Growing and learning in multidimensional surroundings. Open media and young people ‘knowledges’ and understandings

Author(s):

Juana M. Sancho-Gil(presenting / submitting)Adriana Ornellas Rios da Silva(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

06. Open Learning: Media, Environments and Cultures

Format:

Paper

Session Information

06 SES 04, Formal and Informal Learning of Young People in Mediatised Environments

Paper Session

Time:

2014-09-03

09:00-10:30

Room:

B109 Sala de Aulas

Chair:

Yngve Troye Nordkvelle

Contribution

Today, to the traditional dimensions (the real and the imaginary) of the world and the educative (or miseducative) experiences of children and young people, we should add the virtual one (Ito, Baumer, Bittanti et al., 2010 ; Leander, Phillips & Headrick, 2010; Sharpe, Beetham& De Freitas, 2010; Potter, 2012; Morrell, Dueñas, García & López, 2013). This raises a set of questions that educational researchers cannot possible miss.

What, how, where and with what and whom contemporary children and youth learn?
To which extend learning and experiences gained in the virtual spaces outside formal education help or interfere in what it should be learnt to pass formal education exams?
Are learnings, ‘knowledges’, skills and experiences gained inside and outside educational institutions complementary, supplementary, contradictory, restrictive….?
Are children and young people learning outside what it should be consider inside?

The continuous waves of digital developments, more natural for younger people as they are part of their surroundings, estranger for the older (Prensky, 2004), has led to study younger people and characterize them from increasingly smart to progressively stupid (Howe and Strauss, 2000; Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005; Boschma & Groe, 2006; Carr, 2011).

In our research project “Living and learning with new literacies inside and outside the secondary school: contributions to reduce truancy, exclusion and disaffection of young students” (MICINN- EDU2011-24122) we explore if there is a gap or otherwise between what the school believes that learning is (in general, listening to the teacher, making exercises and accounting for a reproductive test or exam) and how young people learn outside school when they build digital trading communities with colleagues and use new literacies.

Method

Evidences for this paper derive from the analyses of part of the data gathered in five ethnographic case studies carried out in five secondary schools. The innovative character of our approach lies in the decision to “train” students as ethnographers so that they could collect and analyse the required data together. In line with the objectives of the project and the interest of the young people, we developed five collaborative ethnographic studies which, although each group could produce its objectives and questions, were focused on the exploration of these questions: - How and with what do we communicate, express ourselves and learn inside and outside the school? - What connections, disconnections, complementarities or distances are there between learning inside and outside the school? In relation to the methods of collecting information, each school team (made up of secondary school students and school teachers and from the university) decided on and learnt the techniques that would enable them to progress in the ethnographic study. In brief, these would consist of: observations and self-observations, field logbooks, audiovisual documentation (photography, video, music, etc.), interviews and group discussion. Our research is not intended to be “about” young students, but “with" young students (Hernández, 2011). This process is being done from a reflexive perspective (Macbeth, 2001). Here, we assume a bricoleur position (Kincheloe; Berry, 2004) that implies that relationships are built using fragments – by creating an assemblage, weaving threads, enjoining parts – in an artisan fashion. From this foundation, we understand the methodology as a relationship that places special attention on how to contact and work with the young people involved in the research; and how to make this process compatible with the needs of a collaborative project. Our presentation will focus on the ‘knowledges’ and understandings (complementary/unrelated; connected/disconnected…) young people develop with and through open media.

Expected Outcomes

The aim of this research is to generate a complex picture of the continuities and discontinuities students find in their learning experiences, values and understandings when transiting between, in and outside school environments. Our research evidences that: • In school everything is more structured, is more preconfigured. Instead, everything is unpredictable in the "outside". • What they learn "inside" somehow help them understand the outside world, but what they learn outside in general is not incorporated into the ways of learning "inside". • Schools very seldom have students experiences, ‘knowledges’ and skills –specially digital competence, into account. • In school students learn things to pass the exams, but once they pass do not longer remember things they learned. • Students better remember what they learn more "out", because for them this learning is more significant, is more related to their experiences. • Schools are increasing the use of open media in the teaching and learning process, but students are still more considered as information receiver than as a producer of their own learning. On the other side, young people make extensive use of social networks outside the school, but do not see their potential educational use.

References

Boschma, J. & Groe, I.(2006). Generación Einstein: más listos, más rápidos y más sociales. Comunicarse con los jóvenes del siglo XXI. Resumen disponible en: http://www.anele.org/jornadas_tecnicas/generatie_einsteinspaans_jeroen.pdf Carr, N. (2011). The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. New York/London: W. W. Norton & Company. Carstens, A. y Beck, J.(2005).Get Ready for the Gamer Generation. TechTrends, 49(3), 22-25. Fisherkeller, J. (Ed.). (2011). International perspectives on youth media: cultures of production and education. New York: Peter Lang. Flanagin, A. J., Metzger, M., Hartsell, E., Markoc, A., Medders, R., Purem R. & Choi, E. (2010). Kids and credibility: an empirical examination of youth, digital media use, and information credibility. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Hernández, F. (Ed.) (2011). Investigar con los jóvenes: cuestiones temáticas, metodológicas, éticas y educativas. Barcelona: Dipòsit digital de la Universitat de Barcelona. http://hdl.handle.net/2445/17362 Hernández, F. (Ed.) (2011). Investigar con los jóvenes: cuestiones temáticas, metodológicas, éticas y educativas. Barcelona: Dipòsit digital de la Universitat de Barcelona. http://hdl.handle.net/2445/17362 Howe, N. y Strauss, W. (2000). Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation. New York: Vintage Original. Ito, M., Baumer, S., Bittanti, M., boyd, d., Cody, R., Herr-Stephenson, B., Horst, H.A., Lange, P.G., Mahendran, D., Martínez, K.Z., Pascoe, C. J., Perkel, D., Robinson, L., Sims, C., & Tripp, L. (2010). Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media. Cambridge: MIT Press Kincheloe, J.L. y Berry K.S. (2004). Rigour and Complexity in Educational Research. Conceptualizing the bricolage. Maindenhead, UK: Open University Press. Kincheloe, J.L. y Berry K.S. (2004). Rigour and Complexity in Educational Research. Conceptualizing the bricolage. Maindenhead, UK: Open University Press. KPMG InternatIonal (2014). KPMG’s Global Automotive Executive Survey 2014. Strategies for a fast-evolving market. Available at: http://www.kpmg.com/ES/es/ActualidadyNovedades/ArticulosyPublicaciones/Documents/2014-Global-Automotive-Executive-Survey.pdf (21/01/2014). Leander, K.M., Phillips, N.C. & Headrick Taylor, K. (2010). The Changing Social Spaces of Learning: Mapping New Mobilities. Review of Research in Education, 34, 329-394. Morrell, E., Dueñas, R., García, V. Lopez, J. (2013). Critical media pedagogy: teaching for achievement in city schools. New York: Teachers College Press. Oblinger, D. y Oblinger, J. L. (Eds.). (2005). Educating the Net Generation. Washington, DC: Educause. Prensky, M. (2004).The Emerging Online Life of the Digital Native: What they do differently because of technology, and how they do it. http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky-The_Emerging_Online_Life_of_the_Digital_Native-03.pdf. Recuperado el 15 de septiembre de 2010].

Author Information

Juana M. Sancho-Gil (presenting / submitting)

Universitat de Barcelona, Spain

Adriana Ornellas Rios da Silva (presenting)

Universidad de Barcelona

Didáctica y Organizaciñon Educativa

Barcelona

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