Pre-teens' informal learning with ICT and Web 2.0

ICT and Web 2.0 have the potential to impact on learning by supporting enquiry, new literacies, collaboration and publication. Restrictions on the use of these tools within schools, primarily due to concerns about discipline and child safety, make it difficult to make full use of this potential in formal educational settings. Studies of children at different stages of schooling have highlighted a wider range of ICT use outside school, where it can be used to support informal learning. The study reported here looks beyond the broad categories of primary and secondary education and investigates the distinctive elements of pre-teens’ use of ICT to support informal learning. Nineteen children aged 10 and 11 participated in focus groups and produced visual representations of ICT and Web 2.0 resources they used to support their informal learning. Thematic analysis of this data showed that pre-teens respond to a range of age-related constraints on their use of ICT. Inside formal education, these constraints appear similar at primary and secondary levels. Out of school, regulation is more age specific, contributing to the development of tensions around use of ICT as children approach their teenage years. These tensions and constraints shape the ways in which children aged 10 to 11 engage in formal and informal learning, particularly their methods of communication and their pressing need to develop evaluation skills

Promoting creativity in PhD supervision: Tensions and dilemmas

In this paper we argue that the processes of collaborative creativity are just as important within the sociocultural context of PhD supervisory practice, as they are in other organizational and educational settings. In order to test this claim a series of interviews with supervisors and students were undertaken to uncover the pedagogic processes used to encourage and support creativity within supervision sessions. The findings from this small-scale study suggest that whilst the more formal instruction and monitoring processes that lead to the acquisition of transferrable research skills are both usefully and necessary aspects of doctoral training, the more open-ended and creative developments required at this level of study should be given equal weight. There needs to be space, time and encouragement for the types of interactions identified here (e.g. informal reflection, relationship building with peers and supervisor, playful exploration and risk taking) as well as mandatory skills development

Sermo Lupi ad Anglos /

Includes bibliographical references (pages 55-58)