Underlag till planeringsseminarium 13 april 2005
Working Title: New web based educational environments as contexts for interaction and learning for professionals
PhD Student: Mona Nilsen
Supervisors: Åsa Mäkitalo and Roger Säljö
[PhD Project sponsored by LearnIT in partnership with the Knowledge Foundation]
INTRODUCTION
With the advent of computers, networks, and multimedia technologies, issues of how such resources can be used for educational purposes have become widely debated. In research and development, as well as in educational policy making, this has been discussed in terms of the potential and the possibilities such technologies might afford. A particularly important concern, considering the significant investments in technological equipment, support, and maintenance of networks and computers that are required, relates to whether the introduction of technology into educational practices can enable students to learn ‘better’, ‘faster’ or perhaps ‘more effectively’ than before (Arnseth, 2004; Säljö, 2002).
In the public rhetoric, information technology is often described as having transformed education, as it has brought about radically new ways of organizing and structuring educational practice and perhaps also new modes of empowering learners (Li, 2003; Porter, 1997). The potentials of new technologies to contribute to in-service training and distance learning are but two examples of new needs and possibilities. The benefits of such new ways of organizing educational practice have been described in terms of flexibility and availability, as learning opportunities appear also outside the traditional contexts of education relying on face-to-face interaction (Porter, 1997). It is also frequently claimed that technologies have the possibility of becoming more cost effective in comparison to more traditional forms of training. In these discussions new educational technologies are claimed to pose a challenge to traditional systems of learning when it comes to issues of expertise and knowledge in educational practice (Rudestam & Schoenholtz-Read, 2002).
In research, the potential benefits of new educational technologies as agents of transformation and improvement of learning have not been easy to demonstrate (Porter, 1997). Studies with a more detailed focus on how technologies actually are used in established practices have shown that there are lot of obstacles to overcome if the potentials of these technologies are to be realized in educational practice (Jonsson, 2004; Rystedt, 2002).
In my dissertation work, the focus will be on professionals’ engagement in and uses of web based educational environments in various forms of in-service and further education. This is an interesting area to explore for several reasons. First, it can be argued that precisely in these areas the potentials of the new technologies are especially interesting. For many professionals (I use this term in a broad sense) it is simply not possible to leave their regular work practices to participate in traditional, school-based activities that require extended physical presence. Thus, the new possibilities for integrating work and learning are interesting to explore. Second, the new technology offers possibilities also for specialized courses where people working in small and rather narrow fields can cooperate. Since physical distance no longer poses an absolute obstacle, people can participate in learning activities that are based on regional, national, and even international concepts. There are many additional points that could be made here. However, my major interest will be to analyse the learning activities that evolve in these rather new contexts for learning. Expressed differently, what cultures of learning and co-operation are established in such settings?
My basic starting point is that since net based learning is not an established discursive practice (as for example traditional schooling is), but rather new to most participants, an interesting set of questions concern how relevant ways of being and acting in these new arenas are negotiated between participants, including instructors. Research on web based educational environments tends to emphasize issues of how to improve design and how to measure the effects of the systems. These studies have been criticized for over emphasizing how, and if, information technology influence learning, rather than seeing new technologies as just one aspect of the creation of contexts for learning. In this way research fails to appreciate learning as a culturally and socially situated activity (Leidner & Järvenpää, 1995). Furthermore, the issue of how technologies for learning are used and made sense of, i.e. how people act, talk and co-operate in such new educational environments, is mostly neglected. It is crucial, I will argue, to explore the basic empirical issues related to this new educational phenomenon. More specifically, this means exploring how individuals and groups coordinate with, and use such web based environments when learning. This relates to the nature of communication that is established in these new discursive practices. Another such basic interest concerns what ways of talking and acting that are being established and maintained as relevant in these new educational arenas. Or, to put it very broadly, what learning cultures are established in such settings?
Web based educational technologies, I will argue, constitute new, but not necessarily better conditions, for human interaction. What these new conditions are is an emergent empirical question. To address the issues raised above, more exploratory empirical studies of such arranged web based environments are necessary. This is where my studies come in. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the understandings of how professionals act in web based educational environments. This will be explored through four empirical studies in which different aspects of how professionals manage these new surroundings as new arenas for action will be analysed and discussed.
PREVIOUS RESEARCH
This general interest in, and optimism concerning, educational technologies in educational practice, has resulted in a number of new fields of research. These new research areas have taken on many different and diverse manifestations. The overwhelming number of studies and scientific products this new research interest has resulted in, might perhaps, with the danger of simplifying things, be described as having a common interest - new technology and/in human activities. In addition, the research field is very multifaceted. This is manifested among other things through the many different theoretical perspectives employed as well the many varied ways researchers approach and study the phenomenon in question.
In the more specific context of the impact of digital resources, the role and potential of information and communication technologies for education and for learning have been studied during the past fifty years (Koschmann, 1996). In recent decades, the so-called CSCL (Computer Supported Collaborative Learning) community has produced literally thousands of studies exploring how computers can be used as support for learning for individuals and groups (for a selection, see for instance Wasson, Ludvigsen, & Hoppe, 2003). In much, if not most, of this literature, the computer is taken as a given and as an add-on, a resource that can be used for ‘enhancing’ learning. The dominant metaphor seems to be that the computer technology is held to improve and facilitate learning in a rather linear manner by offering interactivity, connectivity, multimedia resources and other features, and by increasing motivation.
When considering the nature of the communication that takes place in such web based contexts, researchers have examined a variety of characteristics of mediated conversations, ranging from structural properties (e.g. turn-taking in video-mediated conversations), to aspects of the organization of interaction (e.g. conversational threads in text-based conversations, interactional coherence, to analyses of the effects of mediation on the affective content of conversations (e.g. flaming) (Churchill & Erickson, 2003). Given the sheer volume of research focusing on conversations in mediated contexts, and the specific dialogical and interactional interest of this PhD work, it is necessary to make rather strict delimitations. The thesis is intended as an utterance in the conversations on how a socio-cultural approach can constitute a foundation for understanding and using different kinds of net based educational environments (Dysthe, 2001). The aim of the following section is to be a bit more specific about how some research has been conducted within this complex field of research. The research studies accounted for in this part will serve as resources or providers of relevant contexts for the analysis. A more elaborated discussion on this will be used as a point of departure in the thesis itself.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
In this section I will present and motivate the conceptual and analytical framework for this thesis.
Learning and artefacts
First of all, I need concepts and analytical tools for understanding the process through which participants becomes involved in a net based community of practice. Such concepts and tools that I have found fruitful and relevant for this thesis have been drawn from the socio-cultural perspective. In such a perspective, learning is conceived as situated and embodied in practical activities and as achieved through participants’ increasing appropriation and mastery of mediational means as part of social activities or practices (Wertsch, 1991; 1998). As we enter into, and participate in, social practices, we familiarize ourselves with, and learn how to master discourse, perspectives, and skills considered relevant and valid in the specific practice. Lave and Wenger (1991) conceptualize this initial phase in terms of a state of peripheral participation. To be a peripheral participant involves not knowing in full how to talk and act in valid and accountable manners taken for granted by more experienced (or central) participants. As time progresses, the newcomer’s way of participating becomes more complex and gradually she will contribute to, and maintain the activities as a knowledgeable and central participant (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Learning is thus an emergent quality of situated action. In this theoretical perspective, communicative practices constantly undergo changes. In order to attune to these changes, we have to constantly monitor what we already know and master (Säljö, 2000).
Mediation
In order to conceptually understand the relation between the participants and the tools scrutinized in this thesis, I have used Vygotskys notion of mediation. One of the significant features in a socio-cultural perspective on human thinking and learning is the assumption of the centrality of mediation and the role of tools, psychological as well as technical, in human practices (Vygotsky, 1934/1986, 1986). The concept of mediation means that our relation to the ‘outside world’ is refracted through signs and artefacts provided by our culture. Humans have an extraordinary ability to socially coordinate and materialize knowledge, and even skills, in public space through a process of externalization (Säljö, 2000). From this perspective individuals do not encounter the world in a neutral, objective and direct manner, but rather learn to interact with objects and people by means of signs and tools relevant to the purposes of specific activities. People act and think in “a roundabout way” (Vygotsky, 1994, p. 61) through their reliance on external tools that have their origin in cultural practices. Tools thus serve as mediational means as they stand between the individual and the world (Säljö, 1996).
In order to conceptually understand tools or artefacts as basic fundament for human interaction, I have elaborated on the distinction between physical and symbolic artefacts. In a socio-cultural perspective, artefacts can be seen as objectifications of human intentions and insights. Humans develop skills in using a range of symbolic artefacts. This way of conceptualising tools or artefacts re-specifies our relation to the world. Intellectual tools must be seen as mediating perceptual activity and as such, “our very seeing, and understanding of the world, are in fascinating sense related to the development of symbolic and technological systems” (Ivarsson & Säljö, in press, p. 126). In most cases it is not easy to make a distinction between symbolic and physical artefacts, as symbolic artefacts are intimately related to physical tools. Obvious examples of this are written language and counting systems, symbolic artefacts that are implemented by means of physical objects. Ivarsson (2004) argues that Wertsch’ distinction between psychological tools and technical tools, as well as Säljö’s division between mental and physical artefacts, can be brought into question. If one is “to take the position that artefacts arise out of the necessities of productive human action” (Ivarsson, 2004, p. 20), the analytical separation need to be re-issued. Even artefacts described as psychological/mental has to at some point in time, be instantiated in physical reality. In cultural psychology there is no clear cut distinction between material and ideal artefacts. That is to say, forms of knowing, thinking and categorising are built into material tools such as maps, calculators and so forth (Säljö, 2000; 2005). Few have, however, gone the whole way and suggested to abandon the separation altogether. One can argue that although all intellectual tools presuppose a material instantiation, there is still a point in making this distinction as an analytical distinction. One and the some sign-vehicle, i.e. material object, can for instance afford different intellectual tools. But I will not go further into this issue here.
Language - the tool of tools
As spoken and written language is so essential in human practices, I found it important also to conceptualise the notion of language. From a socio-cultural perspective, language is viewed as a cultural tool in human activities. Thus, it should not be considered as a ‘neutral’ means in achieving social action and coordination. Different ways of talking, acting and being have emerged and developed historically through people’s indulgence in social practices. Specific discourses and genres emerge that mediates perspectives on the world (Linell, 1998; James V Wertsch, 1998; Voloshinov, 1973). Language is considered ’the tool of tools’, which is Vygtosky’s own formulation, and is considered the most important artefact in human practices. Words and linguistic expressions mediate the world for us and make it meaningful. It is through participation in social practices, by means of language and other symbolic tools, that the child gradually becomes a cultural member. It is: “the prime device for rendering the world intelligible and for communicating our intentions to others” (Säljö, 1996, p.84). By communicating with others, we become involved in functional ways of signifying and describing the world which makes it possible for us to interact with others in different activities (Säljö, 2000). It is thus of great interest, in a socio-cultural perspective, to study how language as a tool is used and learned in various kinds of local practices.