Manageable creativity

This article notes a perception in mainstream management theory and practice that creativity has shifted from being disruptive or destructive to 'manageable'. This concept of manageable creativity in business is reflected in a similar rhetoric in cultural policy, especially towards the creative industries. The article argues that the idea of 'manageable creativity' can be traced back to a 'heroic' and a 'structural' model of creativity. It is argued that the 'heroic' model of creativity is being subsumed within a 'structural' model which emphasises the systems and infrastructure around individual creativity rather than focusing on raw talent and pure content. Yet this structured approach carries problems of its own, in particular a tendency to overlook the unpredictability of creative processes, people and products. Ironically, it may be that some confusion in our policies towards creativity is inevitable, reflecting the paradoxes and transitions which characterise the creative process

A Spatially Extended Model for Residential Segregation

In this paper we analyze urban spatial segregation phenomenon in terms of the income distribution over a population, and inflationary parameter weighting the evolution of housing prices. For this, we develop a discrete, spatially extended model based in a multi--agent approach. In our model, the mobility of socioeconomic agents is driven only by the housing prices. Agents exchange location in order to fit their status to the cost of their housing. On the other hand, the price of a particular house changes depends on the status of its tenant, and on the neighborhood mean lodging cost, weighted by a control parameter. The agent's dynamics converges to a spatially organized configuration, whose regularity we measured by using an entropy--like indicator. With this simple model we found a nontrivial dependence of segregation on both, the initial inequality of the socioeconomic agents and the inflationary parameter. In this way we supply an explanatory model for the segregation--inequality thesis putted forward by Douglas Massey.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures. email: [email protected], [email protected]

Evaluating a virtual learning environment in the context of its community of practice

The evaluation of virtual learning environments (VLEs) and similar applications has, to date, largely consisted of checklists of system features, phenomenological studies or measures of specific forms of educational efficacy. Although these approaches offer some value, they are unable to capture the complex and holistic nature of a group of individuals using a common system to support the wide range of activities that make up a course or programme of study over time. This paper employs Wenger's theories of 'communities of practice' to provide a formal structure for looking at how a VLE supports a pre-existing course community. Wenger proposes a Learning Architecture Framework for a learning community of practice, which the authors have taken to provide an evaluation framework. This approach is complementary to both the holistic and complex natures of course environments, in that particular VLE affordances are less important than the activities of the course community in respect of the system. Thus, the VLE's efficacy in its context of use is the prime area of investigation rather than a reductionist analysis of its tools and components. An example of this approach in use is presented, evaluating the VLE that supports the undergraduate medical course at the University of Edinburgh. The paper provides a theoretical grounding, derives an evaluation instrument, analyses the efficacy and validity of the instrument in practice and draws conclusions as to how and where it may best be used

A Review of the "Digital Turn" in the New Literacy Studies

Digital communication has transformed literacy practices and assumed great importance in the functioning of workplace, recreational, and community contexts. This article reviews a decade of empirical work of the New Literacy Studies, identifying the shift toward research of digital literacy applications. The article engages with the central theoretical, methodological, and pragmatic challenges in the tradition of New Literacy Studies, while highlighting the distinctive trends in the digital strand. It identifies common patterns across new literacy practices through cross-comparisons of ethnographic research in digital media environments. It examines ways in which this research is taking into account power and pedagogy in normative contexts of literacy learning using the new media. Recommendations are given to strengthen the links between New Literacy Studies research and literacy curriculum, assessment, and accountability in the 21st century

Collaborative learning and co-author students in online higher education: a-REAeduca – collaborative learning and co-authors

The technologies themselves cannot be analyzed as instruments per se, nor can they be exhausted in their relation with science. There is a social and even an individual dimension that affects our own way of relating to society. It is in open education that we have been developing our educational practices. This chapter presents a collaborative learning activity, the curricular unit Materiais e Recursos para eLearning, part of an on-line Master in Pedagogy of eLearning, Universidade Aberta, Portugal. In the present work, the authors dedicate their attention to co-learning and co-research, as processes that help to exemplify some situations, the a-REAeduca. The data collection was supported essentially by the content analysis technique.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Assessment, Usability, and Sociocultural Impacts of DataONE

DataONE, funded from 2009-2019 by the U.S. National Science Foundation, is an early example of a large-scale project that built both a cyberinfrastructure and culture of data discovery, sharing, and reuse. DataONE used a Working Group model, where a diverse group of participants collaborated on targeted research and development activities to achieve broader project goals. This article summarizes the work carried out by two of DataONE’s working groups: Usability & Assessment (2009-2019) and Sociocultural Issues (2009-2014). The activities of these working groups provide a unique longitudinal look at how scientists, librarians, and other key stakeholders engaged in convergence research to identify and analyze practices around research data management through the development of boundary objects, an iterative assessment program, and reflection. Members of the working groups disseminated their findings widely in papers, presentations, and datasets, reaching international audiences through publications in 25 different journals and presentations to over 5,000 people at interdisciplinary venues. The working groups helped inform the DataONE cyberinfrastructure and influenced the evolving data management landscape. By studying working groups over time, the paper also presents lessons learned about the working group model for global large-scale projects that bring together participants from multiple disciplines and communities in convergence research

New media practices in India: bridging past and future, markets and development

This article provides a review of the academic and popular literature on new media practices in India, focusing on the country’s youth's use of mobile phones and the Internet, as well as new media prosumption. One particular feature of the Indian case is the confluence of commercial exploitation of new media technologies and their application for development purposes in initiatives that aim to bring these technologies to marginalized segments of the Indian population. Technology usage in turn is shaped by the socioeconomic location of the user, especially in regards to gender and caste. The potential of new media technologies to subvert such social stratifications and associated norms has inspired much public debate, which is often carried out on the Internet, giving rise to an online public sphere. In all of the writings reviewed here, the tension surrounding new media technologies as a meeting place of the old and the new in India is paramount

Ritual performances and collective intelligence: theoretical frameworks for analyising activity patterns in Cloudworks

This paper provides an overview of emerging activity patterns on Cloudworks, a specialised site for sharing and debating ideas as well as resources on teaching, learning and scholarship in education. It provides an overview of activities such as 'flash debates', 'blended workshops' and 'open reviews' and seeks to situate dialogic interchanges and structures of involvement within the following theoretical frameworks: a) Goffman's notions of 'face-work' and 'ritual performance�; and b) and secondly, notions of collective intelligence. The paper argues that these perspectives can offer a unique contribution to the study and analysis of sociality (Bouman et al, 2007) bounded in the context of technologically mediated networked learning, with wider implications for understanding matters of participation, self-representation, reflection and expansion in education

A Rule Set for the Future

This volume, Digital Young, Innovation, and the Unexpected, identifies core issues concerning how young people's use of digital media may lead to various innovations and unexpected outcomes. The essays collected here examine how youth can function as drivers for technological change while simultaneously recognizing that technologies are embedded in larger social systems, including the family, schools, commercial culture, and peer groups. A broad range of topics are taken up, including issues of access and equity; of media panics and cultural anxieties; of citizenship, consumerism, and labor; of policy, privacy, and IP; of new modes of media literacy and learning; and of shifting notions of the public/private divide. The introduction also details six maxims to guide future research and inquiry in the field of digital media and learning. These maxims are "Remember History," "Consider Context," "Make the Future (Hands-on)," "Broaden Participation," "Foster Literacies," and "Learn to Toggle." They form a kind of flexible rule set for investigations into the innovative uses and unexpected outcomes now emerging or soon anticipated from young people's engagements with digital media