JuxtaLearn D3.2 Performance Framework

This deliverable, D3.2, for Work Package 3 incorporating the pedagogy from WP2 and orchestration factors mapped in D3.1 reviews aspects of performance in the context of participative video making. It reviews literature on curiosity and engagement characteristics of interaction mechanisms for public displays and anticipates requirements for social network analysis of relevant public videos from WP6 task 6.3. Thus, to support JuxtaLearn performance it proposes a reflective performance framework that encompasses the material environment and objects required, the participants, and the knowledge needed

Learning, digital technologies, and sociomaterial approaches:A critical reflection from the perspective of materialist dialectics

In this article, I attempt to critically reflect on sociomaterial approaches to learning, especially as it is conducted with digital technologies. By pursuing detailed ethnographic case studies, these approaches argue for the active character of digital technologies in the constitution of learning. More specifically, digital technologies are treated in this paradigm as co-participants—along with humans—in the formation of learning practices. Despite their invaluable empirical insights, I suggest that these approaches do not adequately emphasize the transformative potential of learners and do not conceptualize learning from the perspective of human development. In addition, I propose that, apart from empirically based research, which is the preferred mode of research of sociomaterial approaches, there is also a need for categorical thinking to conceptualize the mediation of learning by digital technologies. In my critical reflection, I draw on scholars working in the traditions of cultural-historical theory and activity theory, and on materialist dialectics more generally

Supporting novice designers design of digital touch

Digitally mediated touch is an emerging and significant area for technology and therefore for design and design education. However, the design of digital touch is a challenge, especially for novice designers, compounded by low awareness and understanding of the sociality of touch and the complexity of communicating felt sensations. This paper presents a qualitative study of a two-part educational intervention on the design of digital touch using a design-based research methodology. Findings are presented and discussed on the design challenges faced by novice designers in relation to touch and digital touch (the focus of part one of the intervention) and the development and piloting of the Designing Digital Touch (DDT) toolkit (the outcome of part two). The paper discusses how the toolkit can be used to foster and support novice designers to respond to the future facing complexity of digital touch design

Online education and the COVID-19 outbreak: A case study of online teaching during lockdown

The COVID-19 pandemic has become a critical challenge for the higher education sector. Exploring the capacity of this sector to adapt in the state of uncertainty has become more significant than ever. In this paper, we critically reflect on our experience of teaching urban design research methods online during the early COVID-19 lockdown in the UK. This is an exploratory case study with a qualitative approach with an aim to inform resilient practices of teaching in the face of public health emergencies. Drawing on the experience of teaching the Research Methods and Techniques subject during lockdown, we discuss the rapid transition from face-to-face to online teaching and point to the challenges and opportunities in relation to the learning and teaching activities, assessment and feedback, and digital platforms. This paper concludes by outlining some key considerations to inform the development of more adaptive and resilient approaches to online teaching in the context of unprecedented global health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that it is critical to move beyond fixed pedagogical frameworks to harness the productive capacities of adaptive teaching

Online education in the post COVID-19 era: students' perception and learning experience

Students’ learning experiences and perceptions are markedly influenced by the use of digital technology during the COVID-19 pandemic. Exploring students’ perception of blended online learning, amid the adaptations of the higher education sector in the wake of uncertainty, has become more critical than ever. This paper reflects on the experience of learning and teaching the Research Methods and Techniques subject in the postgraduate programme of MA Urban Design at Cardiff University during COVID-19 in the UK. To do so, we designed and carried out an online survey to explore students’ perception of online teaching and learning activities, feedback and assessment, and digital platforms based on their experience during the subject delivery period in the 2020–2021 academic year. One of the significant findings of this paper was that students agreed with the impact of eye contact on their virtual learning experience but as long as this was aligned with their rights to see others, including their peers and instructors, rather than reciprocal rights to be seen. In addition, students felt that facilitating synchronous communication through effective interaction among diverse peers has been quite challenging in small-group online reading seminars. The majority of respondents also reported that attending live online lectures was more helpful than watching pre-recorded lectures. Online formative feedback and synchronous interim reviews also allowed students to reflect on their progress and develop their projects further before their summative assessment. The outcomes of this paper can effectively assist educators who consider delivering programmes, adopting a blended online learning environment design model, in the post COVID-19 era. The findings of this study can also provide guidance for further developments and improvements in using digital technology and blended online learning in urban design education and pedagogy

Production of Third Spaces for Immigrant English Language Learners: (Re)Negotiating Identity and Discourse in the Secondary Classroom

This study explores theoretical and pedagogical implications of space, language, and power in renegotiating identity for immigrant English Language Learners (ELLs) in secondary schools in the United States. The primary research question explored in the study is: How does spoken and written language and discourse shape the production of third spaces for renegotiating immigrant student identity in the ELL writing classroom? I adopt an epistemological lens of space from a postmodern geographic perspective that contends that space is socially produced and is co-constituted by material, abstract and lived spaces. The theoretical framework draws on constructs of social space, space-time, and the chronotope propose reconsideration of third spaces for immigrant ELLs. The context of the study is an intermediate ELL writing classroom designed around immigrant students developing academic and critical literacy grounded in their lived spaces of immigration. The methodology employed combines ethnography of the classroom space with critical discourse analysis of critical spatial events that are analyzed as moments of spatial production. Ethnographic narrative of the classroom space, governed by guiding concepts of critical literacy and shared behavioral norms, centers on the focal immigration unit in which student immigration narratives provide overarching chronotopes of immigrant student identities. Analysis of classroom spatial production highlights tensions in social space that are mediated by language, discourse and communication surrounding immigrant identities. Transcript analysis of critical spatial events traces intersecting space-times at global, local and micro-local scales of classroom discourse. Findings from ethnographic case study of one immigrant Latino male, who aspires to become a hip hop DJ, illustrate how hip hop discourses frame the chronotope of immigration and represent a shared third space between the teacher and focal student. This study contributes new ideas in theory and research methods by operationalizing third spaces for immigrant ELL student. Implications also follow for curriculum and instruction rooted in lived spaces of experience and for critical reflective practice for educators

Taking great pains: critical theory, affective pedagogies and radical democracy

The consolidation of neoliberal capitalism over the past decade has been intense, as has the articulation of critical and creative responses to it. One of the most remarkable is the turn towards forms of political resistance that seek liberation from the logics of state and capital while – or through – simultaneously creating alternative, radically democratic modes of existence. Many of these draw on anarchistic and autonomist traditions of critical theory which assert the possibility of prefiguring alternative political projects as well as critiquing existing ones, thus appearing to transcend what Herbert Marcuse described as a ‘vicious circle’ of liberation (1964, 1967). We have thus seen a proliferation of work on problems of prefigurative politics, autonomy, co-operation and self-valorisation; significantly, there is renewed attention to pedagogy in critical theory and as a political practice. However, there is still little attention to the affective and social labour that this type of prefigurative theory and practice requires, or to the systemic critique of the conditions of possibility for it to constitute a challenge to neoliberalism. My concern is that these lacunae can lead to misinterpretations of the meaning of radical democracy and of its possibilities and limitations as a challenge to the logics of neoliberal capitalism and other forms of dehumanising power. In this paper, I draw on work with British-based cultural workers who are active in radical-democratic projects to illustrate how bringing practical work into conversation with critical theories of political subjectivity, on the one hand, and theories of affective pedagogy and politics, on the other, can contribute to strengthening both theories and practices of radical democracy

Rewriting Web 2.0 Discourses of the Local for Socio-Spatial Literacy Theory

This dissertation seeks to provide a framework for engaging with two spatial concepts that have been foundational to theorizing literacy across time but have often been taken for granted as passive backdrops to the social action of literacy practice: the notions of “the local” and “the global.” By interrogating the histories, both past and ongoing, of these two spatial concepts as they are interwoven into the sociocultural paradigm of literacy theory, research, and pedagogy, this project identifies new ways that literacy researchers and educators can attend to spatial concepts so as to promote and encourage literacy research and learning that cultivates critical spatial perspectives at the nexus of “real-world” spatial realities and the new spatial dynamics created by Web 2.0 applications. This work considers how ongoing conversations in popular culture, public discourse, and literacy theory and research have shaped understandings of familiar spatial concepts—specifically, the notions of “the local” and “the global”—as they are involved in people’s and organizations’ discursive and literacy practices. Using the examples of the discursive texts created by three local food organizations (LFOs) on Web 2.0 applications (specifically, interactive websites, blogs, and social media platforms), the integrated conceptual framing of social, spatial, and digital perspectives on discourse, rhetoric, and literacy is applied to analyze the ways in which each LFO projects a counternarrative to dominant discursive constructions of “the local” and “the global” for a network of audiences online. In the context of Web 2.0 and the fluid boundaries between people’s “real” lives and virtual lives, this project documents three cases in which the particularities of discursive activities on the Internet create spatial conditions that are rhetorically leveraged to enact material change in the world. Given these observations, this study concludes by offering implications of this study’s understanding of the discourses of spatial concepts such as the local and the global for rhetoric, discourse, and literacy studies, and, specifically, literacy education and students’ social and professional futures

Designing connected play: Perspectives from combining industry and academic know-how. In: Chaudron S., Di Gioia R., Gemo M., Holloway D., Marsh J., Mascheroni G., Peter J., Yamada-Rice D. Kaleidoscope on the Internet of Toys - Safety, security, privacy and societal insights, EUR 28397 EN, doi:10.2788/05383

Academics, designers and producers tend to consider the evolving Internet of Toys (IoToys) from within their individual disciplines. On the one hand, academics bring a long history of researching and theorizing play and communication practices to the task of considering young children’s use of connected toys. On the other hand, designers and producers of connected toys have detailed understanding of the possibilities and affordances of technology, as well as the technical mechanics involved in toy production. In other words, they know what it is possible to make, and what it is not possible to make. Industry also has an eye on trends in digital toy production and content, and how these are likely to evolve. This is because the digital play industry track data on technology usage and media consumption, and so on. These are things that academics are often a step behind in understanding because of a tendency to consider children’s use of an end product. However, my work across academia and the commercial toy and digital content industry has taught me that the amount of expertise companies have of child development and theories around play and communication practices is extremely varied and start-up companies in particular have little resource to conduct in-house research. This means that some connected toys are not as well made for young users as they could be. However, these crossovers have also taught me that sometimes academics call for changes to designs that are not easily possible or commercially viable. Therefore, regular collaboration between academia and industry would aid production of the best possible connected toys and content for young children