Perspectives and Metaphors of Learning : A Commentary on James Lester’s Narrative-Centered AI-Based Environments

This commentary aims to discuss perspectives on narrative-centered learning and metaphors of AI-based learning environments. To this end, the commentary draws from James Lester’s keynote and an interview with a focus on the narrative element that underlies the use of AI in Learning. In both texts, Lester offers an account of the narrative-centered learning environments that he has been developing with his research group. One example of such environments is Crystal Island, an AI-based game for K-12 students learning science. Along with Crystal Island, more metaphors of learning emerge. Based on these, this chapter uses Paul Ricoeur’s narrative theory and metaphor theory to reflect on the role of characters and the narrative plot in relation to Lester’s visualization of the future of learning with AI-based technologies. In this process, new roles in AI-based learning are introduced. One such example is the role of drama manager. The drama manager is a novel metaphor in game-based learning. In addition, more conventional metaphors, such as the tutorial dialogue, are brought forward as well as technological metaphors. The multiplicity of metaphors have agency at the core, as connecting tissue. Agency, although not explicitly articulated in the keynote and the interview, is an all-encompassing metaphor in learning. As technological advancement shakes the boundaries of thinking about agency nowadays, new dynamic metaphors are needed in AI-based learning. Toward this direction, the commentary draws from new materialist and post-humanist thinkers to raise these issues and the need to take the narrative furtherPeer reviewe

Sosiaalinen media ja verkostot kommunikatiivisina tekoina : Pedagogiset haavoittuvuudet ja mahdollisuudet : Empiiris-hermeneuttinen tutkimus suomalaisten ja kreikkalaisten opettajien ja oppilaiden kokemuksista

This thesis examines the intersection of social media with pedagogy. Pedagogy is a social experience and, as such, it entails communicative acts and generates discourses. These can be oral, written or ones that involve a certain type of inscription and take place in a shared, collaborative milieu. For knowledge building, collaboration patterns allow young people to work together, exchange ideas and views, and solve problems together. To open up such space for collaborative learning teachers and students need to take action. This pedagogical action is the text of pedagogy that is authored by all in order to express and serve the purposes of the participants of the pedagogical event. The pedagogical event becomes meaningful through the discourses that it generates. It is these discourses that social media promise to enhance by opening up opportunities for meaningful communication beyond limitations posed by the necessity for spatial co-presence or from following the route of a predetermined timetable. It follows then naturally that it is the meanings underlying social media and network communication that this study aims to untangle in order to gain an insight into the possibilities for better and deeper learning that arise through the pedagogical integra-tion of social media. This is however only potential. To understand whether this possibility can translate into actuality this thesis draws from Ricoeur s (1976) interpretation theory and the view of discourse as text and as action (Ricoeur 1991). To get there, the thesis discusses whether connectivity can truly make shareable and spreadable content public and how and to what degree social media do serve communicative purposes. Another way to confirm or falsify the promise of the social media is by examining whether and to what degree it serves the pedagogical purposes. Pedagogical purposes are shared purposes and, therefore, the thesis looks into the perspectives of both teachers and students, being the participants of the pedagogical event. They are also the agents whose actions form the event. Their perspectives then are important. Perspectives emerge through the discussions and analyses that shape the publications supporting the argument of the thesis. More particularly, two of the studies discuss and analyze Finnish and Greek language and science teachers experiences of social media and digital technologies integration into the pedagogical practice. The other two studies examine the experiences of students from Finland and Greece sharing and telling digital stories on a pedagogical social network. The studies of the dissertation draw from interview data. For data analysis qualitative methods, such as metaphor and content analysis, are used. Ultimately, what the discussion comes down to is an insight into whether the pedagogical practices constitute communicative practices. Practices, however, are informed by the wider context we find ourselves immersed in. In the same way that youth popular social network experience feeds into the pedagogical practice, so do teacher interactions and experiences with colleagues, training, workshops and relevant discourses inform their practices. In order to gain a deeper insight into the pedagogical purposes and the underlying thinking, therefore, the thesis discusses and analyzes teacher and student pedagogical action against the background literature and discussions on, for instance, open networks and popular social network activity. This methodological choice is, again, positioned within the framework of interpretation theory (Ricoeur 1976, 1991) and speaks to the intention to validate the thesis argument by gaining insights into and offering possible explanations of the meanings underlying social media for pedagogy and communication, being the phenomenon under investigation.Tässä tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan sosiaalisen median ja pedagogiikan yhtymäkohtia. Pedagogiikalla tarkoitetaan tässä sosiaalista kokemusta, joka sisältää kommunikatiivisia tekoja ja luo diskursseja. Nämä teot ja diskurssit voivat olla suullisia tai kirjallisia, ja ne tapahtuvat jaetussa, yhteisöllisessä ympäristössä. Yhteisöllisyys tarjoaa nuorille mahdollisuuden työskennellä yhdessä, rakennella tietoa, vaihtaa ajatuksia ja näkökulmia sekä ratkaista ongelmia. Tällaisen tietoa tuottavan yhteisöllisen oppimisen aikaansaaminen edellyttää tekoja opettajilta ja oppilailta. Näitä tekoja voidaan kutsua pedagogiikan käsikirjoitukseksi . Sen laatijoita ovat kaikki oppimistilanteeseen osallistuvat. Käsikirjoituksessa tulevat näkyviksi osallistujien tarkoitusperät ja se, miten niihin vastataan. Oppimistilanteen merkityksellisyys tulee siis näkyväksi sen tuottaman diskurssin kautta. Sosiaalinen media voi edistää näitä diskursseja avaamalla mahdollisuuksia merkitykselliseen kommunikaatioon ilman fyysisen läsnäolon pakkoa tai aikataulujen asettamia rajoituksia. Tämä tutkimus pyrkii pureutumaan sosiaalisen median ja verkkovuorovaikutuksen taustalla oleviin merkityksiin. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on ymmärtää sellaisia paremman ja syvemmän oppimisen mahdollisuuksia, joita pedagogiikan ja sosiaalisen median integroitumisesta seuraa. Sosiaalisen median ja verkkovuorovaikutuksen kytkemisessä oppimiseen on paljon potentiaalia, mutta se ei aina aktualisoidu. Tämän potentiaalin ja sen aktuali-soitumismahdollisuuksien ymmärtämiseksi tässä tutkimuksessa hyödynnetään Ricoeurin (1976) tulkintateoriaa ja näkemystä diskurssista tekstinä ja toimintana (Ric-oeur 1991). Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan, voiko konnektiivisuus todella tuottaa julkista jaettavaa ja levitettävää tietoa, sekä kuinka ja missä määrin sosiaalisen median kautta tapahtuva vuorovaikutus palvelee kommunikatiivisia tarkoitusperiä. Sosiaalisen median ja verkkovuorovaikutuksen potentiaalia tutkitaan myös siitä näkökulmasta, missä määrin ja millä tavalla ne palvelevat pedagogisia tarkoitusperiä. Pedagogiset tarkoitusperät ovat jaettuja, mistä syystä tässä tutkimuksessa perehdytään sekä opettajien että oppilaiden näkökulmiin oppimistilanteen osallistujina. Opettajat ja oppilaat ovat toimijoita, joiden teot muodostavat oppimistilanteen, ja siksi heidän näkökulmansa ovat tärkeitä. Heidän näkökulmiaan on kartoitettu tätä tutkimusta varten tuotetuissa julkaisuissa. Kaksi julkaisuista käsittelee suomalaisten ja kreikkalaisten kielten- ja luonnontieteenopettajien kokemuksia sosiaalisen median ja digitaalisten teknologioiden integroinnista opetukseen. Toiset kaksi julkaisua käsittelevät suomalaisten ja kreikkalaisten oppilaiden kokemuksia digitaalisten tarinoiden kertomisesta pedagogisessa sosiaalisessa verkostossa. Julkaisut perustuvat haastatteluaineistoon. Aineiston analysoinnissa on käytetty laadullisia menetelmiä, kuten metafora- ja sisällönanalyysia. Tutkimus tiivistyy ymmärrykseen siitä, että pedagogiset käytännöt koostuvat kommunikatiivista teoista. Nämä käytännöt liittyvät laajempaan kokonaisuuteen, jonka osia olemme. Samalla tavalla kuin nuorison kokemukset sosiaalisista medioista siirtyvät pedagogisiin käytäntöihin niihin siirtyvät myös opettajien kokemukset muun muassa kollegoiden välisestä vuorovaikutuksesta, koulutuksista ja työpajoista. Syvemmän ymmärryksen saavuttamiseksi tutkittavasta aiheesta opettajien ja oppilaiden kommunikatiivisten tekojen analyysi on kytketty taustakirjallisuuteen ja keskusteluihin esimerkiksi avoimista verkostoista ja sosiaalisen median toiminnoista. Tämä metodologinen valinta on asemoitu tulkintateoreettiseen viitekehykseen (Ricoueur 1976, 1991), ja sen perustana on pyrkimys ymmärtää ja selittää pedagogisen sosiaalisen median ja kommunikaation taustalla olevia merkityksiä

Young storytellers building knowledge and communication with digital stories

This study discusses the experiences of young storytellers who make and share digital stories on a social network for pedagogical purposes. In order to produce their work, these students from primary schools in Greece put effort, practice and apply techniques, and convey their messages through series of pedagogical actions. In this way they reveal the dimension of digital story as collage, not only in terms of the media used but also in terms of the sets of shared purposes and decisions needed in the act of storytelling. Also, the fact that digital stories open up the space for collaboration and require multiple implementation stages deepens the level of involvement and increases the degree of ‘authorship’ attributed to the young people. In this way, through purposeful and youth-initiated action the space opens up for creative and innovative pedagogies. Innovative pedagogies aim for discourses that, rather than the improvement of technologies, target the deepening of human reasoning toward critical over descriptive understandings of reality.Peer reviewe

A Metaphorical Analysis of Mentoring for Education without Walls in Palestine and Finland with the OLIVE International Project as a Key Example

Nowadays, efforts are being made in Finland to develop education across borders through projects that seek to deal with global learning crises. Palestine, being engaged in high-intensity struggle and faced with emergencies in education, is one example of such an initiative. Both actual and virtual walls exist in the collaboration between Palestinian and Finnish universities. By using conceptual metaphor theory and Ricoeur’s metaphor theory, this paper discusses and analyzes metaphors that emerge in the process of building education without walls in the OLIVE international project. Project activities support online teaching and learning methods. Drawing from the experience of first-stage implementation, the paper brings forward metaphors that emerge in developing mentoring. The study explores new perspectives on mentoring to conceptualize the metaphor by considering the need to decolonize engagement with learning through both intellectual and embodied–affective elements. This is done by providing a framework for immersive learning. As a result, one can conclude that mentoring is not only cognitive but also an embodied metaphor with affective elements and needs immersive learning environments. Mentoring is fluid, as the roles of mentors and mentees interchange and intertwine. Mentoring takes place in groups, between and among peers, students, teachers, and researchers both on-line and on-site

Digital Storytelling for 21st-Century Skills in Virtual Learning Environments

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Transformation toward sustainability in Finnish teacher education policy : Promises and shortcomings

While the state of the world is becoming ever more unsustainable, transformation and transformative learning have become increasingly relevant and raised attention in various sustainability education discourses. This is obvious in both policy and research. As teacher educators, we have studied how this sustainability and transformative education trend is visible in education policy. We have first read international policy and research on sustainability education and transformation. In a more thorough study, our focus has been on two recent and fundamental policy documents outlining the Finnish teacher education. Our results show that even if several UNESCO policies documents for years have called for a transformation toward sustainability through education, the Finnish teacher education policy has not yet fully acknowledged sustainability issues and teachers' transformative agency in addressing them, but emphasize other aims. Therefore, it is mainly up to the individual teacher educators and the leaders of their faculties to decide on how to prepare student teachers not only to deal with changes in general, but to particularly bring about changes towards sustainability.Peer reviewe

Digital Storytelling in Tomorrow’s World : Through Students’ Metaphors

The increasing demand for global citizenship education and the expansive use of digital technologies for learning create the need for innovative pedagogical approaches and classroom practices. These should encourage active learner engagement and a critical view of the surrounding world, such as, for instance, the role of social networks in young people’s lives, environmental hazards and how human relationships develop nowadays. In this study we will discuss storytelling in a social network for pedagogy by examining how adolescent (14 and 15 year-old) students from a lower secondary school in Greece experienced knowledge construction, sharing and learning with networked peers from Finland and California in the Boundless Classroom project. To do so, we will analyze the content of student interviews and their digital stories. As part of their learning activities the participating students from California, Finland and Greece created digital stories and developed traditional (e.g., speaking, writing etc.), digital (e.g., filming, editing, remixing etc.) and networking (e.g., appreciating and responding to projected cultural landscapes) literacies. Importantly, among others, through stories students expressed their views and worries concerning potential dangers of social networking, and what attitudes would reduce environmental risks. It is these student views that we intend to analyze in order to unlock meanings and metaphors underlying pedagogical storytelling that combined the physical (or actual) and the digital site of learning.Peer reviewe

Digitalizacija v izobrazevanju, namigi in reference

The metaphor of digitalisation in education emerged during a period when phenomena such as budget cuts and privatisation, layoffs and outsourcing of labour marked the ethos of the twenty-first century. During this time, digitalisation was constructed as an ultimate purpose and an all-encompassing matter in education. As a result, these narratives add new configurations to the metaphor of digitalisation on an ongoing basis. Such configurations attribute a mythical fullness to the concept, in the sense that digitalisation goes beyond the limits of a property that needs be developed so that society can successfully deal with contemporary challenges and advancements. In this way, digitalisation emerges as a new hegemony in education, with narratives that are more and less directly referential. Less direct references add the element of allusion to the metaphor of digitalisation, in the sense that references can be more implicit/covert or even concealed/hidden. Moreover, as they combine with abstract terms and concepts, they make the boundaries of the technological and educational domains blurry and render education discourse vague. In order to examine the narratives of digitalisation and how they influence education discourse, this study aims to discuss and analyse relevant policy documents in relation to research and studies on the integration of digital technologies in classroom settings and the hybrid (or blended) learning environments that open up. For this purpose, the study uses thematic analysis and discourse analysis in order to trace allusions and references and discuss how emergent meanings relate to current and future needs in education generated by digitalisation itself. (DIPF/Orig.

Digital Storytelling for Twenty-First-Century Competencies with Math Literacy and Student Engagement in China and Finland

The aim of this digital storytelling (DST) study was to investigate how students acquire twenty- first-century competencies, here focusing on active knowledge creation and collaboration in math learning. The study also examined how engaged the students were in DST lessons and what teachers’ perceptions of DST were as a learning method. DST was implemented in four Chinese and two Finnish classes with 10- and 11-year-old students. Data were collected quantitatively and qualitatively. The students assessed their learning experiences with structured questionnaires during and after the study. Students’ behavior was also observed, and the teachers were interviewed. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and a linear regression analysis, and the qualitative data were analyzed using a content analysis. The study showed that the DST method guided students toward active collaborative learning; the students learned how to work in groups to produce new ideas, and they learned not only about math but also about how math relates to everyday life. The students were highly engaged throughout the study. Similarly, the teachers reported that the students displayed active knowledge creation and increased motivation and engagement. Results indicate that DST encourages students to apply new technology in their learning and supports students’ development in math literacy and twenty-first-century competencies.The aim of this digital storytelling (DST) study was to investigate how students acquire twenty-first-century competencies, here focusing on active knowledge creation and collaboration in math learning. The study also examined how engaged the students were in DST lessons and what teachers’ perceptions of DST were as a learning method. DST was implemented in four Chinese and two Finnish classes with 10- and 11-year-old students. Data were collected quantitatively and qualitatively. The students assessed their learning experiences with structured questionnaires during and after the study. Students’ behavior was also observed, and the teachers were interviewed. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and a linear regression analysis, and the qualitative data were analyzed using a content analysis. The study showed that the DST method guided students toward active collaborative learning; the students learned how to work in groups to produce new ideas, and they learned not only about math but also about how math relates to everyday life. The students were highly engaged throughout the study. Similarly, the teachers reported that the students displayed active knowledge creation and increased motivation and engagement. Results indicate that DST encourages students to apply new technology in their learning and supports students’ development in math literacy and twenty-first-century competencies.Peer reviewe

Teachers’ practices to support student work in digital storytelling : A study on Finnish and Chinese school teachers’ experiences

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