Art imitates life

As I go about my daily life, I almost inherently keep finding ways in which the simplest tasks and activities relate to my research.

Technology has played an increasingly prominent role in my life. Even these words I am typing on my iPhone as I go for a walk as the sun sets on the last day of midsemester break. I feel our engagement with technology makes us increasingly more aware of the passage of time. More often we comment on the perception that time is ‘speeding up’. Perhaps it is the atemporal nature of the virtual world that squashes together the past, present and future into one ‘space’ that bears little resemblence to any fixed embodiments of these concepts.

Take for example the next two images. It is evident that the two photos were taken at the same place but that time has elapsed between the two captures. A logical assumption would be that one was taken in the morning and one was taken in the evening. An analysis of the metadata would indicate that this is true, but in fact they were also taken about two weeks apart.

 

The passage of time is indicated in the weather / light conditions that occurred in the physical world, also in the constructed virtual representation embedded into the digital file. For me. the two images represent the morning of the first day of the two week break and the evening of the last day of the break.What isn’t conveyed by the images is the experiences that took place over the two weeks, they simply mark the beginning and end points. Time is compressed through the images, giving no real representation of the past / present. Emotionally, I can look at the images and reflect on the experiences that took place between the two captures.

I recently spent a weekend in an environment where there was no cellphone coverage. Without this connection, the devices suddenly had very limited functionality. As a digital native, this is always a daunting prospect but in reality, I realised that I was here to interact with all the people I normally would online. I didn’t miss having the Internet.

To delve a bit deeper – and relate this to my research – I actually spent a weekend over the break participating in a succession of six immersive scenarios. Each consisted of a prewritten setting and scenario and each participant contributed to it by being dressed appropriately for their predetermined character. Participants came from all over new Zealand to the shared physical space within which we all interacted to create a suspension of disbelief and immerse ourselves in a pretend world for three hours at a time.

So it sounds a bit crazy but it’s call live action role playing and it’s not all that different from playing an online game. I love the collaborative opportunity that arises from being able to network people in different cities to create these games, come together in a shared physical space and act it out. It’s escapism but it’s also an incredible opportunity to actually meet people, something that online gaming doesn’t necessarily offer.

As we came slowly back to grips with reality, and sat around reminiscing over the high points of the weekend, I found myself thinking how incredible it was that I was able to travel halfway down the country and immediately have a large group of people that I have a connection to, established and maintained predominantly through virtual mediums? Surely such a concept has only become prominent in recent years with the advent of the Internet / email / mobile devices / social networking. Yet, it was still a huge feeling of sadness as I had to fly back to Auckland. Something about putting that tangible physical distance between us again still has a profound emotional effect.

How does this relate to my research? Despite struggling through the process of writing a literature review, there were some very worthwhile ideas that came out of it. The article I found the most interesting was ‘A Theory of Learning for the Mobile Age’ (Sharples, Taylor, & Vavoula, 2007). The authors discuss the relationship between technological era and educational practice. We live in an era characterized by mobility of people and knowledge, a world of global digital communication. The basic function of the mobile device is to facilitate communication, communication shares understanding. Learning is a conversation and the mobile device enables more of these conversations to take place.

I’ve been dancing around the big question for a while of ‘what is learning?’ and I am going to come back to that in more detail. Specifically relating this article to the previously outlined experience: with ‘learning’ in a loose sense, I am gaining skills from LARPing that I perhaps I might not have otherwise. Different ways of engaging and interacting with people, making costumes and props, the historical settings and cultures that influence a game. Even by being connected with more people, it opens up the opportunity to learn from whatever life experiences and knowledge they have to share.

‘Knowledge’ is no longer locatable to the classroom, delivered by a teacher. Knowledge is imparted from people, places and experiences. As the device enables us to be more mobile, knowledge too is mobile. We learn across time and space, we apply the knowledge to the different contexts we find ourselves in.

“By placing mobility of learning as the object of analysis we may understand better how knowledge and skills can be transferred across contexts such as home and school, how learning can be managed across life transitions, and how new technologies can be designed to support a society in which people on the move increasingly try to cram learning into the gaps of daily life.” (Sharples, Taylor, & Vavoula, 2007).

There was a feeling of irony as I was writing my literature review, that I was making an argument of how the current technological era offers new ways to learn and engage with content while I was struggling through what I felt was a very unenjoyable experience of conforming to the rigid academic format of the literature review.

I feel it is important to reflect on every day experiences as part of the overall, ongoing learning experience. Mobile technologies enable me to express these thoughts and experiences as I try ‘cram’ more into the gaps of life where I’d otherwise be idly twiddling my thumbs.

 

Academic versus creative

I will not hesitate to admit that I have been finding it challenging writing a literature review. I have never had a problem expressing my ideas, either orally or through writing, but when it comes to formal and academic writing, I suddenly hit a wall. I will also admit that I never did the final year of English in high school (by which point it was no longer compulsory). I feel I can generally write in such a way that I can coherently convey my ideas but suddenly I have the challenge of a ‘proper’ piece of academic writing.

This week I attended a short course offered by the university for ‘KEYS to academic writing success’ and it has been incredibly helpful in overcoming this barrier. Already it has enabled me to start thinking about deconstructing and reconstructing my research question in such a way that that it creates the entire structure for my literature review.

By looking at the different parts of a question and separating the instruction words, content words and context words, I was then able to formulate a brainstorm around the content words. I picked out ‘role’, ‘methods’ and ‘effectiveness’ as key themes to focus my discussions around. I tried piecing together more of these words to re-form my research question.

With all this in mind, created a ‘synthesis grid’ to group common themes from my readings. I was then able to go back and review my literature with fresh eyes. For the sake of being succinct and focused, I am narrowing my review back to three readings.

The course also provided a very useful structure of how to break down the content of a introduction, body paragraph and conclusion. Before even looking at the literature again, I outlined the entire structure of the entire review and each paragraph so I am feeling more confident in tackling it.

In some academic situations, it might be surprising to some that I have gotten this far without knowing how to properly write a piece of academic writing but it is probably more common within the creative industries. There is also the inherent difficulty in having to review and reference ‘academic’ texts where in new and emerging industries, sometimes those sources simply do not exist. I do feel a bit disadvantaged in this situation, suddenly having to grapple with a skill I have little experience with but at the same time, part of the nature of the bachelor of creative technologies degree is this ability to adapt more flexible learning styles and embrace new and emerging technologies. I think a lot more people are drawn to the course because of the more practical, experimental nature. I don’t feel like I was disadvantaged in anyway in regards to my practical skills and my knowledge, but now that I am in postgraduate level of study, I simply have to learn how to adapt and convey my knowledge in a different way.

It has helped me to have the ‘formula’ if you will of what is expected but I feel it is almost a restriction. Perhaps there are some aspects of education that will be slower to change as the institution still clings dearly to some of traditions.

Just for a change, here’s some traditional media in my elegant scrawl:

Quarter mark

The first quarter of honours degree is officially over (in terms of the academic calendar) and it is interesting to reflect back on what has been achieved over six weeks. Really the whole process began back in November laying the groundwork and starting to formulate the project to even be accepted into the honours degree but in terms of the first part of the academic term, I feel the biggest learning experience has actually been learning how to conduct research and even what research actually is. Though I feel my research question is still shifting, it has evolved a lot and a lot of learning has occurred through that process.

By the time I will have completed my literature review and start looking at methodologies, it will continue to formulate into something more succinct and focused. The end of term finished with an in-class presentation introducing chosen literature and the key points and conclusions with reflection back on the research question.

The feedback I got from this presentation suggested that I’d jumped ahead and started looking at methodologies rather than focusing on the literature itself, and that I was looking too broadly and still grappling with a lot of ideas within my research question.

The accompanying Prezi for my presentations can be found by clicking here.

The ideas that came out of my readings felt like they were in confirmation of my hunch that the current applications of mobile devices in education do not yet utilize their potential for enhanced learning outcomes. In an age where we are more mobile and globally connected, the mobile device is not yet utilized to reflect the changing paradigm.

In light of my readings, I realized that I be will approaching my research from a technology perspective rather than an education one. This perspective is informed by my experiences from my undergraduate degree that is grounded in software development with specific focus on iOS application development. With this background, I can look at how to utilize the platform as a whole in the context of education as I feel I have a greater understanding of the underlying systems of the device.
My experience working at the center for learning and teaching at AUT gives me the first hand experience of working with staff, departments and processes that are integrating the use of the iPad which is still very much an ongoing discussion and hands on learning experience.

I have an inherent understanding of a more constructivist learning style that has come through from my area of study in the Bachelor of Creative Technologies program. I realize that a lot of the systems the university is grappling to over come – i.e. the teacher at the front of the lecture hall delivering the content – is only that I haven’t actually experienced (in my tertiary education) so perhaps it is a bit easier for me to understand the role technology plays in facilitating the paradigm shift.

Within my identified area of research, there is the opportunity to develop a software product that fits in the gap of collaborative learning across time and space as enabled by the mobile device.

The aim is to shift the pedagogy, rather than reinvent the delivery methods. It is important to look at the technology and rather than ask, “how is this different from what came before it?” to instead ask, “what does this enable me to do that I haven’t done before?”

The next step is to formally write the literature review which I feel will be my first challenge in proper academic writing but enable me to frame my question in a more refined way by looking at the relevance to the greater context and field of ideas.

Collaboration

How can the [device] as a mediating [tool] to facilitate [learning] in virtual and atemporal space.

The key word I’ve been focusing on as a central point is collaboration. Using the word ‘learning’ in my research question is what leaves it still very open and broad. Instead, by replacing it with the words ‘collaboration’, it becomes more focused to a specific kind of learning.

Again, we are seeing a lot of relevant questions and research areas that arise but I’m begging to formulate these in more of a cohesive manner.

 

Beginning to look at literature, it is about gaining an understanding of what already exists in the field and where my work fits in. My three key texts which I am looking at for my literature I have selected around the following areas:

• The role of the iPad in promoting student engagement in tertiary education (device focused)
• Blended Learning methods as the best of ‘both worlds’.  (pedagogy focused)
• Conceptions and approaches of virtual learning environments. ( software focused)

Initial thoughts:

• My research is coming from the perspective that the device removes reliance on space and time and how can the atemporal nature of the device be utilized.
• Existing literature seems to suggest that there are no immediate advantages to student learning experience.
• Existing case studies focus on using the new technology for content creation and delivery – simply shifting the learning and teaching content to a different medium, doesn’t shift the pedagogy.
• in regards to the iPad, ultimately the device has only been in existence for two years. I feel it is relevant to focus on for my research not just because of the device itself, but the platform needs to be looked at as a whole and the systems Apple puts behind it. e.g.
  –  iBooks author is going to do with book publishing what it did with musics – shift the entire business model and paradigm.
  –   iTunes U – What are the implications of being able to access university lectures and getting an ‘education’ without the building and the official qualification?
• Though the device is a good way to encourage engagement with students who might otherwise be uninterested by traditional presentation methods, it is important not to get caught up in the novelty of it.
• We are more accustomed to be social and collaborative in virtual spaces.
• Shift in thinking over time – not about the individual student but about the collective  and the learning experience
• My research is relevant to nz in general because there are a lot of rural areas which can make tertiary level education a challenge as a result of physical distance?

Research aims to addresses any gaps in the current field of knowledge – currently I am seeing potential in exploring how the collaboration potential of the device can truly be harnessed, going beyond simple translation and consumption of content as a means of learning, but rather a vehicle for the learning that occurs through facilitating collaboration.