Keith Turvey

Towards deeper learning through creativity within online communities in primary education

Despite recent British government moves to equip all Primary Schools with fast broadband connections to the Internet, it would seem that many schools as yet make little use of the increased capacity this affords other than to incorporate more and more rich multimedia in the form of interactive games or animated presentations to illustrate particular concepts or practise specific skills. Whilst not wanting to deny the potential and value of such activities, this paper will focus on the potential use of online communities to reverse this rather unidirectional relationship children often experience with the Internet. That is, the potential within online communities to facilitate a more reciprocal relationship as children become benefactors as well as recipients of the wealth of web-based information, and the quality of learning that may ensue. A small-scale comparative case study was undertaken in two Primary Schools where children were given access to online tools allowing them to communicate and participate - in and out of school - within an online community. Methodological tools used included content analysis of childrens websites and semi-structured interviews with the students and their teachers. The type of learning that online communities may yield, I will argue, is one that is based upon a deep understanding of what it means to both be a learner, and to take responsibility for ones learning. Furthermore, the findings appear to imply that the participation and role played by the teacher within the virtual community is vital to the quality of learning.

Questioning the character and significance of convergence between social network and professional practices in teacher education

This paper captures and characterises the interplay between a group of student teachers’ narratives of social network practice and their emergent professional practice with technologies. Teachers on an Initial Teacher Education programme in the UK spent a semester studying a module that synthesised university-based lectures with a professional intervention using online communications technologies in a local primary school involving a class of 30 children (8–10 years). A narrative methodology was developed to capture and conceptualise the teachers’ perceptions of the experience. Teachers’ dispositions towards the appropriation of technologies were found to be as ubiquitous across social network and professional contexts as the technological tools themselves. However, the distinctly nuanced ways in which the teachers experienced the process of convergence raises questions with regard to the significance of such convergence and how we both capture and characterise convergence as a technological, cultural or agent-centred process. The findings support the need for an agent-centred view of convergence embedded within the wider socio-cultural ecology that incorporates individuals’ engagement with media and social network practices.

Looking Back, Moving Forward: Impact and Measurability of the Use of Educational Technology

In this chapter we carry out a critical review of the various historical analyses of the impact of technological interventions in education. The purpose is to analytically explore and learn from some of the methodological limitations and strengths of the approaches adopted to measure and capture the impact of educational technology. This retrospective examination is then used to explicate methodological design principles that can increase the use and value of research evidence regarding the impact of educational technology. Capturing and understanding the impact of digital technologies in and on learning is inherently problematic. It is exacerbated by the continually developing nature of digital technologies and their crossing of formal and informal boundaries. We posit methodological design principles that are sympathetic to the fact that evidence of the pedagogical application of digital technologies is both borne out of, and brought to bear in, complex and dynamic contexts that are mediated by, and impact upon, the various ways in which technologies are appropriated for educational purpose. The chapter concludes with a call for methodological perspectives that are not confined by paradigm, but that are able to bridge and integrate research paradigms in order to respond to the complex socio-cultural ecologies within which digital technologies are implicated.

iPads in Education? A Participatory Design for Professional Learning with Mobile Technologies

It is recognised in the literature that mobile technologies have the potential to ’disrupt’ established practices in ways that require adaptation if educators are to harness their potential. Thus, there is a need for participatory models of research and partnership that give teachers agency over the process of professional development with new technologies at a time when there is increasing pressure for educators to respond to the proliferation of mobile technologies. This paper reports on the development and initial testing of a participatory narrative ecology approach to developing teachers’ professional practice with mobile technologies in the UK. A prototype, haptic infographic was developed that teachers and teacher educators could use to story the development of their pedagogical practice as they appropriated mobile technologies in various contexts. The narrative ecology model was developed through a participatory methodology of working with school and university partners in teacher education. The objective was, to explore the model as a participatory approach to developing educators’ critical analysis of the process of appropriating mobile technologies for educational purposes and, to capture the subsequent process of pedagogical adaptation. This paper focuses in detail on both the narrative ecology model and how it was used in the case of a secondary school science teacher. The emerging evidence suggests that the process of adaptation to mobile technologies in education is prolonged and complex. Yet in a digital age of rapidly increasing connectivity and converging cultures there is a need for further research into the implications of mobile technologies and how educators can be located as central agents in changing and adapting pedagogical practices. The findings also suggest that participatory narrative approaches offer potential for exploring new designs for pedagogical practice with mobile technologies.