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• 1 2023-04-24T16:16:10+00:00 Dimension Three 12 discussion of dimension three: connecting plain 312 2023-10-02T15:27:58+00:00

  Connecting

  Except I have always sought to dismantle the screen, or to see through it. Because critical pedagogy, or critical digital pedagogy, is a humanising pedagogy—seeking the human behind the screen (Morris, 2020).

  As Morris suggests, humanizing teaching and learning practices by engaging through the screen rather than to the screen is essential for educators in order to make human connections within digitally enabled teaching and learning spaces. From the findings, the participants actively model the use of MDL to bring humanizing qualities into their teaching within their OEPr. I reconsider the findings and the research to explore the participants’ connections as both process and product – noesis (mode of experiencing) and noema (what is experienced) (Rosenberger & Verbeek, 2015) – through a lens of humanizing teaching and learning through their computer screens. Although connections can be both cognitive and social in nature, this discussion focuses primarily on the social connections that participants experience in their OEPr that require or apply MDL.
  
            As revealed in the findings, the participants’ lived experiences and artifacts share their stories of how they foster relationships, seek opportunities for connections, and build on the learning of others in humanizing ways. This is exemplified for example by Aquila's story of one student's experience of creating moccasins. It is also evident in Vega’s description of unconditional hospitality as being attuned and deeply listening to others, being reciprocal, sharing accessibly, understanding the barriers preventing connections, and by avoiding inflicting harm on others. Vega’s comments of unconditional hospitality echo my own experiences and conceptions of intentionally equitable hospitality (Bali et al., 2019) for video enabled dialogues within open and shared conference conversations, as arranged and presented by the grassroots organization Virtually Connecting, where media-making processes and products focus on equity of connections.

  From the frameworks

  Connecting is referenced in most of the frameworks I explore for this discussion (see Table 4).
  • Hoechsmann and Poyntz (2012) define connecting as essential “thinking or actions that produce meaningful connection with significance for those participating in the network” (p. 160) and connecting "between different problems and with drawing conclusions across seemingly different discourses and practices" (p. 147). 
  • Connecting is not explicitly mentioned in the MediaSmarts Canada framework (McAleese & Brisson-Boivin, 2022).
  • UNESCO (2013) considers individual cognition where connections are made when retrieving and restating information and media content, as well as the physical computer hardware connectivity via the internet which enables people to take advantage of crowdsourcing with/for information.
  • Belshaw (2011) identifies connecting as an element that supports the eight digital literacies and draws on the theory of connectivism (Siemens, 2018) to suggest that digital environments enable and enhance analog connections within a participatory practice.
  • In their examination of international digital literacy frameworks, Martinez-Bravo et al., (2022) identify connecting as a dimension within the operational dimension with links to the use of digital tools to real-world purposes, but also within the social dimension in how people form hybrid identities to connect and exchange “needs, motivations, solve problems or to create new products/ideas” (p. 6).
  • DigCompEDU focuses on how educators connect the wealth of materials, resources, and content through a process of using, modifying, and sharing in order to benefit student learning. This framework suggests that educators can then apply these connections to student learning when “exploring a topic, experimenting with different options or solutions, understanding connections, coming up with creative solutions or creating an artefact and reflecting on it” (Redecker, 2017, p. 22).
  • The DQ global standards do not have explicit links to conceptions of connectivity but connecting could be implicitly related to collaboration and teamwork, active listening, analytic thinking, and systems analysis within the twelve future-readiness skills this framework identifies as compiled from international literature and reports. (DQ website, n.d.).
            In efforts to connect to the person/people on the other side of the screen, the participants’ experiences reveal levels and degrees of connectedness within their professional and teaching networks (Lucier, et al., 2012), their participation in communities of practice (COP) particularly around OEPr (Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner, 2015), and building relationships within a personal/professional learning networks (PLN) (Oddone, 2019; Tour, 2017). Participants’ stories mention how they design courses and connections with a focus on equity, care, and social justice (Bali & Zamora, 2022) and an awareness of elements of design for resistance (Wallis & Rocha, 2022). Teacher agency is briefly examined as a factor in the participants’ efforts toward connecting within their teaching and learning and their OEPr. Each of these will be explored in relation to connections within the findings.
  
            Thestrup and Gislev (Mackenzie et al., 2022) suggest that acting globally and feeling connected requires a mindset found on the playground or in the makerspace, and where the internet connects people and places. Such playful mindsets include “experimental, non-linear, immediate and multimodal digital literacy practices” linking MDL processes and products within “content, tools of learning, contexts, peers, levels of challenge, time and place” (Tour, 2017 p. 15). This playful ethos is evident in the participants’ stories of MDL within their OEPr as they uncover connections from/to texts, self, and the world within nuanced and multiple layers of engagement, and maintain a focus on their students as the primary audience. Their MDL processes and productions connect participants to national and global networks within physical and digital spaces, for example Rigel’s connections to #FemEdTech or Lyra’s connections to the Canadian Association for Teacher Education (CATE) and  OTESSA. Connecting through organizations and hashtags, as mentioned in the participants' lived experiences, supports and develops MDL through the process of seeking, making, and maintaining connections, but also through purposeful collaborations on productions and research. For example, Andromeda and Izar's connection to GO-GN, and Leonis’ connections to global contexts through research and video productions to support courses they teach. The participants’ stories suggest a playful and open mindset in their relationship with technology in order to see ‘through’ rather than ‘with’ or ‘in’ technological hardware and software. Participants divulge how they become explorers of technologies to discover the functions of the tools through which they can connect with others and provide enriching learning opportunities. For some of the participants this includes self-reflective practices that occur through blogging and/or social media connections.
  
  
   
• 1 2023-04-24T16:29:47+00:00 Dimension 3.1 12 discussion of dimension 3.1: Connecting - connectedness in community plain 2023-10-02T15:35:34+00:00

  Connectedness in community

  Lucier et al., (2012) describes levels and degrees of connectedness that include lurker, novice, insider, colleague, collaborator, friend, and confidant. In the findings, there appears to be an acceptance of these degrees of connectedness in participants’ OEPr, particularly when the sharing of media productions impact their degree of connectedness to their current physical context. For example, Merak’s feelings of being a novice in creating and sharing coding activities for/with their TCs and Leonis’ feelings of confidence when connecting with collaborators for the teaching of video production. For Izar these degrees of connectedness include the connections to media and technologies through which people-centered connections occur, particularly those which encourage networks of openness by “taking aspects of closed communities and making those visible in some way” (Izar). Andromeda, Aquila, Lyra, and Vega mention how they encourage students to shift beyond lurking by reaching out to connect to researchers in their fields of study as a novice or insider. For Andromeda and Izar their participation in the GO-GN network establishes stronger degrees of connectedness with feelings of community being expressed in their lived experiences within the field of open education research. Carina, Lyra, Merak and Orion mention being connected as collaborators and confidants within professional networks such as CATE. Participants reveal how MDL productions influence and support their teaching and scholarly work through active and reciprocal PLN (Tour, 2017) in a “linking, stretching, or amplifying” manner (Oddone, 2019). The participants’ “playful, fluid and multimodal practices allowed making choices in terms of what digital spaces to use, what communities to join, and what resources to explore” (Tour, 2017, p. 15).
  
            Connections include communities of practice (COP) (Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner, 2015) such as the GO-GN network which focuses on research in open education (About GO-GN, n.d.). Wenger-Trayner and Wenger-Trayner (2015) describe characteristics of COP that include problem solving, requests for information, seeking out experience, reusing assets, coordination and synergy, growing confidence, discussions of new developments, initiating new projects, identifying gaps, and visiting. These qualities are evident in the lived experiences of Andromeda and Izar as shared in their open MDL productions (blog posts).
  
            Differing from COP, networked teaching and learning through/with connections (Lohnes Watulak, 2018; Mirra, 2019; Mirra & Garcia, 2020) is reflective of Gee’s (2017) description of an affinity space since it provides flexible and fluid structures to engage with others through a computer screen. Affinity spaces, according to Gee (2017), include participants’ common interests where anyone can contribute, hold a distinction between individual and community knowledge, include flexible ways for interactions to involve external sources of ideas, holds tacit knowledge as commonly accepted, embraces varying forms of participation, where status is achieved through a variety of contributions, and roles include both helper and teacher (Gee, 2015). Although participants in this research describe involvements in some form of COP and connected networks relating to teaching and learning, those involved in GO-GN (Andromeda and Izar) and OTESSA (Andromeda, Izar, Lyra, Orion, and Rigel) specifically focus efforts on enhancing and designing their OEPr and apply MDL processes and productions to building connections and relationships through their computer screens (GO-GN website, n.d.).
  
            As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, COP and PLN activities occur predominantly through computer enabled media and digital communications. Connecting through the screen is fraught with power dynamics and concerns of accessibility, as Lyra describes in their lived experiences in one COP when requesting a transition from in-person to digitally enabled planning meetings. Participants describe approaches to their OEPr in course designs, course elements, and throughout the design process, to develop relationships, structure opportunities for connections, and build on the learning of others in humanizing ways that include sharing, reuse, and remix of materials and methods to communicate with students and peers, done through active and sometimes playful engagements in communities of practice and through networked learning (Bozkurt et al 2019; Brown et al., 2022; Couros & Hildebrandt 2016; Mirra, 2019; Nascimbeni et al, 2018; Roberts et al., 2022).