Patchworking as a Metaphor for Learning Understanding Youth, Learning and Technology

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Patchworking as a Metaphor for Learning-
Understanding Youth, Learning and Technology

• Thomas Ryberg
• E-Learning Lab Center for User Driven
  Innovation Learning and Design
• Dept. of Communication and Psychology
• Aalborg University
• ryberg_at_hum.aau.dk

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Outline

• Departure in a study of young power users of
  technology
• What we can learn from a technology mediated,
  open-ended and problem oriented learning process
• Two overarching aims of the presentation
• Presenting the metaphor of Patchworking
• As a way of understanding, conceptualising and
  critically analysing learning processes
• Discussing relations between youth, learning and
  technology
• Creative remix culture vs. cut-and-paste
  plagiarism Navigating between utopian and
  dystopian discourses

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Background

• Empirical study conducted in relation to the
  Power Users of Technology project
• Envisioned long-term research project (20 years)
• Headed by the Education Development Center an
  international, US-based, non-profit organization
• Collaboration with research groups (e.g. at AAU),
  business partners, UN and partners from the
  educational sector

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Hypotheses of the project

• Hypotheses in the project about young Power Users
  of Technology
• Their self-selected, long-term, intensive
  experiences with technology have changed them.
  They think, behave, and solve problems
  differently from us and from others who have not
  had this special relationship with technology. We
  really dont know everything they are able to
  do. Joyce Malyn-Smith Vivien Guilfoy - EDC
• We believe that how they think and what they do
  is revolutionary not evolutionary. They are
  leapfrogging over many of the more traditional
  ways that we think about learning. Their minds
  and their brains are developing in ways that most
  of us cant quite understand because we are not
  wired in the same ways that they have been
  Joyce Malyn-Smith Vivien Guilfoy - EDC
• The intense use of technology has changed young
  people and their ways of learning / solving
  problems
• To explore the notion of Power Users and the
  hypotheses the Costa Rica Symposium was arranged

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Costa Rica Symposium

• Selecting six teams of young Power Users to
  work with open-ended learning challenges (related
  to UN-millennium goals)
• Bringing the teams to Costa Rica to continue
  their work and present their results
• We were in charge of the Nordic Team
• We Researchers, facilitators/chaperones (5-6
  persons)
• Nordic Team 4 from Aalborg, 4 from Copenhagen
  (13-16 years old)
• Knew each other in pairs
• Their challenge how to reduce poverty in the
  world through the use of technology

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Our pedagogical approach

• Based on the Aalborg PBL model
• Problem Orientation/formulation (in contrast to
  Problem Solving)
• Group Work
• Our role Supervisors and facilitators

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Overview of activities before Symposium

• May 2005 First meeting with Aalborg Power Users
• June 2005 Video meeting between all the power
  users - discussion of problem to address Poverty
  or Environment
• June-July Small meetings and online sessions
  Poverty decided!
• Very Late July Online meeting and three of them
  working on refining their problem

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Before symposium

• They had very little to work with from the outset
  mainly vague ideas and concepts
• Really starting their work on the evening of the
  7th of august presenting it on the 10th in the
  morning (app. 2½ days of work).
• Still they managed to pull together a quite
  interesting and also well-argued presentation
• Quick 4 minutes overview of their work

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Their presentation as a patchwork

• The presentation is heavily multi-modal and
  combining many different mediational means and
  resources
• Animation, video, pictures, texts, language,
  music, computers, paper, projectors, chairs,
  stage, bodily posture, movement and much more.
• Conceptual patchwork as well
• Information, facts, discussions and ideas from
  many different sources.

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Entering the process of patchworking

• Patchwork of many different sources, means and
  media that were assembled to convey their
  conceptualisation of poverty and how to address
  this issue
• Some graphs came from a presentation of an
  expert, which had even ripped some from an UN
  webpage
• Facts and information came from various web pages
  and books
• Ideas came from interviews, a bus conversation
  and other sources
• They made four different interviews which were
  video-taped, edited (some subtitled) and made
  part of the presentation.
• Music was carried on the computer from home
• Poor peoples pictures through Google image
  search
• Pictures in animation were hand-drawn and
  animated in PowerPoint
• Their stage show was choreographed and practised
  the night before
• Where did all these elements and concepts come
  from?
• Tracking back in time to find origin, while
  moving forward to follow their development

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Critical questions!

• A mindless exercise of copy-paste or a creative,
  innovative and challenging learning process?
• A process of knowledge construction and not
  merely re-production?

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Methodology

• Qualitative research
• Explorative study, rather than controlled
  experiment
• Participant observation quick-and-dirty
  ethnography
• Document collection
• Video data (app. 20 hours)
• Interviews
• How to approach the data
• Between ethnographical accounts and microanalysis
  of interaction
• Analysing in some detail excerpts of actual
  interaction to ground and develop the analytic
  concepts and theoretical discussions
• Main interest in the development and changes of
  their ideas and knowledge the flow of events

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Focus

• The situation
• A short term, intensive learning process
• Following the trajectory and development of ideas
  (threads)
• How did their conceptual understanding develop?
• How did particular ideas develop, disappear or
  emerge?
• How did they manage and master the entire work
  process?
• Development of analytical concepts to address
  these questions

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Analytic Concepts

• Cycles analytic concept to identify overarching
  phases or structures in their work
• Two main cycles identified
• Cycles of stabilisation work and production
• Cycles of patchworking and remixing
• Processes analytic concept to identify ongoing
  activities of variable intensity e.g.
• Foraging and gathering
• Creating a shared pool of knowledge
• Stitching a conceptual blueprint
• Creating a sociable atmosphere
• Threads orientation devices
• Backbone threads (problem formulation,
  methodology)
• Topical threads (more ephemeral ideas (tourism),
  hypotheses (jobs))

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Development of threads

• Threads develop and grow thicker through the
  foraging and gathering of different patches
  and pieces that form small patchworks
• From this a conceptual blueprint of their
  overall argument and the relations between
  threads and the various small patchworks start to
  emerge
• Two prominent threads (education and taxes)
• Education is important ? education can be
  statistically shown to have a major impact on
  poverty. Furthermore it is a key condition for
  civic engagement and democratic participation in
  a society.
• Taxes of course!! (moral blueprint) ? taxes
  require high level of trust between government
  and people, civic engagement (corruption a
  problem) also it is a highly scandi-centric
  perspective.

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An example
Copy-catting and plagiarism or creative
reappropriation?
We need to pay close analytic attention to how
and why patches and pieces are woven into the
patchworks
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Foraging and gathering no no we want it NOW!
E-mail wont do!!!
Cycle of stabilisation work and production
re-ordering and selecting slides
Cycle of patchworking and remixing
negotiating the use of the slide constructing
the conceptual blueprint
Cycle of stabilisation work and production
Working it into the final slideshow
Process of re-weaving.negotiating the meaning of
the slide Success or Problem
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Reweaving a patchwork

• Different layers in reweaving processes
• Activity of re-organising patches and pieces
• New ideas or disruptive and contradictory patches
  and pieces are brought in
• May cause reweavings of the different layers
• A way of acknowledging the complexity of
  patchworking

Taxes are great corruption a problem ? caused
a disturbance
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Patchworking as a metaphor for learning

• An overarching description of the metaphor
• Something old, something new Something borrowed,
  something blue
• Learning as processes of stitching and weaving
  together different patches and pieces into
  something new.
• Different from viewing learning as transfer or
  acquisition of facts
• Knowledge and learning as active, creative,
  constructive or productive processes
• Creatively re-appropriating, re-using, remixing
  various resources, media and ideas into new
  patchworks
• Young power users master such productive
  learning processes but more than mere
  technological skills
• Abilities to communicate, collaborate, construct
  narratives and arguments (equally music,
  fan-fiction)

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Why is this important?

• The (apparent) rise of the knowledge society
  means
• Focus on the ability to creatively produce new
  knowledge, rather than providing students with a
  stable body of knowledge
• Some youth are power users who intensively
  engage in creative, productive activities in
  technology-rich environments (remix culture /
  participatory culture)
• This takes place largely outside formal education
• However, some youth are not developing these
  skills
• Education has a role in supporting creative,
  open-ended technology-mediated activities
• The notion of patchworking as a perspective to
  acknowledge, appreciate, support and critically
  investigate such activities

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The end?

• Thank you for your attention
• and to the power users surfing the wireless,
  mailing, checking Wikipedia, finding
  contradictory evidence, looking at the power
  users website and reading more interesting blogs
• Thanks for your distributed attention it is all
  I can ask for

Kudos to Onebyjude on Flickr.com Patchwork
graphics adapted from original pictures posted
under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic
license remix allowed! (http//creativecommons.o
rg/licenses/by/2.0 ) by onebyjudes
(http//www.flickr.com/photos/joodles
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Patches and Pieces
Less than one percent of the money spend on
weapons each year can give every children in
world access to school
FACT
Club House has changed the trajectory of my life
from crime to education
Clapton tears in heaven
Corruption is a problem we also need to make
people trust the government
GRAPH
How about tourism or property tax?
UNICEF.ORG WIKIPEDIA.ORG LEKSIKON.ORG
Brain-DrainTrade agreements
INTERVIEW
BACK
IDEA
ARGUMENT
WEB-TEXT
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Reweaving
SUCCESS?
PROBLEM?
Depending on the way of viewing, constructing (or
revising) the problem formulation the
conceptual blueprint of the entire patchwork
(overall argumentation) can be re-woven
Back