Digital Literacy Circulation: Adolescents and Flows of Knowledge about New Media

The aim of this paper is to discuss the output of an empirical research on digital skills in order to develop a typology of skills circulation among young digital users. Relying on research on digital literacy in media studies and on users in STS, in this article we start criticizing the concepts of \u201cdigital divide\u201d, \u201cdigital inequalities\u201d and \u201cdigital competencies\u201d. Then, we present the principal results of a research study involving 50 adolescents in Italy about how they acquired their competences in the use of digital media. This gave us the opportunity to focus on the digital skills of young people and the development of their abilities in using digital media. The research outlines the patterns of circulation in digital competences among young people in relation to family, school and peer group, defining four kinds of \u201cflows\u201d: parental flow (involving fathers and mothers), peer flow (connected to friends and people of the same age), educational flow (referring to formal education) and technological flow (involving technological devices, such as computers, laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc.). The aim is to understand the interactions between digital skills and the social, institutional and technological conditions that influence the youth\u2019s digital literacy for the everyday use of digital media

The genesis and development of mobile learning in Europe

In the past two decades, European researchers have conducted many significant mobile learning projects. The chapter explores how these projects have arisen and what each one has contributed, so as to show the driving forces and outcomes of European innovation in mobile learning. The authors identify context as a central construct in European researchers’ conceptualizations of mobile learning and examine theories of learning for the mobile world, based on physical, technological, conceptual, social and temporal mobility. The authors also examine the impacts of mobile learning research on educational practices and the implications for policy. Finally, they suggest future challenges for researchers, developers and policy makers in shaping the future of mobile learning

Innovation in Mobile Learning: A European Perspective

In the evolving landscape of mobile learning, European researchers have conducted significant mobile learning projects, representing a distinct perspective on mobile learning research and development. Our paper aims to explore how these projects have arisen, showing the driving forces of European innovation in mobile learning. We propose context as a central construct in mobile learning and examine theories of learning for the mobile world, based on physical, technological, conceptual, social and temporal mobility. We also examine the impacts of mobile learning research on educational practices and the implications for policy. Throughout, we identify lessons learnt from European experiences to date

The technological mediation of mathematics and its learning

This paper examines the extent to which mathematical knowledge, and its related pedagogy, is inextricably linked to the tools – physical, virtual, cultural – in which it is expressed. Our goal is to focus on a few exemplars of computational tools, and to describe with some illustrative examples, how mathematical meanings are shaped by their use. We begin with an appraisal of the role of digital technologies, and our rationale for focusing on them. We present four categories of digital tool-use that distinguish their differing potential to shape mathematical cognition. The four categories are: i. dynamic and graphical tools, ii. tools that outsource processing power, iii. new representational infrastructures, and iv. the implications of highbandwidth connectivity on the nature of mathematics activity. In conclusion, we draw out the implications of this analysis for mathematical epistemology and the mathematical meanings students develop. We also underline the central importance of design, both of the tools themselves and the activities in which they are embedded

Values-Based Network Leadership in an Interconnected World

This paper describes values-based network leadership conceptually aligned to systems science, principles of networks, moral and ethical development, and connectivism. Values-based network leadership places importance on a leader\u27s repertoire of skills for stewarding a culture of purpose and calling among distributed teams in a globally interconnected world. Values-based network leadership is applicable for any leader needing to align interdependent effort by networks of teams operating across virtual and physical environments to achieve a collective purpose. An open-learning ecosystem is also described to help leaders address the development of strengths associated with building trust and relationships across networks of teams, aligned under a higher purpose and calling, possessing moral fiber, resilient in the face of complexity, reflectively competent to adapt as interconnected efforts evolve and change within multicultural environments, and able to figure out new ways to do something never done before

Students, the Net Generation and Digital Natives:Accounting for Educational Change

This chapter examines a number of different terms and popularized accounts of young people who are now at the stage in their lives of engaging in university education across the world. Three of the more common terms that have been used to describe this cohort of young people are the Net generation (Tapscott 1998, 2009), Digital Natives (Prensky 2001; 2001a: 2009) and Millennials (Howe and Strauss 2000; Oblinger & Oblinger 2005). This chapter critically examines the argument, common to writers using both terms: that the existence of an environment infused with digital and networked technologies, combined with an active engagement in these new technologies, leads directly to a sharp generational break. The chapter goes on to examine the determinist nature of the argument and the way this has been related to one particular pedagogical approach; collaborative learning. It examines the wider social and technological context and in particular the ideas of networked individualism and networked sociality. Finally the chapter concludes by examining which aspects of the Digital Native and Net Generation arguments are worth taking forward and by identifying those aspects of the arguments that need to be abandoned

Towards an ontology of networked learning

Networked learning, conceived of as networks of people, informational resources and technologies, constitutes what has been termed a ‘highly interwined’ technology. In this paper we develop our earlier argument that sociotechnical networks can form the basis for a non-determinist theory of learning technology. Firstly, we argue that Kling et al’s sociotechnical interaction network (STIN) is compatible with a realist ontology, drawing on Fleetwood’s ‘ontology of the real’ and Lawson’s proposition of the social nature of the artefact in networks of ‘positioned practices’. This, we suggest, gives a more secure basis for the STIN concept, and provides a clear alternative to actor network theory (ANT)-based views of sociotechnical networks which do not distinguish between the influence of human and material agents. This also, we argue, provides an alternative way of anchoring concepts from the social informatics literature, often influenced by Giddens’ structuration theory, in ways that can help networked learning research. Secondly, we explore some potential implications of such an approach for theories of networked learning and learning more widely. In particular, we suggest a possible ontology of elements of learning technology. The use of the word ‘learning’ here is somewhat problematic, as it is routinely used rather loosely to describe changes at multiple levels but which are likely to have rather different underlying mechanisms. A more thorough ontology of learning technology would allow us to distinguish between these uses and identify potentially distinct mechanisms at play in different forms and levels of learning. Thirdly, we use this approach to explore how viewing learning technologies as sociotechnical networks helps to clarify our thinking about identities in social networking for personal, learning and professional purposes