Media and Information Education in the UK - A Report for the EU / COST: Transforming Audiences Project

This is a position paper on the capacity for media and information education in the UK in 2014 to facilitate media, digital and information literacy as defined by the European Commission (EC) and on the relationship between UK media/information education, regulation and law. Because the UK has a long tradition of media education within the formal curriculum (schools and colleges), the premise of this report is that the most tangible evidence of media literacy education is to be found in the teaching of Media Studies at GCSE and A-level and in higher education. Therefore the most substantive section of the report is analysis of the extent to which achievement in Media Studies can be mapped against the EC objectives for media literacy. For this purpose, media education in the mainstream curriculum is measured for its capacity to develop media literacy against a pragmatic working model derived from publications from the EC, COST/ANR, UNESCO and the UK regulator, Ofcom. Information education is currently a distinct category from media education in the UK, with a mandate for entitlement (in the case of e-safety) but without formal qualifications or assessment. The report demonstrates that the composite model of media literacy is too broad in scope and ambition for mainstream education to ‘deliver’. The model derived for this analysis, from EC, COST and Ofcom documents and reports, covers public sphere engagement and empowerment outcomes, a broad range of stakeholders, an equally broad range of media/information content/contexts and a pedagogic intention to combine cultural, critical and creative learning. This analysis of formal media education concludes that the performance criteria and assessment objectives of teaching specifications and awarding body marking materials, combined with the achievement rates in the A and A* grade boundaries, indicate that only a small percentage of people studying media in the curriculum can be said to acquire all the cultural, critical and creative learning. Furthermore, specifications, combined with teacher choices, cover a relatively narrow range of the media/information contexts included in the COST definition. Finally, topic choice means that public sphere engagement and citizen empowerment is difficult to relate to achievement in Media Studies. Therefore the great success of the UK in providing media education in the mainstream curriculum (currently threatened by curriculum reforms for 2016) is balanced by the lack of a coherent match between curriculum content, assessment modes and media literacy policy objectives. There is therefore a fundamental mismatch between the objectives of media literacy as articulated in policy and the capacity of education as the agent for its development in society. Related to this, media literacy/education is mistakenly burdened with responsibility for fixing access and engagement barriers that are media producer/design/regulation issues. The data and analysis in this report supports that view. The UK is currently very well placed to provide media literacy through media education, given the status of Media Studies as an established curriculum subject. However, to coherently match Media Studies to the policy objectives for media literacy expressed in EC, COST and Ofcom statements, funding (for teacher training), and government support and endorsement for Media Studies is essential. Given the uncertainty over the continuation of Media Studies in the formal curriculum in secondary and further education, this is unlikely to be supported within the UK. This report on the state of UK Media Education in 2014 is one of 28 reports mapping the state of Media Education in each of the EC member states. All reports can be found at www.translit.f

Technical boys and creative girls: the career aspirations of digitally-skilled youths

Digital technology is increasingly central to our lives, particularly among young people. However, there remains a concern from government and businesses of a digital skills gap because many youths, especially girls, tend to be consumers rather than creators of technology. Drawing on 32 semi-structured interviews with digitally-skilled teenagers (aged 13-19), we investigate their digital career aspirations and examine how identities and discourses of gender can interact with the type of digital careers that are of interest to these youths. While we found digitally-skilled young people still articulate traditional gendered discourses of digital competence, especially around technical abilities, we highlight the growing importance of creativity as a career pathway into digital technology. Implications of the findings are discussed in relation to the new computing curriculum in England, which prioritises technical computing skills, and the discontinuation of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), which facilitates a broader usage of software and digital productivity

“After Lunch We Offer Quiet Time and Meditation” : Early Learning Environments in Australia and Finland Through the Lenses of Educators

Modern societies organize ECEC services from their own cultural, social and political contexts, which is also reflected in the steering documents of the country and further in the work of teachers (Garvis, et al., 2018). In many of the countries children’s access to preschool has broadened and the benefits of high quality ECEC have been recognized. In Australia and Finland, concepts of play based learning, child initiated play or free play have been highlighted as founding pillars of the early learning environments. In this paper we take a closer look at ECEC environments in Australia and Finland through the lenses of 26 educators. They described in an online questionnaire children’s daily activities as well as they indicated the amount of free play related to these activities.Peer reviewe

Social media and education: reconceptualizing the boundaries of formal and informal learning

© 2015 Taylor & Francis. It is argued that social media has the potential to bridge formal and informal learning through participatory digital cultures. Exemplars of sophisticated use by young people support this claim, although the majority of young people adopt the role of consumers rather than full participants. Scholars have suggested the potential of social media for integrating formal and informal learning, yet this work is commonly under-theorized. We propose a model theorizing social media as a space for learning with varying attributes of formality and informality. Through two contrasting case studies, we apply our model together with social constructivism and connectivism as theoretical lenses through which to tease out the complexities of learning in various settings. We conclude that our model could reveal new understandings of social media in education, and outline future research directions

The impact of curriculum hierarchies on the development of professional self in teaching: student-teachers of drama negotiating issues of subject status at the interface between drama and English

At the level of policy the relative ‘value’ of subjects is determined by their official curriculum designation, creating a hierarchy of learning within which particular subjects are categorised as optional to the educational experience of young people. This situation is well-illustrated by the marginalised position of drama in the National Curriculum for England and Wales in which drama appears as an adjunct to the ‘core’ subject English. Yet at school level drama has survived as a discrete and reasonably embedded subject. Drawing on questionnaire and interview data, I investigate the effects of this mismatch on the emergence of pedagogical content knowledge, linked to notions of professional self, in drama student-teachers at one university in the UK. Findings indicate that the student-teachers, whilst not entirely eschewing a less-regulated relationship between the two subjects, view the curriculum for English and its accompanying assessment regime as an inadequate host for drama. In addition, they regard teacher autonomy over curriculum content and pedagogy as indicative of a high degree of professional expertise. This suggests that a case can be made for re-evaluating the nature of the relationship between drama and English and its representation in policy-constructed curricula

Integrating Academic and Everyday Learning Through Technology: Issues and Challenges for Researchers, Policy Makers and Practitioners

This paper builds on work undertaken over a number of years by a group of international researchers with an interest in the potential of connecting academic and everyday practices and knowledge. Drawing extensively on literature and our own work, we first discuss the challenges around defining informal learning, concluding that learning is multidimensional and has varying combinations of formal and informal attributes. We then highlight the potential of technology for integrating formal and informal learning attributes and briefly provide some exemplars of good practice. We then discuss in depth the challenges and issues of this approach to supporting learning from the perspective of pedagogy, research, policy and technology. We also provide some recommendations of how these issues may be addressed. We argue that for the learner, integration of formal and informal learning attributes should be an empowering process, enabling the learner to be self-directed, creative and innovative, taking learning to a deeper level. Given the complexity of the learning ecosystem, this demands support from the teacher but also awareness and understanding from others such as parents, family, friends and community members. We present a conceptual model of such an ecosystem to help develop further discussions within and between communities of researchers, policy makers and practitioners

Screen production for education: Digital disruption in an 'ancillary' market

The thoroughgoing digital disruption of the entertainment-based screen industries has now been well documented. But the factors that drive such disruption are in no way unique to mainstream media industries. The distribution and use of screen content in education in many ways parallel the experience of the broader screen industries. Just as traditional entertainment and information are being challenged by new online services, so too traditional modes of distributing and accessing screen content in education are being disrupted by online services. This article analyses these dynamics in Australia, placing them in historical perspective and using three contrasting case studies to exemplify key aspects of the digital disruption of education: ABC Splash exemplifies the public service broadcasting (PSB) 'tutelage' model; YouTube exemplifies digital disruption - immensely popular despite numerous education authorities' attempts to restrict access to it; and ClickView exemplifies the 'born digital' company employing advanced technology, business strategy, and professional pedagogics