactical engines"; they can process information both fast and precise, although they have "intelligence as a toaster". Humans today are in PI called "inforgs", living in an "infosphere", where information is the most critical asset, and we increasingly experience the world in informational terms. Floridi categorises ICTs as documenting, communicating and information-processing. A longer historical perspective on ICTs in teaching and learning, from Sumer 2000 B.C. and forward leads here to questioning if not the concepts of distance-, e- and online learning are soon old and obsolete, and mainly were continuing something traditional. What is characteristic for digital ICTs is according to Floridi the processing of information, and what we can find when we look for these ICTs in teaching and learning is Learning Analytics, Adaptive Learning, Calibrated Peer Review and similar ICTs for e-teaching. Furthermore, the general concepts of living together with information-processing ICTs are re-ontologisation, enveloping and transdiegetisation. These concepts describe what the ongoing integration of ICTs affects the human, as a teacher or a learner. Networked learning persists and is highly relevant, but includes also networking with applications of artificial intelligence. A critical discussion wraps up the paper.
Symposium 1: E-Teaching: An Essential Prerequisite for Networked E-Learning
Authors: Guri-Rosenbilt Sarah
Published: October 2024

The discourse on the implementation of the digital technologies and networked learning in higher education settings focuses mainly on students' learning and their ability to connect to information and/or other students rather than on professors' teaching. The little attention paid to the crucial role of teachers in online settings results in a restricted and moderate adaptation of the technologies in higher education worldwide. It is quite clear nowadays that, for e-learning and networked learning to become a dominant learning pattern, technology alone will not suffice. In order to overcome the reluctance of many professors to use extensively the digital technologies, there exists a burning need to develop appropriate incentives and support systems. The little attention paid to the crucial role of teachers in digital networks and online settings results in a restricted and moderate adaptation of the technologies in higher education so far. Of particular importance is an ongoing and just-in-time support. Many institutions acknowledge nowadays the need to recruit in the future a broader range of personnel to complement academic staff in order to implement the technologies more effectively. The roles of teachers in an online environment differ meaningfully from their traditional roles in a classroom setting. To equip professors with tools to use the wide range of capabilities enabled by the new technologies necessitates a conceptual redefinition of the teachers' roles, a well designed training, and ongoing support systems for both students and teachers. The new technologies require the academic faculty to assume new responsibilities and to develop a range of new skills. Academics will have to become in the future reconciled to collaborating with other colleagues and professionals in designing materials and in the teaching process. They will need to learn how to collaborate in a team framework with tutors, editors, instructional designers, television producers, computer experts, graphic production personnel, etc. in developing and delivering their courses, as well as guiding their students to utilize efficiently networked learning. At the same time, teachers will have greater flexibility to choose the teaching styles better suited for their personal strengths and individual preferences. University leaders will have to deliberate how to prepare the new generations of academic faculty to operate in a world where blended courses, shared or dual diplomas, online teaching and networked learning are an integral part of the academic teaching responsibilities. Unquestionably, e-teaching constitutes an essential prerequisite for achieving efficient and fruitful networked learning and e-learning, and it provides multiple domains of investigation that have not been explored yet.
Symposium 1: Networking educational administrators through e-Teaching
Authors: Power Michael , Lapointe Claire
Published: October 2024

This paper is about e-teaching in the context of a university graduate program and how the program metamorphosed from being entirely campus based to entirely online, and from declining enrolments to increasing enrolments. It is about the faculty and lecturers who conducted a critical analysis of their particular situation, examined their options, researched other program delivery options and finally settled on a solution that has proven successful. Because of this labour-intensive process, they discovered that the networking processes undertaken by them to complete their mandate enabled them to become better networking mentors as e-teachers. This is their story and it sheds a critical light on various delivery models currently deployed by universities worldwide. Most importantly, it demonstrates that a good deal of reflection and agreement on what good teaching is and how it can be achieved has to be conducted prior to delivery model adoption. It also raises the question as to the wisdom of across-the-board institutionally decided program delivery choices. Such choices not only affect e-learners down the road but also directly affect faculty’s motivation and ability, as a community of practice, to carry out their teaching responsibilities efficiently and sustainably.
Data was gleaned from an ongoing study, mostly from a series of semi-structured interviews with administrators and faculty, including lecturers, who participated, over the course of a two-year period, in transferring this program from on-campus to online. Six semi-structured interviews, each lasting between 60 and 90 minutes, were conducted. Access to work documents, ongoing email exchanges and personal conversations completed the data set. The interview guide used was developed to highlight respondent experience over the course of the two-year program migration online, focusing on the move from on-campus teaching to e-teaching, course delivery model selection, and an open questions for respondents to add related comments. Complete data analysis and interpretation is proceeding as this proposal is being sent to conference organisers. Results show a high degree of unanimity in the decision to adopt BOLD as program delivery mechanism. Respondents describe how it gave them back what they most liked in their work: direct and continuous, regular contact with their students, free-flowing discussions on concepts, principles and their applications, access to students who would normally not enrol in their courses and a workload that was more manageable than other delivery systems they had known.
Bridging the gap between Networked Learning and Learning Analytics
Authors: Kilinska Daria , Ryberg Thomas , Kobbelgaard Frederik Victor
Published: October 2024

Learning Analytics is a field that is constantly evolving, encompassing new perspectives and expanding into other research fields. This workshop was inspired by the 2012 call for action from Rebecca Ferguson in which she called for building stronger connections to the learning sciences (Ferguson, 2012). Although this call has not remained unanswered, we still find this connection to be insufficient to foster the development of technological solutions needed in the future. This is where the Networked Learning community comes into play. During this workshop, we wish to discover, reflect on and build connections joining the two fields, in the hope that a better understanding of what Networked Learning can offer the Learning Analytics community and vice versa will foster beneficial and productive collaborations in the future.
Becoming jelly
Authors: Bengtsen Søren S. E. , Nørgård Rikke T.
Published: October 2024

This paper calls for a debate concerning the dominant tropes, which we have assigned the power to define learning processes in higher education today. The argument of the paper takes a critical stand towards the tropes of taxonomy-based and Bildung-oriented understandings of learning processes and student voice in higher education. We argue that learning processes are more than mere phenomena of linear progression capable of being measured based on pre-set criteria for learning outcomes. On the other hand, we do not argue, that it is productive to take the easy way out using an abstract and shadowy vocabulary of Bildung, authenticity and personal growth. Instead we call for a new vocabulary in educational theory, which is capable of addressing the half-formed, premature and idiosyncratic dimensions of learning processes present in the everyday life of higher education. Inspired by the jelly as a metaphor, and drawing on thinkers such as Richard Sennett, Graham Harman and Friedrich Nietzsche, we call for a gelatinous pedagogy, which, in thought and language, match the motley-coloured, mongrel and queer developmental processes and strategies applied by students and teachers in higher education practice. By developing and applying the jelly as a new metaphor for learning processes and student voice in higher education we are able to address critical issues otherwise overlooked.  Out of this application three findings and one suggestion for further research emerge: Firstly, vocabularies for understanding learning processes must have the ambition of making visible those queer processes. This must be done in a language and using a vocabulary, which has gelatinous qualities enabling the capability to grasp specific learning experiences in situ. Secondly, such a language should embrace the tentative, uncertain and troublesome character of learning processes – hereby acknowledging that such processes might never reach an end point and therefore not necessarily lead anywhere. Thirdly, an understanding of learning processes, therefore, cannot be adequately understood as a fixed structure or linear layout, but must rather be approached as jelly-like structures of entanglement and swarm. Fourthly, and finally, the challenge for understanding networked learning within higher education in a more nuanced way can be met by developing a gelatinous pedagogy; a pedagogy linguistically and conceptually sensitive to the multifarious dimensions of learning and being whether these be skills, forms of identity, or sheer ambivalence and obscurity in thought.
Servant Leadership as an enhancer of intrinsic motivation in MOOCs
Authors: Bolger Mary
Published: October 2024

This paper proposes that a servant leadership style of engagement in a MOOC learning environment has the potential, via the implementation of a collaborative engagement model, to enhance learner intrinsic motivation. Servant Leadership is a leadership philosophy based on the premise ‘primus inter pares' or first amongst equals, thus the leader leads from within, sharing power rather than exerting power via controlling influence and the oppression of others. This style of engagement results in personal growth, enhanced identity and strengthening of community.
Traditional concepts of learning, understood in terms of engagement with resources, tutor and others have become complex endeavours, with varying pedagogies emerging over time in alignment with the changes in the resources, context and number of people involved in the teaching and learning process.  Nowadays technology is dominating as a mediator between learner and learning with the role of ‘other(s)' in one's learning being somewhat less regulated or even diminished. Technology based tools require, amongst other things, well developed capabilities in self directed learning strategies. Self directed learning implies taking a certain responsibility for one's own learning journey, often depicted in blogs, wikis and e-portfolios. However, many users of technology are not confident users of tools that are implicit in models of self directed learning in virtual contexts like MOOCs. In such instances, the autonomy required to achieve the level of competence in self directed learning strategies is a function of the relatedness of the learner to others in the social context of learning.
These aspects of learning namely, competence, relatedness and autonomy are key elements of motivation and relate to basic psychological needs of the individual. Satisfying these needs allows for optimal growth of the person. As such then, the social context can either serve to enhance or diminish motivation. It is anticipated that the inclusion of an appropriate collaborative engagement model, i.e. one based on servant leadership attributes, has the potential to engage the learner in such a way that enhances intrinsic motivation and consequently the development of the necessary self direction required in MOOC settings.
We envisage that a servant leadership style of engagement mediates the relationship between collaboration and enhanced intrinsic motivation, and further that enhanced motivation will lead to greater learner competence, and autonomy and thus self direction in learning, a key prerequisite for sustenance and survival in a MOOC environment.
Analysing the structuring of knowledge in learning networks
Authors: Carvalho Lucila , Goodyear Peter
Published: October 2024

Knowledge plays a significant role in networked learning. Epistemic activities, and the structures that support such activities, do not just spring into life when a networked learning resource is created. They exist prior to, and outside of, any specific networked resource. They go on in the world. So epistemic actvities and structures can be seen as part of a broader socio-cultural context. In this paper, we argue that people who design for networked learning benefit from having a richer repertoire of ways of undertsanding relationships between epistemic activities and the structures that support them, and of viewing these in their social contexts. Educational designers need to be aware there are different ways of expressing knowledge, associated with implicit values that underlie knowlegde practices within any social context. These varied ways of expressing knowledge have diverse effects on learners' activities. Understanding such connections is useful when designing new networked learning resources, or when devising ways to improve exisiting learning networks.
Using an approach from the sociology of knowledge, this paper explores the structuring of knowledge in a case study of networked learning drawn from an undergraduate design course about graphics and programming. The course uses a computer-based platform called Peep to extend what would otherwise be a set of timetabled, lab-based learning and teaching activities. Students and teachers can interact using Peep, at any time, from any location. These networked learning activities involve a mixture of lecturer-led tasks and student driven collaborations, including requests for and offers of help, and sharing and discussing code and graphical designs. Our focus in this case study is on variations in the degree to which the knowledge being dealt with is dependent on its context for meaning and condensed. Our analysis reveals that one of the design elements of Peep - the code editor - facilitates a distinctive, important epistemic activity. The code editor enables the "object of discussion" (programming and the visual and animated effects of it) to come to the fore. Instead of students having to describe phenomena, events or processes that happen elsewhere, they each have the object of their discussion in front of them, embedded within all of Peep's spaces for learning. Our analysis explores the relations between this design feature and Peep's support for students' discussions of complex concepts, sharing and exchanging views, and building on each other's ideas and work.
Lost in transition? Making sense of space:time configurations across workplace and educational boundaries
Authors: Timmis Sue , Williams Jane
Published: October 2024

Transitions are part of the experience of Higher Education. These include beginnings, endings and also frequent transitions across physical and online settings, particularly for those on professional programmes where continual movements between work-based placements and university environments are commonplace. This paper argues that such transitions can be regarded as chronotopic movements. A chronotope (Bakhtin, 1981) is a space:time configuration where time and space are dialectically related and where such relationships help to make transitions meaningful. Rather than seeing space as a container and time as immutable, chronotopes allow us to understand how spatiality and temporality can act as resources in learning (Lemke, 2004). Networked learning can also be understood chronotopically through shifting and evolving forms of digital and physical space that are constructed through time and changes in culture. The paper draws on findings from a study of third year medical students on clinical placements going through daily transitions between clinical and educational settings. Students were transitioning between different cultures and practices involving new ways of working, access to and use of technology and where the culture of clinical specialisms heavily influenced both available tools and practices. Networked technologies helped students create stability, as they were learning whilst on the move and needed to transport work with them. Moving between different settings and contexts was very time and resource intensive and assumptions were made by tutors about the ease of transitions. Students constructed new artefacts, in response to the need to manage and make sense of multiple resources and types of information. Working across boundaries and in new space:time configurations was also found to involve frequent adaptations of roles where student agency and resourcefulness were critical. Digital media are culturally situated tools and artefacts, forming part of students' identity performances (Holland et al, 1998) as they moved between different specialisms and settings. The paper concludes that networked learning environments helped in managing the fluidity and changes of space and time when working and learning across changing contexts. Chronotopes acted as resources to help students make sense of their education and manage the continual changes of culture and identity, contingent on agency and available tools and artefacts. Networked learning environments offer distinct and dynamic chronotopes, allowing new forms of practice and discourse to emerge which are critical for students' sense making when transitioning between contexts and cultures.
Snapshots from the Lived World of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
Authors: Adams Catherine , Yin Yin , Vargas Madriz Luis Francisco , Mullen C. Scott
Published: October 2024

This paper reports on preliminary findings of a phenomenological study examining students’ everyday experiences of learning in a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). The current discourse surrounding MOOCs is powerful, with promises of an epochal shift in post-secondary education, unprecedented openness, democratic pedagogies, less hierarchical knowledge creation, and unimagined scalability: all of which require critical examination. But with a brief five-year history, research has yet to confirm or refute these bold claims rationalizing the popularity and efficacy of these big virtual learning environments and their disruptive, game-changing potential for education. A swift and timely “counterbalance to some of the more hyperbolic elements of current discourse” is needed, in particular, through providing accounts of the complex realities of learners’ actual experiences (Selwyn 2009). The study collected and analysed experiential moments recollected by “completers” while learning in a Massive Open Online Course. For the purposes of this study, a “completer” (Kizilcec, Piech & Schneider, 2013, April) was defined as a student who enrolled in at least one MOOC and in which they accomplished the majority of activities, assignments, quizzes and/or examinations set out by the curriculum. Data was generated via two main sources: written self-protocols (daily journals maintained by four adults engaged in a self-chosen MOOC) as well as in-depth phenomenological interviews with six MOOC completers recruited via snowball sampling. Our study revealed several surprising results. The MOOC completers consistently described a unique and powerful sphere of intimacy that developed for them with their MOOC instructor, most especially in the context of the pre-recorded instructor videos. Too, our findings seem to confirm Cormier’s (2009) conjecture that “eventedness”—the sense of specialness characteristic of other “big”, shared events like a rock concert or major sporting event—may uniquely distinguish MOOCs from other online learning experiences. The paper provides several rich, experiential “snapshots” or textual descriptions of learning moments and recollected events in a MOOC. Through phenomenological analysis of these lived experience descriptions, we show how the virtual learning landscapes afforded by these large-scale online environments may create unique conditions, situations, and relations of pedagogical effect and influence.
What's wrong with 'technology enhanced learning'?
Authors: Bayne Siân
Published: October 2024

In recent years, 'technology enhanced learning', or 'TEL', has become a widely-accepted term in the UK for describing digital incursions upon higher education, to a large extent taking the place of other recently-popular terminologies such as 'e-learning', 'learning technology' and 'computer-based learning'. Yet there has been little critique in the literature of the fundamental assumptions embedded within the terminology of TEL: rather it has been adopted as an apparently useful, inoffensive and descriptive shorthand for what is in fact a complex and often problematic constellation of social, technological and educational change.
In their paper reviewing interpretations of 'TEL' in the existing literature, Kirkwood and Price (2013) emphasise the tendency to use the term in an 'unconsidered and unreflecting' way (4), making a sound attempt to provide some clarity by synthesising the various tacit conceptions of enhancement in existing research in educational technology. In this brief paper, I will approach the issue rather differently, by subjecting the term itself to a critique, drawing on insights from science and technology studies, critical posthumanism and Biesta's (2005) critique of the 'learnification' of education. In doing so, my aim is to begin to question the widespread buy-in to the term by researchers, practitioners and policy-makers. I aim to argue that 'TEL', far from being an unexceptionable and neutral term simply in need of clearer definition, is in fact a deeply conservative discourse which reduces our capacity to be critical about digital education, and fails to do justice equally to the disruptive, disturbing and generative dimensions of the academy's enmeshment with (digital) technology. As an alternative, I conclude with an overview of the ways in which critical posthumanism might inform a richer understanding of the issues at stake, suggesting that we need to be more careful with, and more critical of, the terminology we adopt to describe and determine the field of digital education.
Building a relationship between international doctoral students and their thesis supervisors through an online community of practice
Authors: Crosta Lucilla , Gray Morag
Published: October 2024

This paper presents an extract from a systematic international literature review research work funded by Laureate Online Education and aimed at detecting best practice in online doctoral students’ supervision. It was carried between March and July 2013 out by the authors of the paper, who have been working as online tutor and thesis supervisors at the University of Liverpool in the Online Professional Doctorate of Education (EdD).
Prof. Morag Gray is also the Thesis Supervisor Manager in the EdD and she has been working recently for the implementation of the Thesis stage of this same programme. The authors initially illustrated the meaning of supervision as mentoring since while doctoral advising is related to accomplishing doctoral requirements, mentoring refers to both career and psychosocial support to students (Lunsford, 2012).  The paper focuses on the idea that student-supervisor relationship is pivotal in student’s success and progress in research and on the idea that the use of a community of practice among supervisors and students may help in sustaining doctoral distance students on their journey and to overcome their sense of loneliness while working online.
Some information on the way how the systematic literature review has been carried out is given in the paper namely: the research main aims and objectives, the literature search strategy, the search term used in the work and so on.
This work makes an attempt to create connections with the online environment and on how it might be possible to sustain and to enhance the supervisor-student relationship via the internet when doctoral students and supervisors coming from different parts of the world, and who have never met in person. Particularly Andrew (2012) proposed the use of an online community of practice and of regular e-meetings for supporting online students’ work and relationship, also among doctoral students themselves, whilst Rosset & Marino (2005) shared experience on e-coaching providing some interesting insights on the possible use of technology for distance communication purposes and related effects on the individual’s relationship.
Hence this paper provides some linkages between the Networked Learning practice and the use of the community of practice metaphor for connecting doctoral students and supervisors