The impact of social media on informal learning in museums

This paper posits that social networking can take a central role in learning in informal environments such as museums, libraries and galleries. It argues that social media offers young people agency previously unavailable in informal learning environments in order to explore complex responses to and participation with cultural content. The paper will consider transformations in digital literacy and the processes by which young learners can connect with knowledge in informal learning environments to become active cultural participants.

Die Wirkung sozialer Medien auf informelle Bildung in Museen

Dieses Papier postuliert, dass soziale Vernetzung eine zentrale Rolle im Lernen in informellen Umgebungen wie Museen, Bibliotheken und Galerien annehmen kann. Es behauptet, dass soziale Medien jungen Leuten als Agentur in informellen Lernumgebungen dienen können, die zuvor nicht verfügbar sind, um komplexe Antworten zu erkunden und Beteiligung mit kulturellem Inhalt zu erkennen. Die Autoren betrachten Transformationen in digitalen Fähigkeiten und den Prozessen, durch die junge Anfänger sich mit Wissen in anderen informellen Bildungsumgebungen verbinden können, um aktive kulturelle Teilnehmer zu werden.

L’impact des medias “sociaux” sur l’apprentissage informel dans les musées

Le présent article affirme que la mise en réseau humain peut jouer un rôle central pour l’apprentissage dans des environnements informels comme les musées,les bibliothèques et les galeries. Il avance que les medias “sociaux” offrent aux jeunes des moyens qui n’existaient pas auparavant dans les environnemetns d’apprentissage informels pour permettre d’explorer des réactions complexes et d’interagir avec le contexte culturel. Les auteurs examinent les mutations de la compétence numérique et les processus par lesquels les jeunes apprenants peuvent se brancher sur la connaissance dans des environnements d’apprentissage informels pour devenir des acteurs culturels dynamiques.

El impacto de los medios colectivos sobre el aprendizaje informal en los museos

Esta artículo postula que la creación de redes humanas puede desempeñar un papel central para el aprendizaje en entornos informales como los museos, las bibliotecas y las galerías. Apunta que los medios sociales ofrecen a los jovenes capacidades que antes no estaban asequibles dentro de los entornos de aprendizaje informal para explorar las respuestas complejas y interagir con el contexto cultural. Los autores consideran las transformaciones en el alfabetismo digital y los procesos a través de los cuales los jovenes alumnos pueden conectarse con los conocimientos dentro de esos entornos informales de aprendizaje para convertirse en actores culturales dinámicos.     

In defence of writing: a social semiotic perspective on digital media,literacy and learning

From a learning perspective, social semiotics researchers tend to focus on the liberation latent in the multimedia options available through the new media. It is true that digital media democratise the possibilities open to the general public of a more varied and comprehensive text production than ever before, both in and outside school. Participating in this text production naturally implies a richer potential for learning. But digital technology also allows us to opt out of, and thus avoid, semiotic work. With this as the starting point, the present article sets out to highlight the pedagogical benefits associated with the written mode, precisely in an age when the digital media are making multimodal forms of expression increasingly available to us all.     

Investigating the relationships between informal learning and player involvement in digital games

In the last few years, digital games have become increasingly popular with both ‘hardcore’ and ‘casual’ audiences. At the same time, it has been argued that games can be powerful learning environments, since they are seen to encourage active and critical learning through participation in affinity groups and semiotic domains but there is a need for further empirical evidence to explore how this participation occurs and how prevalent it actually is. In addition the effectiveness of games within education indicates mixed results, though it has been suggested that this may indicate that learning through immersive worlds involves a more complex understanding of learning, one that is not so easy to tie to specified learning outcomes. It would seem the area would benefit from research that seeks to develop our understanding of how player involvement and learning come together in this context. This paper presents the preliminary results of a survey carried out in order to explore these issues. The initial findings suggest that how a player identifies as a gamer relates to what they think they gain from their gaming experiences with respect to learning.     

Reconceptualising critical digital literacy

While it has proved a useful concept during the past 20 years, the notion of ‘critical digital literacy’ requires rethinking in light of the fast-changing nature of young people's digital practices. This paper contrasts long-established notions of ‘critical digital literacy’ (based primarily around the critical consumption of digital forms) with the recent turn towards ‘digital design literacy’ (based around the production of digital forms). In doing so, three challenges emerge for the continued relevance of critical digital literacy: (1) the challenge of critiquing the ideological concerns with the digital without alienating the individual's personal affective response; (2) connecting collective concerns to do with social and educational inequalities to individual practices; and (3) cultivating a critical disposition in a context in which technical proficiency is prioritised. The paper then concludes by suggesting a model of ‘critical digital design’, offering a framework that might bridge the divide between critical literacy models and the more recent design-based literacy models.     

New concepts of play and the problem of technology,digital media and popular-culture integration with play-based learning in early childhood education

Technology, digital media and popular culture form an important aspect of young children’s life-worlds in contemporary post-industrial societies. A problem for early childhood educators is how to most effectively integrate these aspects of children’s life-worlds into the provision of play-based learning. Traditionally, research has considered barriers to teacher uptake of technologies in the early years, or teacher beliefs and attitudes about using technologies with young children. An alternative perspective focuses on children’s play as the foundation for early childhood curriculum provision and argues that what is needed instead are ‘new’ concepts of play more appropriate for explaining children’s contemporary play experiences in post-industrial societies. This article examines the influence of a new concept of play called ‘web-mapping’ on teachers’ curriculum practices in early childhood education, and finds that, according to Vygotsky’s ideas about explicit and implicit mediation, new concepts of play are likely to provide a fruitful avenue for addressing the ‘problem’ of technology, digital media and popular-culture integration in early childhood education.     

The building blocks of digital media literacy: socio-material participation and the production of media knowledge

This article outlines the knowledge and skills students develop when they engage in digital media production and analysis in school settings. The metaphor of ‘digital building blocks’ is used to describe the material practices, conceptual understandings and production of knowledge that lead to the development of digital media literacy. The article argues that the two established approaches to media literacy education, critical reading and media production, do not adequately explain how students develop media knowledge. It suggests there has been too little focus on material practices and how these relate to the development of conceptual understanding in media learning. The article explores empirical evidence from a four-year investigation in a primary school in Queensland, Australia using actor–network theory to explore ‘moments of translation’ as students deploy technologies and concepts to materially participate in digital culture. A generative model of media learning is presented with four categories of building blocks that isolate the specific skills and knowledge that can be taught and learnt to promote participation in digital media contexts: digital materials, conceptual understandings, media production and media analysis. The final section of the article makes initial comments on how the model might become the basis for curriculum development in schools and argues that further empirical research needs to occur to confirm the model’s utility.     

Addressing the complexities of literacy and urban teaching in the USA: strategic professional development as intervention

This study was undertaken in order to get some sense of the role of life experiences in preservice and inservice teachers' conceptions of the purpose(s) and practices of education. Content analysis of narratives written by graduate students in education at one college was utilized to ascertain how they view the field and their (current or prospective) role as teachers. We found that the majority of students saw teaching as an opportunity to make a difference, and as reflective of who they were rather than as "just a job". This finding provided the opportunity to address the strengths and vulnerabilities of such an idealistic conception of teaching, and the corresponding possibilities vis-à-vis teacher educators' roles. We conclude by noting the study's limitations and making several recommendations for future action and research based on our findings.     

From digital native to digital apprentice. A case study of the transmedia skills and informal learning strategies of adolescents in Spain

ABSTRACT

This article presents the results of the Spanish context of a study carried out with adolescents within the Transmedia Literacy project (European Union). The aim of the article is to identify the transmedia skills that teenagers have and the informal learning strategies carried out to acquire them. The results show that teenagers have different transmedia skills, but they have them to very varying degrees. Their acquisition of these skills is conditioned by their motivations, attitudes and their context. YouTube is a key source of information and learning of transmedia skills among the Spanish adolescents of the study. The study findings show that young people rely mostly on ‘imitation’ and ‘learning by teaching’ strategies to learn new skills. Based on these results the myth of the digital native is deconstructed and the concept of ‘digital apprentice’ is considered.     

Digital natives and digital media in the college classroom: assignment design and impacts on student learning

The use of multimodal learning techniques is becoming more widespread, however, the pedagogical discourse surrounding its implementation into classroom and course design is complicated as these technologies are either demonized or viewed as the panacea for curriculum ills. Educators are faced with unique challenges when investigating how to experiment with the best ways to produce classroom experiences that use digital media. This case study examines the implementation challenges and learning outcomes related to such an experiment by reviewing and assessing the use of digital media in a health communication course, specifically through the development of documentaries. Creating an effective assignment requires addressing the development of technical skills along with course content and providing guidance and feedback throughout a semester-long project. Creating an effective assignment is pointless without sufficient learning outcomes. Because this assignment engaged students with both the course content and digital media, their learning experiences were enhanced and improved their group collaboration, critical thinking and media literacy skills.     

Learning to engage: how positive attitudes about the news,media literacy,and video production contribute to adolescent civic engagement

Many students enroll in video production courses in high school as part of a vocational, career, or technical program. While there has been an explosion of scholarly work in digital literacy in informal settings, less is known about how digital and media literacy competencies are developed through school-based video production courses. This study explores the relationship between civic engagement and the various multimedia instructional practices used in a high school video production course with a single-school convenience sample and an ethnically diverse population of students. Findings reveal that the best predictors of the intent to participate in civic engagement are having positive attitudes about news, current events, reporting, and journalism. Media literacy attitudes and a range of in-classroom learning experiences with video production are also associated with civic engagement.     

Digital literacy,fake news and education / Alfabetización digital,fake news y educación

Abstract

The role of digital literacy in strengthening citizens’ resilience to misinformation and ‘fake news’ has been the subject of research projects and networking and academic and policy discourses in recent years, given prominence by an escalation of the perceived crisis following election and referendum results in the US and UK respectively. This special issue sets out to take forward critical dialogue in the field of media and digital literacy education by publishing rigorous research on the subject. The research disseminated in this collection speaks to the political and economic contexts for ‘fake news’, the complex issue of trust and the risks of educational solutionism; questions of definition and policy implementation; teaching about specific subgenres such as YouTube and clickbait; international comparisons of pedagogic approaches and challenges for teachers in this changing ecosystem.     

新时代的批判媒介和文化研究

本文从历史的角度分析了批评性媒介素养在不同历史阶段的关注重点,并辅以事例着重阐释了如何利用分析方法使批判性素养的理论与实践相结合,从而提高学生的批判性媒介素养,特别是随着多种新媒体的出现,更需要在文化研究的关照下关注新的媒介素养问题。     

论新媒体环境下高校图书馆的媒介素养教育

进入21世纪,新媒体的蓬勃发展要求当代大学生具备相应的新媒体素养。面对当前大学生新媒体素养普遍缺乏的现状,作为高校三大支柱之一的高校图书馆,可以通过建立新媒介素养阅览室、设置媒介素养课程体系和举办媒介素养教育的实践活动等做出自己的贡献。     

A cautionary tale: digital resources in literacy classrooms

ABSTRACT

Supportive digital resources are key to supporting educators’ pedagogic practices in teaching children to be literate. But locating suitable resources can be confusing, with as claims about products being educational, aligned with curriculum outcomes, and even as ‘silver bullets’. In Australia, a lack of specificity in national and state curriculum guidelines about resource selection creates inconsistencies within and across schools. We investigate how teacher-selected digital resources are used in early childhood classrooms to support literacy learning. Drawing on three independent Australian classroom-based studies, we share three examples of children engaging with digital resources. Together, they show that not all digital resources promote active and engaged literacy learning in meaningful and socially interactive contexts. We propose principles for selecting digital resources to promote playful, scaffolded, and exploratory literacy learning.     

自我决定学习教育学与数字媒体网络:引领学生踏上终身学习之旅

以学习者为中心的教学和泛在技术在课堂上的使用相结合,这种趋势给教师提供了支持学生掌握终身学习技能的独一无二机会。自我决定学习教育学(也称为"自我决定学习")则为如何利用这些发展趋势提供了一个很有应用前景的框架,因为它是建立在非常强调学习者自主的公认教育理论基础上的。自我决定学习教育学的主要原则包括学习者能动性、自我效能感和才能、反思和元认知,以及非线性学习。这些原则是设计和发展学习生态的基础,而数字媒体的使用则能够进一步使学习生态潜能得到最大限度发挥。本文介绍了自我决定学习教育学理论和这个理论赖以建立的以学习者为中心的各种教育理论,阐述普通教育学-成人教育学-自我决定学习教育学(PAH)这个渐变过程以及如何利用其培养学生技能。文章还探讨了社交媒体在支持培养这些技能上的作用。     

On the determinants of employment-related organised education and informal learning

This paper analyses the distribution of employment-related organised education and informal learning in the Canadian workforce. The paper draws on a large-scale survey, the Changing Nature of Work and Lifelong Learning (WALL), which was based on structured and standardised telephone interviews with a representative sample of 5783 Canadian members of the employed labour force. In exploring the determinants facilitating employment-related informal learning, three analytical categories of factors derived from previous research on learning participation were used: individual-level factors, job characteristics and workplace environment. The analyses focus on differences in individuals, jobs and workplace characteristics among adult workers who acquired or improved their job-related skills through different training pathways. In addition, analyses were performed to compare the extent to which these factors differ in their influence on learning decisions among workers who combine both organised education and informal learning and those who receive only informal learning. The results indicate that important predictors of participation in employment-related organised education and informal learning are age, educational attainment, learning skills, occupational class, education-job relation, degree of autonomy, degree of labour intensity, principal area of production and organisation size.     

Multimodal literacy learning opportunities within a grade six classroom literacy curriculum: constraints and enablers

This case study of a grade six classroom literacy curriculum in Ontario, Canada was designed to produce new knowledge of how curricula can promote multimodal literacy learning opportunities for students. With a focus on constraints and enablers, the study found few opportunities for multimodal literacy learning due to standardised assessments, an outcomes-based programmatic curriculum with related standardised report card, and assessment-focused professional learning opportunities. Despite the print-centric nature of the curriculum, however, the study found that students did initiate their own multimodal opportunities. The study has implications for educators across the globe who are interested in expanding students’ literacies.     

New practices in doing academic development: Twitter as an informal learning space

Using social media platforms to build informal learning processes and social networks is significant in academic development practices within higher education. We present three vignettes illustrating academic practices occurring on Twitter to show that using social media is beneficial for building networks of academics, locally and globally, enhancing information flows, inspiring thinking, and motivating academic practice. Using a reflective and diffractive methodology, we illuminate how different flows of forces and relations are enacted. We argue it is in this fluidity of informal learning that perspectives are contested and shaped, and that academic developers can benefit by encompassing such practices.