Ubiquitous Learning
6th in the Leverhulme Trust series on Learning Networks
Caroline Haythornthwaite
Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor, Institute of
Education, University of London
Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information
Science, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
Thanks …
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Leverhulme Trust
Institute of Education
Professor Richard Andrews
London Knowledge Lab
Graduate School of Library and Information Science,
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
Participants throughout the series
Lecture Series
Dec. 1, 2009
Learning in the age of Web 2.0
Feb. 4, 2010
Learning and scholarly communication in the age of
the Internet
Feb. 23, 2010
New theories and perspectives on learning in the
digital age
Mar. 11, 2010
Social networks and learning
Mar. 30, 2010
Social informatics: E-learning as a socio-technical
intervention
May 10, 2010
Ubiquitous learning
Ubiquitous Learning
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Emerging from ideas of ubiquitous
computing
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Embedded
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everywhere, anytime, anyone
Infrastructural
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invisible, seamless, natural
Ubiquitous
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Context aware computing, Awareness
technologies, Pervasive computing
expected, taken-for-granted
Universal
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available, accessible, capable
Ubiquitous Learning
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Transformation in Learning
Practices
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Online
 Through computermediated communication
Networked
 Crowds and communities
 Strangers and friends
Collaborative, yet Self-Directed
Community re-envisioned
 Online
 Local to student
 Local to instructor
Technology mediated
 Design, metadata, structures
Personal
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Personal : self-directed, owneroperated, personalized
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Event-driven : on demand, and
just in time
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Mobile : phones, laptops, GPS
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Self-contained : information on
laptop, cell phones, etc.
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Portable : multi-device compatible (XML), data deposit/capture
separate from retrieval, on demand access (wired and wireless)
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Extended personal : computing as extension of the personal
(Kurzweil) – senses, memory, reach across distance
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Networked : to people, resources; self-directed social networks;
user-generated contexts (Luckin)
Steve Mann, wearable computers
Personal meets Educational
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“A generation ago, academia embraced the laptop as the most
welcome classroom innovation since the ballpoint pen. But during
the past decade, it has evolved into a powerful distraction…
‘This is like putting on every student's desk, when you walk into
class, five different magazines, several television shows, some
shopping opportunities and a phone, and saying, ‘Look, if your
mind wanders, feel free to pick any of these up and go with it,’ ’
Cole said.”
Washington Post, March 9, 2010.
Mobile
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Managing entry and exit, involvement and attention in multiple
spaces and places
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Affinity spaces (Gee; Jenkins); Social worlds (Strauss)
Negotiating the sense of self in each social world
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Roles: Community star, member, lurker; ‘information tourist’, surfer
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Position: Expert, novice; wizard, newbie
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Identity: One’s own path, depth of involvement, and level of conformity
within the world
Negotiating boundaries
 Building boundaries between worlds for separated identities
 Recognizing synergies between worlds for single sense of self
Personal but Shared
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Shared : with a self-directing community
 Non-profit, for profit, hybrid
 Informational, hobby, serious leisure
sharing
 Creative commons : forward,
modify, reuse
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Altruistic : addressing personal needs
and those of others
 E.g., Sites that aggregate resources
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Proxy : learning for others, using
ubiquitous resources for others
 E.g., Use at work is tied to use at
home and for others at home
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Social : conversation, social and
informational support, contribution
Personal but Shared
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Presence : being there with others,
and with avatars
Karahalios, 2009, ChitChatClub
What will the teacher avatar look
like? What should it look like?
Novel, Playful
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Novel : imaginitive, inventive
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Playful : games, games-based, gameskills based, serendipitous
World of Warcraft
Immersive
The Cave, NCSA
Data Intensive
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Data intensive: collection,
visualization, interpretation
Parallel : simultaneous, multiple
observation, collection, processing
Contributory : intentional or
unintentional, crowd-based or
community based
Visualization of an F3 Tornado Within a Simulated
Supercell Thunderstorm (NCSA: Patterson & Cox)
Visualization of journal connections based on “clickstream” data.
Bollen et al (2009). http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0004803
Contributory
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“A participatory culture is a culture
with relatively low barriers to
artistic expression and civic
engagement, strong support for
creating and sharing one’s
creations, and some type of
informal mentorship whereby what
is known by the most experienced
is passed along to novices. A
participatory culture is also one in
which members believe their
contributions matter, and feel some
degree of social connection with
one another (at the least they care
what other people think about what
they have created).” (Jenkins, 2006, p.3)
In the World and Of the World
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Wired, wireless, distributed, and cloud
computing
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Wired Cities / Digital Cities /
Cybercities /Rural infrastructures
 City feedback systems : CCTV, realtime bus schedules, Traffic
monitoring
 Supporting community networking
 Wi-fi clouds for rural and urban
areas
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Government forms and documents
online
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Online shopping
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Online universities, degree programs,
courses, certifications
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GPS locators and GPS enabled
information
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Community networking initiatives /
Community informatics
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Affordable access, instruction in
use
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Access to IT skills based jobs
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Indigenous knowledge, local
culture
Draws on ideas about community
education, e.g., Paulo Freire, John
Dewey
Ubiquitous Learning
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Un* : Uncontained, unrestrained, unstructured, unconscious,
unobserved
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Emergent : perpetual beta
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Pervasive : pervasive, natural, ever present, ever acted on. Always on
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Designed : seamless, invisible in use
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Mashed : taken, used, combined and projected
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Shared : created, contributed, commented, rated, played with, used,
re-used, modified and forwarded
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Networked : observed, responded to, transmitted, transformed,
interpersonal, communal
Wrapping up the
Learning Networks
Series
E-learning as Ubiquitous Learning
Learning Networks
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Learning Networks as a theoretical underpinning for addressing emerging
learning paradigms
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ICT and Internet-supported, yet theoretically independent of the specific
delivery mechanism
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Predicated on the notion of an individual connected to others
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Accessible and researchable through
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Individual action in relation to learning technologies and resources,
including other people
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Networks of interrelated actors, technologies and/or resources
Addressing the research and practice associated with initiatives and
ideas subsumed under names such as:
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E-learning, Networked learning, online learning, technology-enhanced learning
E-Learning / Networked Learning
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A complex, sociotechnical intervention
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As a continuously emergent practice based on the co-evolution of
technology and practice, situated within larger organizational and
societal contexts
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A practice of equivocality (Perrow) – where neither the questions nor
the answers are known – rather than of uncertainty – where the
questions are known, but not the answers
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A practice of expansive learning (Engestrom) and identity formation
(Wenger) where outcomes and desired identity are not defined
E-Learning / Networked Learning
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Part of a social revolution accompanying the e-* paradigm shift resulting
from the emergent effects of IT, ICT, Internet and computer networks
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Data and metadata intensive
 data mining and linguistic analysis; data curation, metadata, informatics; eresearch/cyberinfrastructure
Ubiquitous
 e-* in everyday life: e-commerce, e-government, e-democracy, e-learning
Contributory and participatory
 Citizen journalists, bloggers, scientists
Open
 Open source, open access, open courseware
New literacies
 Emergent, participatory, sociotechnical
Mediating
• technologies and
people
Knowledge
attributes
• In a dynamic age
Community
Complexity
• Shared spaces,
shared
experiences
• Of influences
Interpersonal
Personal
• Self-directed and
effected
Caveat:
Neither complete nor
‘wedged’ as shown
Knowledge ‘Problems’ for a
Networked Age
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Knowledge acquisition in an
age of rapid transformation.
Requires
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Fixed Form, Known Outcome
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Know-what; Tacit and Explicit
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Formal, closed
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continuous learning
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self- and/or group-directed learning
Emergent Form, Unknown
Outcome
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learning under equivocality
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learning to be nimble and agile
Know-how, know-who,
knowledgeability
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learning to be something not yet
defined
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Expansive learning (Engestrom)
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Identity learning (Wenger)
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Informal, open, perpetual beta
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Knowledge-building communities
(Scardamalia & Bereiter)
New knowledge practices
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Mutability of tools, technologies,
authorities and means of production
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Personal and Communal
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Personal
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Individual
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Self-directed (heutagogy)
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Learners: child, young adult,
adult, expert
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Communal
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Context : Learning for home,
sport games and ‘serious
leisure’ (Stebbins)
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Individually and
informally situated and
‘accredited’
Group knowledge
structures
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Social capital
Collaborative learning
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Networked learning
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Knowledge-building
communities
Context : Formal, school,
workplace, course based
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Organizationally situated
and accredited
Personal View
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Personalized, self-chosen, self-directed learning for work or pleasure,
individually or group based, personalized information space (Luckin)
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Creation and maintenance of identity (Wenger), identity within a
community of practice
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Formation of identity under conditions of uncertainty and/or equivocality
Presentation of self
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Home pages, blogs, tweets; handles, user names, ids, photos
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Contributions to crowdsourced sites and to community sites
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Egocentric views of individual learning spaces
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Managing as an individual learner among competing social worlds
Communal View
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Learning as a relation that connects people
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Learning as production as well as consumption
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An individual contributes content to a discussion, wiki, collaborative artwork
Learning as an outcome of relations
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A student learns from a teacher; students learn together from a teacher; novices
learn from each other
A community holds a knowledge of its history, and information resources for
dealing with new situations
Learning spaces
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Affinity spaces (Gee), third places (Oldenburg), geo-community spaces (libraries,
community centers, churches), online learning communities
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Crowd and community spaces
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Online and face-to-face spaces
Mediation:
People and Technology
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Mediating artefacts
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Technologies : as focus for flows (Latour), or as an object in a system
(Activity theory, Engestrom)
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Practices : as ways of working, of learning
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Affordances : of technologies, and of educational systems as a whole
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Internet infrastructures, computer software and hardware
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Buildings and boundaries (in-school vs outside school)
Mediators
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Teachers, experts, master practitioners, designers
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Librarians, collection developers
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Institutions
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Texts, writing, literacy
Complexity and Multiplexity
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Multiple interacting influences
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Technologies : From buildings to
mobiles; complete and partial
infrastructures, digital spectrum of
access and use
Authorities
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Books/journals/newspapers ‘vs’
blogs, wikis, web sites
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Technical ‘vs’ content leaders
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Learner-leaders
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Local and remote
Organizations : Institutional actors,
structures, constraints
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Methods for addressing multiple
influences, for research and
practice include:
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Socio-technical, actornetworks, social networks
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Theories of science,
technology, networks,
learning, pedagogy,
organizations, society
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Levels of analysis :
psychological/individual,
social psychology/dyadic,
small group,
sociological/large group,
society
Learning Networks
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Learning is a network relation, currently facilitated and radically
altered by new technologies and new open learning practices
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Learning is also a network outcome, one that serves to support or limit
the social capital within a community
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Technology is a mediator for network relations including the vital relation
of learning
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Contributory, open and participatory practices supported through open
access technologies are making significant social changes in where,
when and from whom we learn
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Following and harnessing these trends is the exciting emergent work
for teachers, learners, educators and researchers
Questions, Suggestions
Caroline Haythornthwaite
haythorn@illinois.edu
Look for our forthcoming book
Caroline Haythornthwaite & Richard Andrews
E-Learning Theory and Practice
Sage, 2011
For papers and slides associated with the Leverhulme series on Learning Networks, see
http://newdoctorates.blogspot.com/2009/10/leverhulme-trust-public-lectures.html
----- AND/OR ------http://haythorn.wordpress.com/recent-activities
References/Further Reading
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Cope, B & Kalantzis, M. (Eds.) (2009). Ubiquitous Learning. Champaign, IL:
University of Illinois Press.
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Andrews, R. & Haythornthwaite, C. (Eds.) (2007). Handbook of E-Learning Research. London: Sage.
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Haythornthwaite, C. (2009). Participatory transformations. In W. Cope & M. Kalantzis (Eds.),
Ubiquitous Learning (pp. 31-48). Champaign, IL: U. of Illinois Press.
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/14200
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Haythornthwaite, C. & Hagar, C. (2004). The social worlds of the web. Annual Review of Information
Science and Technology, 39, 311-346.
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Kazmer, M. M. (2007). Beyond C U L8R: Disengaging from online social worlds. New Media and
Society, 9, 111-138.
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Kurzweil, R. (2008) The Singularity is Near.
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Neff, G. & Stark, D. (2003). Permanently Beta: Responsive Organization in the Internet Era, in Philip
E.N. Howard and Steve Jones, (Eds.), Society Online: The Internet In Context (pp. 173-188). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
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Urry, J. (2005). The complexity turn. Theory, Culture & Society, 22(5), 1-14.