Keri Facer

Savannah: mobile gaming and learning?

This paper reports a study that attempts to explore how using mobile technologies in direct physical interaction with space and with other players can be combined with principles of engagement and self-motivation to create a powerful and engaging learning experience. We developed a mobile gaming experience designed to encourage the development of childrens conceptual understanding of animal behaviour. Ten children (five boys and five girls) aged between 11 and 12 years played and explored the game. The findings from this study offer interesting insights into the extent to which mobile gaming might be employed as a tool for supporting learning. It also highlights a number of major challenges that this format raises for the organisation of learning within schools and the design of such resources.

ScreenPlay: Children and Computing in the Home

Section 1. Introduction 1. The ScreenPlay project 2. Setting the scene: Patterns of computer use in the home Section 2. The domestic context 3. Computer histories, computer roles in the home 4. The computer in family life Section 3. Young peoples computer use in the home 5. The digital landscape: Games and information navigation 6. Writing, designing and making on the computer in the home Section 4. Digital cultures 7. Computers, consumption and identity 8. Computers, gender and class 9. Digital childhood Section 5. Learning with the computer 10. Learning with the computer at home 11. Learning with computers at school 12. Conclusion

Savannah: experiential learning through mobile gaming

This paper reports a study that attempts to explore how using mobile technologies in direct physical interaction with space and with other players can be combined with principles of engagement and self-motivation to create a powerful and engaging learning experience. We developed a mobile gaming experience designed to encourage the development of childrens conceptual understanding of animal behaviour. Ten children (five boys and five girls) aged between 11 and 12 years played and explored the game. The findings from this study offer interesting insights into the extent to which mobile gaming might be employed as a tool for supporting learning. It also highlights a number of major challenges that this format raises for the organisation of learning within schools and the design of such resources.

Different Worlds? A Comparison of Young People's Home and School ICT Use

This paper explores young people’s access to and use of computers in the home and at school. Drawing on a questionnaire survey, conducted in 2001 and 2003 with over 1800 children in the South-West of England, on group interviews in school with over 190 children and with visits to 11 families, the paper discusses: (1) children’s current use of computers in the home and in school; 2) changing patterns of computer use in home and school between 2001 and 2003; (3) the impact of age, gender and socio-economic area on young people’s computer use in home and school. The paper then goes on to discuss young people’s perceptions of the differences between home and school use of computers and to address the question of whether young people’s home and school use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) are really ‘different worlds’. Through analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data, the paper proposes that the boundaries between home and school are less distinct in terms of young people’s ICT use than has previously been proposed, in particular through young people’s production of virtual social networks through the use of instant messenger that seem to mirror young people’s social school contexts. The paper concludes by suggesting that effective home–school link strategies might be adopted through the exploration of the permeability of home/school boundaries.

A new environment for education? The computer in the home

Abstract This paper derives from an interdisciplinary research project which is studying the engagement of young people with different aspects of techno-popular culture. The focus is on the young person and the significance of digital technologies in their lives as a whole. Drawing on cultural studies research we are investigating the ways in which the contexts for computer use are structured by the different discourses present within the family, and the ways in which these discourses may provide a framing context for children’s interactions with digital technology. Drawing on socio-cultural research we take the view that learning is learning to do something with a cultural or cognitive tool. Our analysis of data from case studies of 16 families shows that the context of home computer use amongst young people is far from a simple and uniform phenomenon and is structured by the different discourses present within the family. What young people learn through interaction with computers is thus as much framed by the context of use as by the affordance of the technology.

Taking the 21st century seriously: young people, education and socio-technical futures

Rhetoric about young people’s ‘ownership’ of future socio-technical change is a familiar part of much educational and political discourse. This does not, however, translate in practice into a meaningful dialogue with young people about the sorts of futures they might wish to see emerge. This paper argues that a number of social and technological developments currently being envisaged by researchers, developers, industry and politicians bring with them a responsibility to rethink the relationship between young people, education and socio-technical futures. It focuses specifically on trends in the areas of personal augmentation, digital working practices and intergenerational spaces and discusses the implications of projected developments in these areas for young people’s educational, economic and democratic futures. It argues that schools need to be cognisant of these future possibilities and need to create spaces and practices that enable young people together to understand and explore these issues. The school also is not immune to socio-technical change. The potential growth of online learning communities, the emergence of a body of adults able to participate as informal educators and the development of networked publics, in particular, have the potential to change the relationship between school, young people and society. These changes have the potential either to erode or to radically reinvigorate the capacity of schools to act as public spaces within which young people can be supported to negotiate and explore future socio-technical change.

The sociology of education and digital technology: past, present and future

During the past 15 years of his career, John Furlong’s research and writing has focused—in part—on digital technologies and people’s everyday experiences of education. While hardly a technology expert, his work has shown an acute awareness of the significance of computers, the internet and mobile telephony in making sociological sense of education. This paper contrasts the limited visibility of such issues within the sociology of education over the past 30 years with how the present situation appears to be improving during the 2010s. The paper also identifies opportunities for future work that engages more in the co-production, development and design of new forms of educational technology. As such it is concluded that a future sociology of education and technology needs to be developed that acts not only against, but also in and beyond, the dominant field of education technology.

After the moral panic? Reframing the debate about child safety online

This paper examines the initial ‘moral panic’ surrounding childrens access to the Internet at the end of the last century by analysing more than 900 media articles and key government documents from 1997 to 2001. It explores the ambiguous settlements that this produced in adult–child relations and childrens access to the Internet. The paper then revisits the policy and media debate a decade later by examining the Byron Review, Digital Britain Report and media coverage of these, in order to explore how these settlements have been negotiated, resisted and transformed over the subsequent period. In so doing, the paper asks whether it is time to reframe the debate about childrens occupation of online public space, less in terms of ‘care’ for childrens needs that tends to result in exclusionary and surveillance strategies, and more in terms of childrens rights and capacities to engage in democratic debates about the nature of an online public space in which they are already participating.

Personal, relational and beautiful: education, technologies and John Macmurray’s philosophy

Fifty years ago, the philosopher John Macmurray responded to calls for education to redesign itself around the exigencies of international competition with a robust rebuttal of such instrumentalism. He argued instead that the purpose of education was ‘learning to be human’. This paper explores how Macmurray’s ideas might be applied to contemporary use of technology in education. In so doing, it argues that the use of technologies in education should be guided by the aspiration to create socio-technical practices that are personal (located with the person), relational (a resource for friendship and collaboration) and beautiful (designed to promote reflection and contemplation).

Introduction: The Need for a Politics of Education and Technology

Digital technology is now a prominent feature of education provision and practice in many countries and contexts. Mobile telephony, internet use, and other forms of computing are familiar, everyday tools for many people in developed and developing nations. Billions of personally owned digital devices are in almost continuous use, and billions of others are used communally in shared, public settings. Governments of nearly every country in the world now have well-established policy drives and programs seeking to encourage and support the use of digital technologies in schools, colleges, and universities. Digital technology is a topic that is of significance to a global educational audience.