Instructional Designers Conducting Professional Learning Using Social Media: A Phenomenological Study of Their Experiences Through a Self-regulated Learning Lens

Because the instructional design and technology field is dynamic (Sharif & Cho, 2015; Wang et al., 2021), instructional designers need to pursue continuous, just-in-time professional learning (Carliner, 2018) to improve knowledge, skills, and abilities (Sharif & Cho, 2015; Ritzhaupt & Martin, 2015), without being constrained by location, budget, and time (Muljana et al., 2020; Muljana et al., 2021). On the one hand, the omnipresent social media technologies offer affordances for facilitating this type of professional learning. Such technologies allow instructional designers to reach out to colleagues, search for ready-to-implement strategies, and find relevant, timely information. On the other hand, conducting continuous learning requires proactive and strategic planning, in which self-regulated learning (SRL) plays a role. Unfortunately, not all working professionals are aware of the strategies to develop SRL skills. In addition, using social media may be perceived as a learning distraction. A call for an in-depth exploration of intersecting instructional designers’ continuous professional learning, social media, and SRL emerges to address such challenges. This qualitative study is aimed to explore instructional designers’ SRL experiences conducting professional learning using social media. Three research questions guide this study: (1) How were instructional designers’ SRL experiences conducting professional learning in a social media environment? (2) How did instructional designers support their SRL by using social media? (3) What challenges did instructional designers experience when conducting professional learning using social media? These questions are addressed through a phenomenological study that employs semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis using multiple coding approaches. The findings suggest that an application of SRL seems to occur while instructional designers use social media for professional learning (e.g., through determining the sources of motivation, setting proximal goals and strategic plans, seeking help, trying the strategies offered by colleagues, an adaptation of strategies, and open-minded attitudes during self-reflection activities). Additionally, there appears to be a gradual development of SRL skills while instructional designers interact in social media environments. They also encounter challenges, but some challenges can potentially be overcome by applying SRL strategies. Discussion and implications inform (a) instructional designers who pursue continuous professional development, (b) educational programs and instructors who educate prospective instructional designers regarding ways to promote relevant skills by scaffolding SRL skills and considering social media-supported learning, and (c) employers and those with supervisory roles who support employee’s just-in-time learning

Located Lexicon: a project that explores how user generated content describes place

This extended conference paper explores the use and potential of location data in social media contexts. The research involved a series of experiments undertaken to assess the extent to which location information is present in exchanges, directly or indirectly. A prototype application was designed to exploit the insight obtained from the data-gathering experiments. This enabled us to develop a method and toolkit for searching, extracting and visualising mass-generated data for open source use. Ultimately, we were able to generate insights into data quality and ‘scale of query’ for emerging pedagogical research in learning swarms and distributed learners

“Only if you were in my shoes, you'd see it the way I do!” Reflecting on Professional Identity and Improving Design Practice: An Autoethnographic Phenomenological Study of Disabled Residents in Second Life

ABSTRACT Reflecting on professional identity and improving design practice: An autoethnographic phenomenological study of disabled residents in Second Life Antonia Tzemopoulos, Ph.D. Concordia University, 2015 A limited number of studies have examined e-learning environments for people with disabilities. Essentially, these studies place emphasis on descriptions pertaining to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards and highlight interface design theory. Much has been said regarding interface design but little has been said regarding the interrelationship between the virtual environment, user emotions and the disabled learner. As spaces of learning are changing, going from the once traditional classroom environment to that of the virtual space, there is a growing need to understand how people with disabilities feel within the “pixelated” environment, thus allowing instructional designers to obtain a better understanding of what is a “good design” for people with disabilities. Virtual environments allow people with disabilities to participate in activities which would not be possible in real life, exploring regions that are bound by diverse aesthetical experiences, various stimuli and sociality. However, a number of questions still remain unanswered and can equally contribute to the improvement of the instructional design practice while fostering the idea of “doing good” for the disabled user. In this study, which extended over a period of one year, research was conducted on adults with various real life disabilities (visible or non-visible) who are active residents within Second Life, a 3D online environment. The researcher, also a resident of Second Life, had an opportunity to interact with members of Virtual Ability Island, an online environment that enables users with a wide variety of disabilities to obtain support, access to health information and develop mastery of navigation of the online world using different tutorials. Resulting from her multiple visits, friendships emerged prior to commencing the research journey. Reflecting as a researcher, she sheds light on some of the challenges she encountered during the research process and how interacting with people from Virtual Ability Island altered her perception of the meaning “designing for people with disabilities”. The methodology used is unique: a fusion of autoethnography, phenomenology, and narrative research combined with Tillmann-Healy’s Friendship as a Method. Using reflective journaling, casual conversations, field notes and virtual snapshots, the researcher’s thoughts parallel those of the disabled residents of the Second Life community. The Virtual Ability Island residents took the researcher on a visual, emotional and textual journey, sharing their experiences of Second Life. Although, the purpose of this study was intended to create dialogue, as well as evoke emotions, the underlying purpose was to demonstrate that alternative research methods can be considered as professional tools. These tools highlight active listening, emphasize ethical reasoning, and encourage critical self-reflection, while focusing on empathy, compassion and relationship building with the participant(s). They also aid in the interaction and gathering of data from people with disabilities in virtual environments such as Second Life

Virtualizing the Teacher: The Lived Experience of Teaching within Technology

This research seeks to heighten pedagogical understanding of the lived experience of teachers who teach online using computer technology. Philosophically based and grounded in hermeneutic phenomenology, it explores the question: What is the lived experience of teaching with/in technology? Using van Manen's Researching Lived Experience (2003) as guide, the researcher seeks to discover existential themes revealed through hermeneutic methodology, a pedagogically grounded research approach to human science research and writing with a focus on lived experience. This research is rendered phenomenological through philosophical texts by Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Emmanuel Levinas, Gaston Bachelard, Edward Casey, and Don Ihde. For a period of eight months in the fall of 2006 and spring of 2007, six teachers from different continents engaged in multiple, in-depth conversations with the researcher about their experiences as online teachers in multiple online programs. The conversations were text-based and took place in an online forum characterized as a discussion board. The conversational text, additional personal reflections, related literature, and philosophic writings intertwine to create a textual interpretation of this experience. Using the metaphor of knots, the researcher explores themes of presence in distance, presence in text, interface presence, teaching identity, the virtual classroom as place, and the role of imagination and flow in unraveling some of the paradoxes of teaching online. The research makes recommendations for preparing teachers for online teaching and for the development of policies relating to course design, interface design, and teaching practices. Pedagogical insights include the effects of teaching with technology on several aspects of online teaching: marginalization of contingent online teachers, technical interests related to virtual curricula, online text, teaching memory, and signature and interface pedagogies. A phenomenological rendering of Moore's (2007) theory of transactional distance explores teacher presence in distance. The researcher offers suggestions for future phenomenological research to explore the meaning of the experiences of contingent teachers, the "best practices" approach to teacher preparation programs, standardized course development models, and media/mediated and non-media/non-mediated teaching identities

Young girls' lived experiences of 'going online': an exploration into the relationships between social media use and well-being for primary age girls

In our digital age, with the creation of online social groups, individuals are constructing their identities in different ways. This ‘convergence culture’ maps a new territory where consumers can manipulate this online media in offline and real-time spaces. There has never been a more recordable or observable ‘looking-glass’ than that of social media, whereby all utterances that are sent out online are put forward for a reaction (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2011). This thesis explores how past (Goffman, 1959; Marcia, 1966) and present (Brook et al., 2008; Urrieta, 2007) theories of identity, as either a fixed or fluid entity, are reflected in contemporary social media practices that young girls aged eight to eleven, from a London primary school, choose to participate in. This thesis investigates how interactions in both the online and offline ‘figured worlds’ (Holland et al., 1998) of blogs influence children’s identity formation as they ‘figure’ out who they are at this pre-adolescent stage. This thesis adopts a mixed methods approach, combining interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) of interviews with thematic, dialogic analysis of written blog posts and a dialogic discourse analysis of questionnaires. These data offer valuable insight into young girls’ perceptions, pressures and motivations behind using or avoiding platforms the Internet has to offer. This thesis has a particular focus on blogging and the opportunity for online communication on blogs. This thesis adds to the limited UK research on social media, blogging, and identity, both perceived and performed by children; we already know about studies providing statistical evidence around screen time and popular apps, but this thesis reveals in-depth and personal reported and lived experiences of six young girls behind these figures. Findings for this sample show that three key motivations for using blogs are (a) connecting with others, (b) sharing feelings and experiences and (c) learning from others and helping others to learn. This thesis highlights the ways in which identities can be seen to be ‘informed’, ‘affirmed’, and ‘stabilised’ within the dynamic nature of identity, and, through this, how agency can be achieved. When other members of the online community positively greet online performances, in both the closed blogging platform within this study or other various contexts, this affirmation can inspire creativity, future-orientation and ambition in the individuals concerned

Perception of Social Media as Seen by Educational Leadership Online Graduate Students

The purpose of this phenomenological study is to understand student perceptions of social media as they relate to the programs of study for online graduate students participating in an educational leadership department (hereafter referred to as EDLR) in Tennessee. As institutions of higher education are being affected by declining enrollments, increasing tuition, rising numbers of nontraditional students, global events, and continuing budget cuts, understanding student perception of the educational experience is a fundamental element for understanding ways to address the uncertain future of higher education. Through a series of in-depth interviews, data were collected and analyzed to provide a framework of understanding for that question. This study explores social media usage by online graduate students enrolled in the EDLR program at a Tennessee university. Some of the key findings that the data illustrate are that the perception of paucity by EDLR in its social media affects student perceptions of inclusion and community. Participants may not be actively engaging in social media; they are often aware of it and many explain that they use social media outlets to keep abreast of class activities and each other. Participants also felt that online learning resources are more like prescribed assignments and lack the needed freedoms for open communication and social media did not invade their personal space

Social Networking for Adddressing Teacher Isolation: A Phenomenographic Inquiry

Abstract Given the recalcitrant effects of isolation and individualism and the barriers to organizational change, the purpose of this study is to put theory into practice by creating a social network for connecting in-service teachers, pre-service teachers and university faculty on one informal platform. Research has indicated a synergistic relationship between professional learning community development and technology integration, (Dexter, Seashore, & Anderson, 2002; Williams, Atkinson, Cate & O’Hair, 2008) and these components have been found to be mutually influential in the support of systemic school change and improved student success; however, the investment of billions of dollars in educational technology has yielded mixed results in terms of impact on teacher isolation. To reveal initiatives that contribute to the development and sustainability of a systemic change process, a closer examination of a new, enhancing experience that includes various stages of teacher development is warranted. This perspective-seeking study monitors individual support within a social network. This study employs a phenomenographical design in order to more fully understand the lived experiences of twenty teachers in their use of online social network as well as teacher perceptions of the effects of the online community to overcome isolation. In creating a meta-network of professional learning communities, a culture was established and the lived experiences of the phenomenon were generated. From the data, five categories emerged as the collective lived experiences of the participants: affinity space, professional growth, outside expertise, discourse and collaboration. The five identified categories were classified into a hierarchy and relationships among and between the categories were identified. The outcome space identified the categories as a product of the lived experience but isolation was identified as the rationale for participation. The participants who self-identified as isolated were the most participatory in the online setting. This study identified ways to develop, strengthen, and extend professional learning communities beyond the constraints of time and place and have important implications on professional development, movements in reform and the development of new communicative technologies and their application to teaching and learning

Building a virtual classroom : an education environment for the internet generation

This thesis examines the provision of learning environments that enable people to participate in high-quality learning experiences without physically travelling to classrooms and classes. New technologies enable the asynchronous web currently based on text, images, and video, to be extended to facilitate multi-channel synchronous communications. There is significant potential to enhance learning using the 3D worlds used for interactive gaming, populated by avatars representing the participants, and chat systems using text and audio channels. The purpose of this study was to investigate the development and use of 3D web-based learning environments. Staff and students from an Information Technology degree programme at one New Zealand Polytechnic participated in the study. The design and use of 3D web-based learning environments were integrated into one paper over six years. Data were collected from the teachers of this paper and the programme in which it was embedded.A survey instrument was used to collect data, along with artefacts from the software design and development plus the web-based environments created. Computer logs, and records of chat sessions were collected to enable analysis of the activities that took place in the new learning environments. Follow-up interviews were conducted with a sample of students after the completion of their study. Analysis of these data included collations of statistically significant relationships between environmental factors and the design features of the 3D web-based environments created. Results indicate that the 3D web-based environments were well received by the students and show significant potential for the future provision of learning environments. The technology has no negative impact on students’ perception of their learning environment; however, it did not have the expected positive impact on their communications with peers or teaching staff. This research suggests directions for the future development and application of 3D webbased technologies to fully enable their potential to be achieved in educational learning environments