Video conferencing as an evolving literacy practice in higher education

1
Video conferencing as an evolving literacy
practice in higher education

• John Morgan
• Language and Learning Centre
• University of Wales Aberystwyth
• jpm_at_aber.ac.uk
• http//users.aber.ac.uk/jpm

2
Setting and participants

• 8 weeks during the summer of 2005
• Two groups of 45 students from the University of
  Tunis, each studying at UWA for a 4 week period
  sponsored by the Ministry of Education in Tunisia
  
• Final year undergraduate English students
  specialising in literature, linguistics or
  civilisation
• Equivalent to PGCE level in UK

3
Aims

• To investigate some of the developmental stages
  of how novice users adapt to socially negotiated
  communication in video conferences
• It reviewed aspects of formality, playfulness and
  design and their mutability in the process of
  participation
• These factors were compared with operational,
  cultural and critical dimensions that have been
  observed in the use of ICTs in literacy practices
• (cf. Lankshear and Snyder, 2000)

4
Rationale

• The project utilised video conferencing
  facilities to set up an interactive classroom
  environment
• Information technologies have the ability to
  extend and enhance understanding of the ways in
  which the use of new technologies influences,
  shapes and even transforms, literacy practices
  (Snyder, 2003)
• Corporate interests in the use of new
  technologies in education often give rise to
  institutional views of learning
• This project helps to establish educational roles
  for video conferencing in higher education

5
Review of sources initial formality

• Corporate and institutional video conferencing
  guidelines emphasise the need for formality
• Baron (1998) suggests that when faced with a new
  means of communication, users display high
  levels of formality
• This has generally been evident in all first
  conferences so far (in this project and in
  ongoing video conferences)

6
Review of sources playfulness

• Coles and Hall (2001) observed that students
  begin to experiment with language and technology
  and a sense of playfulness emerges
• The extent to which this is evident may be
  dependent on social characteristics and formality
  of educational culture

7
Review of sources design

• Kress and Van Leeuwen (2001) identify aspects of
  design that strongly inform the way students
  negotiate roles and plan for effective
  conferences
• It becomes clear with recorded feedback
  (permission sought from all participants) that
  aspects of design need to be addressed for
  successful conferences

8
Review of sources technological dimensions in
ICTs

• Through the Digital rhetorics project Lankshear
  and Snyder (2000) identified operational,
  cultural and critical dimensions in the use
  of technologies in literacy practices
• Operational concerns with how things work
• Cultural appropriacy of communication styles
• Critical how appropriacy works towards
  successful communication

9
Methods/data collection

• VCs took place between Hugh Owen and Llanbadarn
  campuses (recorded in Laura Place)
• Students identified research reflection (RR)
  groups of 3 or 4 based on mutual interests in
  written research proposals
• Discussions were repeated over a series of two
  conferences (10-12 in each suite)
• Students viewed recordings after each conference
  to identify and discuss what they needed to work
  on for follow-up conferences

10
Data analysis 1

• Participant observation and field notes indicated
  that initial data analysis was conducted through
  progressive focussing
• This helps to focus the socially negotiated
  aspect of the groupwork towards effective VCs
• Grounded theory was used for theoretical coding
  of 90 pages of responses to open ended questions

11
Data analysis 2

• Repeated phenomena indicated emerging conceptual
  categories that identified the social basis for
  how students negotiated considerations of
  appropriacy in emerging communities of practice
• The cycle indicated in figure 1 below emerged in
  relation to the literature review to identify the
  process by which students adapt to socially
  appropriate communication in video conferencing
  and how this assimilates with their existing
  literacy practices in communication, research and
  education

12
(No Transcript)
13
Discussion 1

• Through the conferences it was observed that
  initial levels of formality are created in two
  ways. Firstly, it is recommended by institutional
  guidelines secondly, participants are faced with
  a new means of technology and until they
  understand the operational dimension (Lankshear
  and Snyder, 2000) of how this works they are
  often formal due to nervousness (cf. Baron,
  1998). As they become more familiar, both
  socially and technologically, they begin to
  experiment and a sense of playfulness emerges
  (cf. Coles and Hall, 2001).

14
Discussion 2

• Exactly when these levels of playfulness begin to
  happen is dependent on cultural factors (cf.
  Lankshear and Snyder, 2000). When people have a
  greater sense of shared history and collective
  identity it often happens sooner. This can be
  culturally determined depending on how
  appropriate it is to be playful in such settings
  in the home cultural contexts of the participants
  and in some cases a sense of playfulness is quite
  rare.

15
Discussion 3

• As participants become more comfortable and begin
  to understand the needs of the communicative
  situation, they begin to think about design
  (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2001), which has a
  critical interface (Lankshear and Snyder, 2000)
  between what is socially and linguistically
  appropriate and what is technologically possible.
  Thus we see a mutable evolution of factors that
  lead to participation (Goffman, 1981). Prior to
  and following participation, participants
  consider many factors in the negotiation of how
  they will communicate, what they will say and in
  which format they will present and discuss the
  information.

16
Discussion 4

• Upon reappraisal of these factors we will see
  changes in how people design future conferences
  that are now based on the reciprocal obligations
  and the emerging discourse of a video conference
  based community of practice. Even within this
  community there will be a number of sub groups
  that have evolved independently and who will
  maintain their own characteristics of community.

17
Ongoing research and practices 1

• EL27720 Advanced Communication in English in an
  Academic Context http//users.aber.ac.uk/jpm/el21
  010/el2.html
• This project has been researched as a result of
  initial VCs in EL27720 with participating Erasmus
  European exchange and other visiting students and
  the results are being used to inform the
  foundation for the development of a long term
  cooperative project between the Language and
  Learning Centre and Masaryk University (MU),
  Brno, Czech Republic

18
Ongoing research and practices 2

• The LLC is working closely with MU to develop
  critical discussions and presentations in
  multimodal student negotiated projects (including
  text, web-text, visual media and recordings of
  video conferences)
• To facilitate this, we have already begun to
  co-develop teaching materials that are socially
  situated for mutual communication needs in a
  transnational setting
• NEWS added since WVN Briefing Day on 17th Nov.,
  2005. On 18th Nov., I received an e-mail from my
  project partners at Masaryk University. The VC
  partnership page at MU is now on the web
  http//lingua.muni.cz/videoconferencing/index.php

19
References

• 1 Baron, N.S. (1998). Letters by Phone or
  Speech by Other Means The Linguistics of
  E-mail. Language and Communication 18,
  Pp.133-170.
• Constable, G. (date not provided). Guidelines
  for Successful Video Conferencing online.
  Available from http//users.aber.ac.uk/ccc/vc-gui
  delines.pdf (Accessed 7th June, 2005).
• Video Technology Advisory Service (date not
  provided). UKERNA Video Conferencing Meetings
  User Guide A General Guide for Participants,
  Facilitators and Chairpersons online.
  Available from http//www.video.ja.net/usrg/
  (Accessed 7th June, 2005).
• 2 Coles, M. Hall, C. (2001). Breaking the
  Line New Literacies, Postmodernism and the
  Teaching of Printed Texts. Reading November,
  Pp.111-114. Oxford Blackwell.
• 3 Kress, G. Van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Multimodal
  Discourse The Modes and Media of Contemporary
  Communication. London Arnold.
• 4 Lankshear, C. Snyder, I. with Green, B.
  (2000). Teachers and Technoliteracy Managing
  Literacy, Technology and Learning in Schools. St.
  Leonards, Sydney Allen and Unwin.
• 5 Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of Talk. Oxford
  Blackwell.
• 6 Mercer, N. (2000). Words and Minds How We Use
  Language to Think Together. London Routledge.