A context for collaboration: The institutional selection of an infrastructure for learning

This paper discusses the role of institutional issues in the deployment of infrastructures for learning and the ways in which they can impact on the range of choices and opportunities for collaboration in university education. The paper is based on interviews with 12 key informants selected from relevant staff categories during the deployment of a new institutional infrastructure in a large UK based distance learning university. It is supplemented by participant observation by the author who was part of a group of advisors tasked with working with the project team developing and deploying the new infrastructure. The paper investigates the development and deployment of the infrastructure as a meso level phenomena and relates this feature to the discussion of emergence and supervenience as features of social interactions in education

Students, the Net Generation and Digital Natives:Accounting for Educational Change

This chapter examines a number of different terms and popularized accounts of young people who are now at the stage in their lives of engaging in university education across the world. Three of the more common terms that have been used to describe this cohort of young people are the Net generation (Tapscott 1998, 2009), Digital Natives (Prensky 2001; 2001a: 2009) and Millennials (Howe and Strauss 2000; Oblinger & Oblinger 2005). This chapter critically examines the argument, common to writers using both terms: that the existence of an environment infused with digital and networked technologies, combined with an active engagement in these new technologies, leads directly to a sharp generational break. The chapter goes on to examine the determinist nature of the argument and the way this has been related to one particular pedagogical approach; collaborative learning. It examines the wider social and technological context and in particular the ideas of networked individualism and networked sociality. Finally the chapter concludes by examining which aspects of the Digital Native and Net Generation arguments are worth taking forward and by identifying those aspects of the arguments that need to be abandoned

"One can emend a mutilated text": Auden's The Orators and the Old English Exeter Book

This article argues that Book I of Auden's 1931 work 'The Orators' does not merely allude to poems in the Old English Exeter Book as source material, but that it participates in a medievalist model of textual production. Auden's poem performs acts analogous to those such as 'compliatio' and 'ordinatio', and deliberately misrepresents and distorts its source texts even as it alludes to them in order to make a point about the transmission and corruption of canonical texts. In addition, some source material is identified here for the first time.Postprin

Networked learning environments

This chapter introduces the idea of networked learning environments and argues that these environments provide the totality of surrounding conditions for learning in digital networks. It provides illustrative vignettes of the ways that students appropriate networked environments for learning. The chapter then examines the notion of networked learning environments in relation to the idea of infrastructure and infrastructures for learning and sets out some issues arising from this perspective. The chapter suggests that students and teachers selectively constitute their own contexts and that design can only have an indirect effect on learning. The chapter goes on to argue that design needs to be located at the meso level of the institution and that a solution to the problem of indirect design lies in refocusing design at the meso level and on the design of infrastructures for learning

Why the Marginal Social Cost of Funds is not the Shadow Value of Government Revenue

No distinction is made between the marginal social cost of public funds (MCF) and the shadow value of government revenue in the public finance literature. Their separate roles are demonstrated in this paper, where the MCF is used as a scaling coefficient to account for changes in tax inefficiency on revenue transfers made to balance the government budget, while the shadow value of government revenue is used as a scaling coefficient to convert efficiency effects into actual changes in utility. We find a revenue effect identified by Atkinson and Stern (1974) and Dahlby (1998) in the shadow value of government revenue which is not present in the MCF. It is the reason why, in the presence of distorting taxes, the shadow value of government revenue can differ from unity, whereas the MCF is always unity, for a lump-sum tax.

Contexts for ‘pure’ mathematics: a framework for analysing A-level mathematics papers

The use of context in mathematics test items is now accepted practice in many forms of national assessment in the UK. Yet research suggests that such use of context is not straightforward and that children may apply a variety of interpretations to contextual mathematics problems. Our analysis focuses on the use of context in post-16 ‘pure’ mathematics questions set by two UK Examination Boards. From our analysis, a framework for analysing the use of context is proposed that encompasses issues such as accessibility, realism and authenticity

Collaboration and the Net generation: The changing characteristics of first year university students

This paper reports on the first phase of research that investigates the Net generation entering university. The paper focuses on claims about the Net generation’s relationship to collaboration and cooperation and the ways that this relationship is associated with technological rather than social processes. Based on a survey of first year students in five universities across a range of subjects and disciplinary areas, the paper concludes that we should be cautious about the claims that have been made about Net generation learners. It suggests that broad brush approaches to generational changes obscure the subtle but important differences between students. It also suggests that claims that there has been a step change in attitudes takes attention away from the kinds of choices that might be necessary in relation to variations that are indeed taking place amongst new cohorts of students

Learning in an age of digital networks

The final years of the twentieth century and early years of the twenty first century have been marked by the rapid rise of digital and networked technologies. Some have even called it a paradigm shift and suggested that it will lead to a dramatic change in the way young people learn (Tapscott and Williams, 2010). As with all commentary on new technologies we should beware of being carried away with the excitement of the new. There is a recurrent innovation cycle beginning with over excitement followed by disappointment and once the reaction has set in against the new it is followed by a move away to yet another new technology, often before a proper assessment and evaluation of the previous cycle can take place. Equally we must be careful not to ignore the profound changes that are taking place and how they may affect universities and learning in society more generally. A recent description by a UK based think tank Demos characterized the kind of university that is emerging from the engagement with new digital and networked technologies as the 'edgeless university' (Bradwell, 2009). The term edgeless is borrowed from work on the city that suggests edgeless cities have the function of cities without being organized in their classic form. In the same way the Demos pamphlet suggests that the university retains an identifiable function but the functions of the university are no longer confined to a single institution nor are they confined to higher education institutions more broadly. Over a decade ago Brown and Duguid (2000) identified the core functions of universities as the capacity to grant degrees, to accredit students and to provide the warrant that guaranteed the credentials obtained by the students from the university. They also suggested that the introduction of what were then new technologies would lead to an increased focus on these core functions. The core role remains in the edgeless university but the boundaries to these may alter. This article tries to provide a way of thinking about new technologies that manages to balance these two conflicting needs. It identifies some current ways of thinking about the changes taking place in universities that are related to digital and networked technologies and to assess their impact. It then goes on to suggest the kinds of choices we may have to make in relation to new technologies at a variety of levels, the personal, the institutional and in terms of society in general. The edgeless university is associated with broad technological change but whether such change is inevitable is still an issue that needs to be discussed

Sharing practice, problems and solutions for institutional change

This chapter critiques the roles of different forms of representation of practice as part of an institutional change process. It discusses how these representations can be used both to design and to share learning activities at the various levels of decision-making in a university. We illustrate our arguments with empirical data gathered on change processes associated with an institution-wide change programme: the introduction of a new virtual learning environment (VLE). In particular, we describe a case study of the introduction of the VLE tools in a business course. We focus on two particular forms of representations to describe the essence of the innovation: a pedagogical pattern and a visual learning design. We argue that pedagogical patterns and learning design have emerged as parallel approaches to describing practice in recent years. Despite their very different origins, both provide complementary representations, which emphasize different aspects of the practice being described. We are attempting to combine these approaches. We briefly outline the Open University Learning Design initiative, of which this work is part, and describe its key underpinning philosophies. We believe our approach provides a vehicle for enabling a better articulation of design principles and the discussion of issues concerning the re-use of educational resources and activities