Participatory Transformations

Learning, in its many forms, from the classroom to independent study, is being transformed by new practices emerging around Internet use. Conversation, participation and community have become watchwords for the processes of learning promised by the Internet and accomplished via technologies such as bulletin boards, wikis, blogs, social software and repositories, devices such as laptops, cell phones and digital cameras, and infrastructures of internet connection, telephone, wireless and broadband. This chapter discusses the impact of emergent, participatory trends on education. In learning and teaching participatory trends harbinge a radical transformation in who learns from whom, where, under what circumstances, and for what and whose purpose. They bring changes in where we find information, who we learn from, how learning progresses, and how we contribute to our learning and the learning of others. These trends indicate a transformation to "ubiquitous learning" ??? a continuous anytime, anywhere, anyone contribution and retrieval of learning materials and advice on and through the Internet and its technologies, niches and social spaces.not peer reviewe

The Analysis of Online Communities using Interactive Content-based Social Networks

published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

An Information Policy Perspective on Learning Analytics

Policy for learning analytics joins a stream of initiatives aimed at understanding the expanding world of information collection, storage, processing and dissemination that is being driven by computing technologies. This paper offers a information policy perspective on learning analytics, joining work by others on ethics and privacy in the management of learning analytics data [8], but extending to consider how issues play out across the information lifecycle and in the formation of policy. Drawing on principles from information policy both informs learning analytics and brings learning analytics into the information policy domain. The resulting combination can help inform policy development for educational institutions as they implement and manage learning analytics policy and practices. The paper begins with a brief summary of the information policy perspective, then addresses learning analytics with attention to various categories of consideration for policy development

New Metaphors for Networked Learning

As networked learning leaves designed spaces and becomes diffused and re-infused through open, online information sharing and knowledge construction, what metaphors will frame our next steps, our next inquiries? In keeping with the conference theme of ‘Looking Back – Moving Forward’, this presentation will engage with where we are in the sea of change, and how our current understanding of networks, learning and knowledge will take us forward into new areas of inquiry. Elsewhere I have been advocating for a reclamation of the term ‘e-learning’ that takes us beyond the design and use of the closed LMS and VLE systems to grapple with the open conditions of learning on and through the Internet, and the transformative effect this has on roles and relations associated with learning and knowledge practices (Haythornthwaite & Andrews, 2011; Haythornthwaite, 2015). I believe this is a necessary way forward. But, this is a wicked problem, with each change in technology, each advance in teaching practice, and each maturation of networked practice, changing the conditions of inquiry. To maintain our way forward requires keeping an eye on the horizon, and several recent papers make this point with calls for theory driven research on learning in the face of such new conditions (e.g., Rogers, Dawson & Gasevic, 2016; Eynon, Schroeder & Fry, 2016; Wise & Shaffer, 2015). Moving forward requires grappling with perpetual beta, chaordic (chaos+order) processes, emergence and social construction; assemblages, hybrids, cyborgs, post- and transhumanism; the role of the material, geographical, regional; and more. As researchers, teachers and learners, we are learning not just how to learn or effect learning in this fluid space, but rather how to navigate, to sail on the seas of information and knowledge that are beyond our control. We have indeed left the classroom, leaving the safe spaces of ‘specify, build, and use’, and the space of pre-determined questions, into the open, recursive conditions of rapidly accumulating resources, distributed and mobile knowledge, and emergent dynamics. We are leaving the world of uncertainty (in Perrow’s sense of a lack of information) to one of equivocality, where even the questions to be asked must be negotiated. In this talk I aim to stimulate the conversation I know is already ongoing about where networked learning research and practice is going next, and to introduce some play and experimentation with possible metaphors to guide us on the way forward. References •Rogers, T., Dawson, S. & Gašević, D. (2016). Learning analytics and the imperative for theory driven research. In C. Haythornthwaite, R. Andrews, J. Fransman & E. Meyers (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of E-learning Research (pp. 232-250). London: SAGE. •Eynon, R., Schroeder, R. & Fry, J. (2016). The ethics of learning and technology research. In C. Haythornthwaite, R. Andrews, J. Fransman & E. Meyers (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of E-learning Research (pp. 211-231). London: SAGE. •Haythornthwaite, C. (2015). Rethinking learning spaces: Networks, structures and possibilities for learning in the 21st century. Communication, Research and Practice, 1(4), 292-306. DOI: 10.1080/22041451.2015.1105773 •Haythornthwaite, C. & Andrews, R. (2011). E-learning Theory and Practice. London: Sage. •Wise, A.F. & Shaffer, D.W. (2015). Why theory matters more than ever in the age of big data. Journal of Learning Analytics, 2(2), 5-13. http://dx.doi.org/10.18608/jla.2015.22.

Fast and Slow Water Ion Populations in the Enceladus Plume

Ion velocities have been measured during the Enceladus E3 and E5 flybys using the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) instrument on the Cassini spacecraft. Data from three sensors in the CAPS instrument have been examined from two flybys that occurred during 2008. Positive ion measurements from the CAPS Ion Beam Spectrometer and Ion Mass Spectrometer have been used to measure positive ion velocities. The CAPS Electron Spectrometer has been used to complement the positive ion findings with measurements of negative ion velocities. Two velocities for the positive ions are found, with the fast ions (2.3–5.8 km/s) originating from the high‐speed neutral gas emission and slow ions (0.2–2.2 km/s) associated with the low‐speed thermal gas emission from Enceladus. Negative ions were found to be near stationary or northerly traveling, implying a deceleration mechanism within the plume. A tentative detection of fast negative ions was also recorded for one of the flybys. These findings will aid in future modeling of plume dynamics

What Can Social Networks Tell Us About Learning Ecologies?

The ecology metaphor is drawn from the biological sciences and refers to the “scientific study of the distribution, abundance and dynamics of organisms, their interactions with other organisms and with their physical environment” (British Ecological Society, 2016). In recent decades, the metaphor has become useful for tackling the complexity of new information and learning environments, particularly as driven by the increasing quantity of information, the growing number of available media and means of communicating, the extended reach of information technologies, and the new practices arising from these configurations. This paper brings to the discussion of learning ecologies the research and perspectives of social network analysis, where we find synergies in addressing interactions, niches, species and configurations of ecosystems. This perspective opens up some new ways of looking at and understanding learning practices in both online, offline and hybrid settings, and how these create sustainable ecosystems of information exchange and knowledge construction. The ecology and network ideas are highly synergistic, and what has been found from examination of social networks, using methods of social network analysis, can help inform the practice of individual learners, as well the practice of organizing in the service of learning. This paper draws on the literature, and studies by the author to address the network ecology of learning, suggesting ways to organize and anticipate change in order to gain the best advantage from our personal and social learning networks

Histories of hating

This roundtable discussion presents a dialogue between digital culture scholars on the seemingly increased presence of hating and hate speech online. Revolving primarily around the recent #GamerGate campaign of intensely misogynistic discourse aimed at women in video games, the discussion suggests that the current moment for hate online needs to be situated historically. From the perspective of intersecting cultural histories of hate speech, discrimination, and networked communication, we interrogate the ontological specificity of online hating before going on to explore potential responses to the harmful consequences of hateful speech. Finally, a research agenda for furthering the historical understandings of contemporary online hating is suggested in order to address the urgent need for scholarly interventions into the exclusionary cultures of networked media

Social Media as Fragile State

Social media platforms are grappling with how to respond to hate speech, misinformation, and political manipulation in ways that address human rights, free speech, and equality. As independent ‘states’, they are enacting their own rules of conduct, deriving their own ‘laws’, convening their own extrajudicial self regulatory institutions, and making their own interpretations and enactments of human rights. With the rise of social states such as Facebook, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit, how fragile are they in their ability to achieve outcomes of fair, equitable and consistent application of their own laws? Could an assessment of the fragility of these social states help identify areas of focus for stability in design, use and operation of social media platforms? What indicators would measure such fragility? This paper draws on the Fund For Peace Fragility State Index for parallels in social media to detail, measure and understand issues of platform precariousness, governance, and support of human rights

The Dynamics of a Mobile Phone Network

The empirical study of network dynamics has been limited by the lack of longitudinal data. Here we introduce a quantitative indicator of link persistence to explore the correlations between the structure of a mobile phone network and the persistence of its links. We show that persistent links tend to be reciprocal and are more common for people with low degree and high clustering. We study the redundancy of the associations between persistence, degree, clustering and reciprocity and show that reciprocity is the strongest predictor of tie persistence. The method presented can be easily adapted to characterize the dynamics of other networks and can be used to identify the links that are most likely to survive in the future