Article on Disruptive Technologies in H.E.

I’ve had an article published in Research in Learning Technology: http://www.researchinlearningtechnology.net/index.php/rlt/article/view/19184

Minick (1997) on Vygotsky

Minick (1997) gives a useful, synoptic account of Vygotsky’s work and its development.

 

Between 1925 and 1930, Vygotsky started from the point that stimulus-response provides the common foundation for psychological functioning in both animals and humans (p.120). Humans, however, also have the capacity for voluntary (or higher) mental functioning. Vygotsky argued that higher mental functioning is mediated primarily through speech. Hence, people can act in a particular way because of speech, and not solely because of a core physical stimulus. In terms of how higher mental functioning develops, the human subject moves from being able to take instruction issued in speech, to using speech her/himself to influence their own behaviour.

 

Minick argues that Vygotsky’s position changed at the start of the 1930s. Vygotsky now rejected terms such as ‘concept’ or ‘language’ because they comprised unhelpful abstractions. For Vygotsky, such terms acquired meaning only ‘from their concrete embodiment in social interaction’ (p. 122), and hence could not be reified successfully.

 

Close to his death in 1934, Vygotsky’s work was again developing away from social interaction to ‘socially or culturally organized activity’ (p. 123). Vygotsky argued that functions of consciousness, such as imagination, emerge and develop not from an inviolable essence of self, but ‘in connection with the development of the form of socially defined activity that we call play’ (p.123). Hence, consciousness changes through practice, and is not fixed. Consciousness is thus fluid, responding to its socially constituted environment.

 

Minick argues that the development of Activity Theory links to the changes in Vygotsky’s core arguments in his final years, and that the Vygotskian school exists to ‘create a unified science of mind and behaviour’ (p. 124). Consciousness and practice cannot be disentangled successfully. Vygotsky’s work argues that individual psychology develops in conjunction with social systems. Hence, both are subject to influence from the other, and neither is inviolable : ‘the historical evolution of social and cultural systems are intimately bound together with the development of human psychological characteristics’ (p. 125).

 

Minick’s chapter leads me to think of Vygotsky’s understanding of individual psychology as fluid and, at best, symbiotic, in the sense that the individual and the social structures they inhabit benefit each other. However, the beneficence of neither can be guaranteed, and hence development is unstable, and not necessarily linear. Minick’s reading of Vygotsky also leads me to think that people enter historically (as well as socially) constituted systems, shaped by the economic, political, social and cultural conditions that preceded the birth of the individual subject. Therefore, individual subjects are always in a negotiation with history, trying out their inherited conditions, accepting some and rejecting others. The rejection of accepted social practices can prompt recrimination, but the rejection can also signify the unsuitability of a particular social practice to its new historical context, and the need for new practices to suit evolving environments.

 

Minick, N. ‘The early history of the Vygotskian school: The relationship between mind and activity,’ in Cole, M., Engestrom, Y. and Vasquez, O. (1997) Mind, Culture and Activity: Seminal papers from the laboratory of comparative human cognition, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 117-127.

Engestrom (2001) revisited

Engestrom (2001), exploring the potential application of Activity Theory in learning and teaching, starts with questions:

• Who are the subjects of learning, how are they defined and located?
• Why do they learn, what makes them make the effort?
• What do they learn, what are the contents and outcomes of learning?
• How do they learn, what are the key actions or processes of learning?  (p. 133)

Teaching can be constructed around these questions, but the outcomes are never wholly predictable, because our learning and teaching practices are ‘characterized by ambiguity, surprise, interpretation, sense making, and potential for change’ (p. 134).

One risk with Activity Theory is that it can lead to the reification of the activity system, but Engestrom asserts an activity system, ‘is always a community of multiple points of view, traditions and interests. The division of labor in an activity creates different positions for the participants, the participants carry their own diverse histories, and the activity system itself carries multiple layers and strands of history engraved in its artifacts, rules and conventions… It is a source of trouble and a source of innovation, demanding actions of translation and negotiation’ (p. 136). An activity system is always in a state of flux, but, periodically, tensions between nodes within the system can comprise a means of producing a new phase of development in the system.

One implication of Activity theory is that deviant behaviour is misnamed. Instead of being a sign of disorder to be quelled, it can be read as an indication of the inadequacies of an existing system, requiring structural re-evaluation rather than castigation of an individual: ‘As the contradictions of an activity systems are aggravated, some individual participants begin to question and deviate from its established norms’ (p. 137). Deviation, therefore, can be the expression of inadequacy in an existing system, and a call for change.

Revisiting Engestrom is useful for understanding the permeability of activity systems, which are continually subject to the pressures of history, the individual and other activity systems. However, the framework remains useful for isolating component parts of a purposeful activity, and exploring where tensions might arise, and how those tensions can be addressed.

 

Engeström, Y. (2001). Expansive Learning at Work: toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization, Journal of Education and Work, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 133-156.

Christensen and Eyring (2011) The Innovative University

At times, The Innovative University reads more like an extended panegyric to Harvard than an analysis of the impact of Disruptive Technologies and Disruptive Innovation (1997, 2003) on higher education. However, Christensen and Eyring do reiterate some of the points made in Christensen’s earlier writings on disruption, or the lack of it, in learning and teaching: ‘Since the time that universities first gathered students into classrooms, the learning technologies… have remained largely the same. Even when computers were introduced into the classroom, they were used to enhance the existing instructional approaches, rather than to supplant them. Lectures, for example, were augmented with computer graphics, but the lecture itself persisted in its fundamental form’ (2011, p.18). New tools have arisen to facilitate and potentially enhance learning and teaching, but they have been located within an existing activity system (Engestrom, 1987), rather than prompting new learning and teaching paradigms.

However, and given the rapidly changing economics of higher education (most noticeably the substantial increase in fees), there is a possibility that expectations of higher education will alter, and that the provision of higher education will diversify. Christensen and Eyring point out a core fact of higher education in the US, ‘Since the late 1980s, college tuition and fees have risen 440 percent, four times faster than inflation’ (2011, p.202), a phenomenon which, in other circumstances, would look like a bubble.

In common with other commentators, therefore, Christensen and Eyring are interested in the purposes of higher education in a rapidly shifting economic context: ‘Now, with a college education becoming simultaneously more expensive and a precondition to earning a living wage, there is a temptation for students and policymakers to focus on making the fundamental product – a degree – more affordable; in the face of today’s wrenching economic and social pressures it is natural for not only marketers of higher education but also customers to become myopic’ (2011, p. 332). Hence, a utilitarian outlook on higher education is understandable, and defensible. However, they see higher education having other possibilities, and obligations: ‘Yet the job that students and policymakers need done is the bestowal of the insights and skills necessary not to just make a living but to make the most of life. A college degree creates its significant wage-earning advantage because it is designed with more than mere economic goals in mind’ (2011, p. 332).

Higher education has a job to do which extends beyond simple economics. Therefore, universities need to be responsive to wider social contexts. One significant aspect of changing contexts over the last twenty years has been the emergence and rapid embedding of the internet. Moreover, the internet is now a core aspect of students’ learning lives and may, furthermore, be diluting previous demarcations between learning, work and leisure, demarcations which have been in place since the industrialisation of western societies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Therefore, universities need to find new ways of working with the technologies with which learners and teachers interact on a daily basis: ‘Universities have grown larger, more complex, and more expensive, but their basic character still reflects decisions made in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries’ (2011, p. 379). According to Christensen and Eyring, this can’t continue.  

References

Christensen, C. M. (1997) The innovator’s dilemma: when new technologies cause great firms to fail, Boston, Mass., Harvard Business School Press.

Christensen, C. M. and Raynor, M. E. (2003) The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth,CambridgeMA, Harvard University Press.

Christensen, C. M. and Eyring, H. J. (2011) The Innovative University: Changing the DNA of Higher Education from the Inside Out, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.

Engeström, Y. (1987) Learning by expanding: an activity-theoretical approach to developmental research,Helsinki, Orienta-Konsultit Oy. http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/Engestrom/expanding/toc.htm (accessed 15 March 2012).

Even more on digital natives

Corrin et al. (2010) surveyed 470 Australian first year undergraduates’ use of technology. The results challenge the extent to which the so-called digital natives (Prensky, 2001) are sophisticated and adept users of online technologies to support learning. For example, most of those surveyed had never written a blog, built a website or used RSS feeds (p.646).

In addition, the students surveyed used technologies more frequently to support their everyday lives than to support their learning lives. This may suggest that their university was not encouraging or directing them to make use of a wide range of technologies to support learning. Alternatively, it may suggest that adeptness in using technologies in everyday life does not transfer seamlessly into using technologies to support learning. 

Jones and Healing (2010) interviewed first-year undergraduate students in England. Their research, too, challenges the digital natives argument. Jones and Healing found that over a third of their interviewees were not confident about using university Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), or using blogs or wikis (p. 349). Similarly, only a minority in the sample stated that uploading and downloading audio and video was important for their learning, though that same minority tended to be younger students at campus universities, a fact that could be used to validate the idea of digital natives (p. 349).

Both articles show students appreciating their HEI’s VLEs, with one student in Jones and Healing’s sample praising it as ‘a central thing for everything, a central source’ (p. 350). Moreover, even if one component of the VLE was not praised (a student reported dissatisfaction with their group forum [p. 351]), this does not discourage use of the VLE as a whole. It is possible that students draw what they want from institutional VLEs, and construct their own purposes for VLEs, though the range of available uses for a VLE is shaped by the content put in by the lecturer and institution. 

Jones and Healing argue that students’ use of technologies is closely related to course requirements. Hence, if H.E.I.s want students to engage with a wider range of technologies then some steerage needs to come from the H.E.I. in the design stage for individual modules. A pedagogically driven incorporation of technologies to support learning and assessment is more likely to prompt and develop engagement with technologies for learning.

 

References

Corrin, L. Bennett, S. and Lickyer, L. (2010) ‘Digital natives: Everyday life versus academic study,’ Proceedings of the 7^th International Conference on Networked Learning,’ ed. By Dirckinck-Holmfeld, L., Hodgson, V., Jones, C., de Laat, M., McConnell, D. and Ryberg, T.

Jones, C. and Healing, G. (2010) ‘Net generation students: agency and choice and the new technologies,’ Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, vol. 26, pp. 344-356.

More on digital natives

Bennett et al. (2008) see the digital natives (Prensky, 2001) category as reductive; the term neglects the role of economic, social and cultural factors in net usage: ‘It may be that there is as much variation within the digital native generation as between the generations’ (p. 779).  Bennett et al. also argue that technology plays different roles in students’ home lives and their learning lives, and that the skills people exhibit in their use of online technologies at home may not be easily transferable to educational contexts (p. 781).

Lohnes and Kinzer (2007) undertook their research at a liberal arts college in the US.  They adopted an ethnographic approach, arguing that questionnaires provide a decontextualised snapshot. Asking students to state their actual practices with technologies gave them, they argue, richer data.

One of Lohnes and Kinzer’s findings was that students stated they preferred not to use their laptops in the classroom, opting to use the classroom for face-to-face interaction, and perceiving the laptop as a physical barrier within the classroom. It would be interesting to see if similar research undertaken now would repeat the findings, given the extent to which laptops and other networked devices have become smaller and less obtrusive in the intervening years.

Jones and Shao (2011) dismiss the idea of digital natives, reviewing the literature and concluding that net usage is differentiated by a range of factors, including, but not limited to, age.  They critique Prensky’s analysis, arguing that it constructs a deficit model of teaching in higher education, whereby lecturers will still retain their digital immigrant identification (2011, p. 7). Furthermore, and in common with Bennett et al., Jones and Shao also question the extent to which general skill with technology translates into skill in the use of technologies to support learning (2011, p. 34).

Increasingly, research suggests that the digital natives/digital immigrants dualism is reductive, masking the extent to which a range of economic, social, cultural and educational factors interact to shape differentiations in internet usage generally, and use of the net to support learning in particular. Moreover, students may not be using a wide range of technologies to support their learning; research by Kirkwood (2008) and Margaryan et al. (2011) shows students being largely passive users of technologies to support learning, and using a narrow range of technologies. 

 

References

Bennett, S., Maton, K. and Kervin, L. (2008) ‘The “digital natives” debate: A critical review of the evidence,’ British Journal of Educational Technology, vol. 39, no. 5, pp. 775-786.

 

Jones, C. and Shao, B. (2011) ‘The net generation and digital natives,’ Milton Keynes, The open University, http://oro.open.ac.uk/30014/ (accessed 3 February 2012).

 

Kirkwood, A. (2008) ‘Getting it from the Web: why and how online resources are used by independent undergraduate learners,’ Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, vol. 24, p. 372-382.

 

Lohnes, S. and Kinzer, C. (2007) ‘Questioning assumptions about students’ expectations for technology in college classrooms,’ Innovate, vol. 3, no. 5, http://www.innovateonline.info/pdf/vol3_issue5/Questioning_Assumptions_About_Students’_Expectations_for_Technology_in_College_Classrooms.pdf (accessed 3 February 2012).

 

Margaryan, A., Littlejohn, A. and Vojt, G. (2011) ‘Are digital natives a myth or reality? University students’ use of digital technologies,’ Computers and Education, vol. 56, pp. 429-440.

 

Hargittai, E. (2010) ‘Digital Na(t)ives?…’

Hirgattai (2010) surveys first-year college students (typically 18-19 year olds) and finds significant differences in their use of the internet, correlated with socio-economic status. Those students from privileged backgrounds used the net more widely, and in more informed ways, than students from less privileged backgrounds. Moreover, students with at least one parent with a degree exhibited higher skill levels in relation to net usage.

Hirgattai’s research challenges Prensky’s (2001) theory of digital natives and digital immigrants. To look at age alone as the factor distinguishing use of the net is reductive. Instead, it seems more accurate to state that net usage reflects power structures within a society. Hence, the net is not causing change as much as it is illustrating our existing economic and social structures via a different medium.

Hirgattai’s work further suggests that connectivity is not the core issue; everyone can, at least theoretically, have a connection to the net, but they may still lack effective access (Hiragittai came to a similar conclusion in earlier research [2002]). Hence, less privileged sectors of the population who would stand to gain most from enhanced access to services and goods are effectively prohibited from doing so, not by technical connection, but by the absence of a skill set which itself is correlated with prosperity and educational attainment.

From a higher educational perspective, the potential of technology-enhanced learning to reach out to learners who wouldn’t normally access higher education is compromised by differences in skill sets in relation to existing net usage. Achieving widening participation in higher education through technology-enhanced learning is more of a cultural and pedagogical than a technical challenge.

References

Hargittai, E. (2002) ‘Second-level digital divide,’ First Monday, vol. 7, no. 4, http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/942/864 (accessed 2 February 2012).

Hargittai, E. (2010) ‘Digital Na(t)ives? Variation in Internet Skills and Uses among Members of the “Net Generation”’ Sociological Inquiry, vol. 80, no. 1, pp. 92-113.

Prensky, M. (2001) ‘Digital natives, digital immigrants’ On the horizon, vol. 9, no. 5, pp. 1-6.

Fry and Love (2011) ‘Business lecturers’ perceptions and interactions with the virtual learning environment’

A recent article suggests lecturers’ uses of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) are conservative, in the sense that VLEs are used primarily as repositories, and are not used to re-imagine learning and teaching. The lecturers’ approach to VLEs seems to be based on a frequent perception that VLEs are axiomatically inferior to face-to-face interaction.

Fry and Love (2011) conducted interviews with Business lecturers, and provide commentary thereon. One of the significant things about the article is the metaphors used to describe VLEs, variously described as ‘security blanket’, ‘crutch’, or an ‘electronic filing cabinet’ (p.54). The metaphors are conservative because they see online learning as supportive, covering holes (another metaphor) in face-to-face provision, but not rivalling it in efficacy, or offering alternative learning and teaching paradigms.

The lecturers interviewed saw the VLE as providing a valuable function for students with other commitments, in that VLEs allowed students access to learning materials outside office hours, but, and consequently, they saw the VLE is a one-way communication medium, despite the potential of VLEs to enable two-way communication.

A further issue with VLEs is that some lecturers were reluctant to make their learning materials available online. There may be valid reasons for this practice, but, from an Activity Theory perspective, the division of labour is also relevant here, as the relative positions of lecturer and student are reaffirmed when a potential tension arises between the two (a potential tension because students can access learning materials without the lecturer being explicitly positioned as gatekeeper). An existing Activity System remains intact, but not necessarily to the benefit of learning and teaching. Fry and Love suggest the lecturers’ practice is a Behaviourist position, and predicated on the idea that learning is acquired, not constructed.

The research might suggest that lecturers are using VLEs in unimaginative ways, using VLEs to support and insure existing pedagogies, rather than prompting a rethink of learning and teaching. Alternatively, the research could be exposing the limitations of VLEs. The VLE as a learning technology functions well as a content repository, but online conversation tends to happen more enthusiastically via social networking technologies (Facebook, Twitter, et al.). This imbalance may be the result of the successful marketing of social networking technologies, or may have emerged through practice, or it may signify a limitation in the VLE as a learning technology, and perhaps suggest a design flaw in VLEs, too. Users go to the HEI’s website, then go through a different log-in procedure for their VLE, then access a discussion board via a menu. Meanwhile, they can go onto Facebook or Twitter and conduct all their social and academic conversations from one platform. Lecturers may not be using VLEs imaginatively, but VLEs may be designed and implemented in ways that discourage innovation.

Reference

Fry, N. and Love, N. (2011) ‘Business lecturers’ perceptions and interactions with the virtual learning environment,’ International Journal of Management Education, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 51-56.

Communities of Practice: Engestrom (2007?) and Jones (2004)

Engestrom (2007?) criticises the Community of Practice theory as ‘wishful’ and ‘foundationally conservative’ in its construction of a centripetal journey from the periphery to the centre of learning communities. For Engestrom, the Community of Practice theory ‘marginalizes the creation of novelty.’ Engestrom argues that the Community of Practice theory works against creativity by having a pre-ordained path from the periphery to the centre. The centre of the Community of Practice thus comprises a centre of gravity, to which all activity moves. Innovative activities cannot be well accommodated within a Community of Practice unless the innovation is reformed to suit the Community’s pre-existing identity (remembering that identity formation is seen as a defining characteristic of learning within the Community of Practice framework). 

Jones (2004) sees the Community of Practice in more complex terms, drawing upon Wenger’s (1998) work on constellations of practice, whereby a number of communities interact, but in a looser formation than in the core Community of Practice framework. Hence, an H.E.I. or a workplace may have numerous separate Communities of Practice aligning to a range of sub-cultures. There is an overarching organisational goal, and hence the communities are connected within a constellation, but each individual community within the constellation will have its own identity norm. 

Engestrom’s overall analysis is defined by tensions between individual nodes within an activity system. Wenger’s model is less characterised by tension, as there is a centre towards which the subject moves. The Community of Practice model does give a structure and a vocabulary to an established form of learning, and thus it can be abstracted and applied to new contexts, allowing the reformation of learning within an historically tried and tested framework. However, the Community of Practice model can also appear to bleach organisations of their inevitable tensions, and thus the Community of Practice theory ceases to align with people’s day to day experiences of their places of work and study. Interestingly, a similar critique of Engestrom’s work was made by Avis (2009) who saw Engestrom’s idea of co-configuration (the identifying, highlighting and resolution of tensions) as a ‘management technique’ (p.161), designed to smooth tension rather than expose tension’s full, systematic implications. Therefore, both the Community of Practice theory and Activity theory can be interpreted as conservative frameworks. The conservative or radical nature of theories is thus not an intrinsic feature of a theory, but an approach that emerges through practice. Theories are pliable, and can comprise tools within larger activity systems.

References

Avis, J. (2009) ‘Transformation or transformism: Engestrom’s version of activity theory?’ Educational Review, vol. 61, no. 2, pp. 151-165.

Engestrom, Y. (2007?) ‘From communities of practice to mycorrhizae’ http://www.open.ac.uk/cetl-workspace/cetlcontent/documents/476902341f33c.pdf (accessed 5 December 2011)

Jones, C. (2004) ‘Networks and learning: communities, practices and the metaphor of networks – a response,’ ALT-J, Researching Learning Technology, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 195-198.

Wenger, Etienne (1998, repr. 2005), Communities of Practice,Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Margaryan et al., (2011) ‘Are digitial natives a myth or reality?…’

People who work in technology-enhanced learning are aware of the latest technologies to support learning and teaching. However, this awareness may not be reflected in the day-to-day practices of the majority of users. Margaryan, Littlejohn and Vojt argue students use a narrow range of technologies to support learning, and that students’ use of technologies is largely passive.

The article argues that one of the factors influencing students’ use of technologies is the lecturer’s teaching approach (p.429). Hence, if the teacher uses traditional classroom pedagogies, the technology is unlikely to be used in innovative ways.

The article further argues that research in the field has tended to exclude variables such as the users themselves, and their socio-economic backgrounds (p.431). Previously, Hargittai (2002) argued that technical access per se was not the way to address any perceived digital divide, as people also required effective access, meaning the skills to make the most of online resources. Hence, there may be grounds for training and development for students in how to use technologies to support learning.

Eight students were interviewed for the research, and stated they used their institution’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) as a repository from which to access learning materials. However, this was not perceived negatively by the students; they did not lament the fact that the VLE did not exploit the creative possibilities of online learning. Instead, they were satisfied with the VLE as a repository. Similar findings emerged from a larger study of 427 students undertaken by Conole et al., (2008).

The specific technologies used by the interviewees included Google, Google Scholar, Wikipedia, and course websites. However, two of the participants had not heard of Google Scholar, two had not heard of Wikipedia, and two did not know what a podcast was (not the same two interviewees each time). Furthermore, five did not know what a blog was, and had never written or read a blog entry (p. 436).

The main technology used for recreation by the interviewees was YouTube, but the students’ use of it was passive, as none of them had uploaded content.

The study as a whole may argue for further training and development for academics in technology-enhanced learning, as the pedagogy selected by the lecturer appeared to be a factor influencing the students’ uses of technology to support learning. The article further suggests that students use technologies passively rather than interactively. The creative and disruptive potential of technologies to support learning and teaching is not fully happening yet, and researchers may be disconnected from the practice of users.

References

Conole, G., de Laat, M., Dillon, T. and Darby, J. (2008) ‘“Disruptive technologies”, “pedagogical innovation”: What’s new? Findings from an in-depth study of students’ use and perception of technology,’ Computers and Education, vol. 50, pp. 511-524.

Hargittai, E. (2002) ‘Second-level digital divide,’ First Monday, vol. 7, no. 4, http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/942/864 (accessed 17 November 2011).

Margaryan, A., Littlejohn, A. and Vojt, G. (2011) ‘Are digital natives a myth or reality? University students’ use of digital technologies,’ Computers and Education, vol. 56, pp. 429-440.