Time:
Wednesday, March 17, 2010, 10:15-13:00 o'clock

Workshop leader:
Prof. Dr. Ben Bachmair

List of papers and the discussant:

• Dr. Norbert Pachler, Institute of Education University of London, Department of Learning, Curriculum & Communication, Faculty of Culture and Pedagogy; Centre for Excellence in Work-Based Learning for Education Professionals (WLE):
  "Cultural ecology, mobile resources and participation"
• Prof. Dr. John Cook, Professor of Technology Enhanced Learning at the London Metropolitan University, Learning Technology Research Institute:
  "Learning options of mobile and user generated context and its appropriation"
• Dr. Gemma Moss: Institute of Education University of London, Faculty of Policy and Society, Department of Educational Foundations and Policy Studies:
  "Boys' use of cultural resources, a Bersteinian perspective"
• Prof. Dr. Ben Bachmair, Prof. i. R. für Erziehungswissenschaft, Medienpädagogik und Mediendidaktik, Universität Kassel, Fachbereich Erziehungswissenschaft/ Humanwissenschaften:
  "Assimilation of naïve mobile expertise for learning in schools in socially deprived areas, a Vygotskyian perspective"
• Discussant:
  Prof. Dr. Winfried Marotzki, Universität Magdeburg, Institut für Erziehungswissenschaften, Lehrstuhl Allgemeine Pädagogik

Application, summary:

Individualised mobility as cultural resource: harnessing the ‘mobile complex’ for participatory learning
The current cultural transformation is driven by individualisation, which leads to a mobile complex with (a) fragmentation of learning, (b) new social stratification of socio-cultural milieus, (c) mobilisation of mass communication with user-generated contexts and content. Within the mobile complex new cultural resources are emerging. The educational aim is to support a personal appropriation of new resources for enhancing participation for all socio-cultural milieus. The theoretical frame comes from a cultural ecology, which analyses socio-cultural structures, agency and cultural practices (e.g. informal learning). The concept of appropriation (Aneignung) helps to identify generated mobile contexts as subjective areas of development in the view of Lev Vygotsky. An assimilation of ‘native’ learners’ competence on media and learning offers practical and tested options for the school.

Application, extended version:

Individualised mobility as cultural resource: harnessing the ‘mobile complex’ for participatory learning
The current and ongoing cultural transformation is driven, among other things, by individualisation, which, in turn, leads to (a) a fragmentation of learning, (b) a new social stratification of socio-cultural milieus each with a specific habitus and (c) a mobilisation of mass communication with user-generated contexts and content. We use the shorthand ‘mobile complex’ for these trends, which have notable implications for schools.
We are witnessing a significant transformation of media practices in relation to individualised mobility, which has considerable implications for learning inside and outside of formal educational settings. Individualised mobility is increasingly mediated by multifunctional mobile devices in everyday life and social networking tools (Web 2.0). Furthermore, the fragmentation and personalisation of media content in user-generated contexts brings situated meaning-making into focus. Users become agents of content and context generation within their individualising socio-cultural frames and milieus. Within this dynamic, learning is become a form of meaning-making according to habitus of socio-cultural milieus.
One consequence is a shift of relevance of cultural resources: school-based learning is partly replaced by resources of the mobile complex, e.g. user-generated contexts and communicative mobile phone applications. At the same time, individualised mobile mass communication is personally appropriated as a widely accepted cultural resource, especially by socio-cultural milieus, which engage less well with school-based learning. The growing irrelevance of traditional cultural resources in relation to school-based learning leads to milieu-specific at-risk learners.
With direct reference to these trends, the symposium aims to recognise the appropriation of mobile media devices and user-generated contexts as resources for meaning-making and learning. One task of the school is to assimilate the appropriated cultural resources into the practices around formal learning. The intention is to widen the definition of educationally relevant cultural resources to enable participation by all socio-cultural milieus according to their habitus of learning.

Appropriation of the mobile complex from the perspective of a cultural ecology
The recognition of the mobile complex as potential cultural resource derives from an epistemology, which identifies a triangular interrelation of (a) socio-cultural structures, (b) agency as the subject’s capacity to act in respect to the world, and (c) cultural practices. From an educational perspective, the interrelationship of these three areas of structures, agency and practices is relevant in the way subjects appropriate the mobile complex into their life worlds and life courses. The concept of appropriation deliberately combines the traditional concept of ‘Bildung’ and Vygotsky’s interpretation of child development. The concept of ‘resource’ offers the discussion of the social, democratic and equal allocation of mobile devices and contexts. Furthermore, it helps to develop didactic practices, which are increasing social participation and equality. One possible educational approach is to assimilate the ‘native mobile expertise’ of the students into the teaching and learning practices of schools.

Assimilation of the appropriated mobile complex into the school
The symposium will provide insights on school initiatives, which operationalize the cultural ecological approach and focus on learner-generated mobile contexts. The practical aim is a ‘conversational integration’ of ‘responsive contexts of development’. The term ‘responsive context of development’ refers deliberately to Lev Vygotsky’s “zone of proximal development” and Jerome Bruner’s practice of “scaffolding”. The didactic task is to create situations for mobile learning, which attach the ‘native mobile expertise’ of young people to the curricular aims of the school with the intention to recognise milieu- and habitus-specific mobile resources for social participation. This intention finds expression in the term ‘participatory learning’. Its operationalization is envisaged through four ‘didactic parameters’, which are derived from our conceptual work, and they are under evaluation.
The focus is on the learning potential afforded by mobile devices with particular reference to user-generated contexts and their appropriation. Due to structural changes to mass communication users are now actively engaged in generating personal contexts for learning, in which self-development is a socially negotiated process involving the internalization of cultural products.

Workshop leader:
Prof. Dr. Ben Bachmair

Brief description of workshop:
Die Detraditionalisierung der modernen Gesellschaft erreicht mit Handy und MP3-Player den Kulturbereich der Massenkommunikation. Websites wie YouTube oder Podcasts sind der deutliche Belege wie die vertraute Massenkommunikation sich in diskursive Sphären der Zeichenzirkulation verwandelt, bei der u.a. Archive bedeutsamer werden als die redaktionelle Produktion von Sendungen. Die Veralltäglichung des Handys und seine sich ständig ausweitenden Repräsentations-, Speicher- und Interaktionsfunktionsfunktionen hat vor allem in Großbritannien Schulen und Forschungseinrichtungen motiviert, deren didaktische Funktionen im Rahmen von „participative and meaningful learning" zu erkunden und zu erproben. Die Arbeitsgruppe untersucht seit Ende 2006 folgende vier Problembereiche:

• Cultural transformation and the mobilised communication. M-devices and mlearning in the society of individualized risks;
• To enhance learning in the existing schools and widening the participation; The didactic potential ofmobile devices for situated and meaningful learning: Enrichment function of m-devices; Mobile devices as genuine tools for learner groups at risk / learner groups with non-typical cultural experiences, Learning options for learners at risk: boys, migrants, children from precarious life contexts.
• Accordance of the mobile technology; the wide range of applications: from the telephone to the iPodand MyVideo;
• Mobile changing of the school within the recent cultural transformation – rethinking education in the school.

Transformation der Massenkommunikation durch Mobilität - eine bildungstheoretische Einordnung
Prof. Dr. Ben Bachmair, Kassel
The didactic potential of mobile devices for situated and meaningful learning
Dr. Norbert Pachler, London
Enhancing specific scholastic subjects and their learning and teaching methods
Dr. John Cook, London
Micro Learning, ein theoretischer Rahmen zur Verbindung von Massenkommunikation, Alltag und Schule
Prof. Dr. Theo Hug, Innsbruck
DISKUTANT
Prof. Dr. Gunther Kress, London

Individual papers accepted as part of the symposium:

• 'Appropriation of mobile phones for learning', by John Cook, LTRI
• 'Smartphones: a social semiotic view and implications for their use in formal education', by Norbert Pachler, Institute of Education, London; Elisabetta Adami, University of Verona
• Curricular assimilation of conflicting mobile expertises into the school, a cases study on students’ lifestyle habitus and mobile use in media convergence. Ben Bachmair, University of Kassel, Germany.

Sessions:

• Norbert Pachler: A socio-cultural ecology of mobile learning: an overview (Symposium overview)
• Ben Bachmair: Pedagogical issues and mobile learning I
• John Cook: Appropriation of mobile phones for learning
• Elisabetta Adami and Gunther Kress: A social semiotic account of (mobile) learning
• Norbert Pachler: Pedagogical issues and mobile learning II

 

Scope of the workshop:
This workshop was organised by Norbert Pachler (www.norbertpachler.net), the convenor of the London Mobile Learning Group (LMLG) (www.londonmobilelearning.net), housed at the Centre for Excellence in Work-based Learning for Educational Professionals (www.wlecentre.ac.uk) at the Institute of Education, London (www.ioe.ac.uk).

The Stellar Network funded only three of the 16 workshop places; participation of most of the remaining participants was made possible through financial support from the WLE Centre for Excellence.

The LMLG comprises an international, interdisciplinary group of researchers from the fields of educational, media and cultural studies, social semiotics and educational technology. The aim of the workshop was to augment the work of the LMLG, in particular around its socio-cultural ecology, and to extend the interdisciplinary nature of its work through exposure to perspectives advanced by (TEL) researchers in cognate fields from across Europe and the US, in particular in relation to design-based approaches.

The LMLG sees learning using mobile devices governed by a triangular relationship between socio-cultural structures, cultural practices and the agency of media users / learners, represented in the three domains. The interrelationship of these three components: agency, the user's capacity to act on the world, cultural practices, the routines users engage in their everyday lives, and the socio-cultural and technological structures that govern their being in the world, we see as an ecology, which in turn manifests itself in the form of an emerging cultural transformation. Another significant trend, which requires pedagogical responses, is the prevalence of what we call 'user-generated contexts'. We are currently witnessing a significant shift away from traditional forms of mass communication and editorial push towards user-generated content and individualised communication contexts. These structural changes to mass communication also affect the agency of the user and their relationship with traditional and new media. Indeed, the LMLG argues that users are now actively engaged in shaping their own forms of individualised generation of contexts for learning through individualised communication contexts. New relationships between context and production are emerging in that mobile devices not only enable the production of content but also of contexts. They position the user in new relationships with space, i.e. the outer world, and place, i.e. social space. Mobile devices enable and foster the broadening and breaking up of genres. Citizens become content producers who are part of an explosion of activity in the area of user-generated content. What are the implications for education?

The workshop inter alia sought to explore the following questions and issues:

• Learning as a process of meaning-making for the LMLG occurs through acts of communication, which take place within rapidly changing socio-cultural, mass communication and technological structures. Does the notion of learner-generated cultural resources represent a sustainable paradigm shift for formal education in which learning is viewed in categories of context and not content? What are the issues in terms of 'text' production in terms of modes of representation, (re)contextualisation and conceptions of literacy? Who decides/redefines what it means to have coherence in contemporary interaction?
• What synergies are there between the socio-cultural ecological approach to mobile learning, which the LMLG developed (see Pachler, Bachmair and Cook, 2010), with paradigms put forward by different (TEL) research communities in Europe and beyond?
• What relationship is there between user-generated content, user-generated contexts and learning? How can educational institutions cope with the more informal communicative approaches to digital interactions that new generations of learners possess?
• What pedagogical parameters are there in response to the significant transformation of society, culture and education currently taking place alongside technological innovation?

Workshop procedure:
Following an open Call and the submission of a position paper by each participant, the workshop was attended by the following colleagues from across Europe who work in and across various aspects of the fields of education and educational technology:
Elisabeth Adami, Verona
Graham Attwell, Pontydysgu
Ben Bachmair, Kassel
Jörgen Bang, Aarhus
Brenda Bannan, George Mason
Margit Böck, Salzburg
John Cook, London Met
Theo Hug, Innsbruck
Mark Kramer, Salzburg
Ambjörn Naeve, Stockholm
Norbert Pachler, WLE/IoE (convenor)
Christoph Pimmer, Basel
Maren Risch, Rhineland-Palatinate
Carl Smith, London Met
Daniel Spikol, Växjö
John Traxler, Wolverhampton

On the basis of the expressions of interest and position papers received, the following sub-themes were identified:· opening session (Pachler): mobile complex, socio-cultural transformation, ecology of mobile learning, user-generated/responsive contexts

• MyMobile project/didactic parameters (Bachmair, Risch)
• work-based learning (Pimmer, Attewell, Pachler)
• design challenges (Spikol, Bannan, Smith)
• content and augmented reality (Hug, Bang, Kramer)
• literacy (Cook, Adami, Boeck)
• sustainability (Traxler, Naeve)
• closing session (Pachler).

The workshop ran for two full days. Each theme was allocated between around 90 and 120 minutes and the participants allocated to a particular theme were invited to plan their session jointly in advance. All sessions involved some degree of input, discussion/group work/practical activity as well as a plenary phase.

Position papers and questions for discussion were made available in advance of the workshop on GoogleGroups as well as Cloudworks (cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/view/1926/cloud#cloudstream). During the workshop contributors' presentations were added and participants in Garmisch and beyond contributed to the discussion on Cloudworks as well as on Twitter.

Key messages from the workshop:
In terms of outcomes and key messages, it was interesting to note the interest the position papers attracted on Cloudworks, even prior to the start of the workshop.
The mixture of theory and practice was felt to have worked well and to have been fruitful particularly in view of a potential chasm developing between the research community and the policy and practitioner communities in the field of mobile learning.
The workshop underlined the importance of definitional clarity around key terminology, particular in the context of interdisciplinary work in an international context.
Mobile learning, the main focus of the workshop, can be seen to deal with complex issues, which benefit from an interdisciplinary approach. Despite interdisciplinarity adding complexity and this complexity needing to be managed sensitively, there exists a need for greater richness in the conceptual foundations of mobile learning; there is arguably a need to challenge the hegemony of education, psychology and computer science as the foundational disciplines of the mobile learning research community.
Some topics, such as sustainability, have proved to be multi-layered and the concurrent discussion of different layers during the workshopprovided fruitful insights into possible different framings of each given topic and issue.
The workshop showed that the key theoretical framework used at the event for illuminating the use of mobile learning – the LMLG's socio-cultural approach – has provided a useful lens and a shared vocabulary for analysis. At the same time it transpired that, in relation to some topics such as work-based learning, more work is required to align it and its theoretical underpinnings with established discourses in certain areas, such as WBL. Work-based mobile learning has to be embedded in the work-processes and current practices and not be designed as an extra layer. Structure in WBML is not only related to media platforms but also to organisational structures and focusing only on the first issue would be too narrow. Power-relationships are a central construct to be considered in WBML. And, the fact that businesses are orientated towards a productivity paradigm, rather than towards a learning paradigm, poses a particular challenge for WBML. A key question appears to be to what extent practices around mobile devices influence work-life balance.
The discussion around user-generated contexts demonstrated the complexity of the notion of context and how its different understandings are rooted in divers epistemological and ontological traditions.
The discussions around augmented reality brought to the fore a number of issues in particular around retention, perception and coherence as well as filtering and the need for criticality on the part of the user.
With respect to augmented contexts for development, the question arose whether Vygotskyan notions of perception / attention / temporality are a way forward and how these notions link in concrete terms to more academic / traditional views of ‘literacy’. And, what are the implications of for the emerging field of mobile augmented reality? Is it possible to replace the more capable peer in the zone of proximal development?
Synergies with design-based research were generally seen to offer considerable potential for the work of the LMLG and beyond. In particular, there emerged a strong sense of potential around the bringing together of a hermeneutic and critical historical approach to planning and analysis of teaching and learning, i.e. critical didactic, with the experimental, empirical evaluative approach offered by design research.
In terms of sustainability, the workshop concluded that much more still needs to be done in terms of understanding the complexity of the notion of sustainability. The discussion showed that there exists an important, and currently underexplored, ethical context to mobile learning, that is the context in which we connect with learners, composed in part of challenges such as sustainability, scalability (or transferability or replication), equity, inclusion, opportunity, embedding. It relates to a concern for the role of mobile learning for addressing forms of deprivation and disadvantage and informing the relevant policy environment.
Overall it can be noted that the discussions during the two days reiterated the need for a paradigm change in education to enable young people to deal with the implications of ongoing transformations.

Proceedings:
The proceedings of the workshop will be published as a Special Issue of the International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning guest edited by Norbert Pachler.

References:
Pachler, N., Bachmair, B. and Cook, J. (2010) Mobile learning: structures, agency, practices. New York: Springer

Norbert Pachler
London, December 2009

General:
The Alpine Rendez-Vous is organised within the framework of the STELLAR Network of Excellence (www.stellarnet.eu) by the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich. The LMLG workshop will take place from November 30 to December 1 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria.