Discussion - Facet 4.2
Criticality in examining boundaries
Since “space without boundaries is not space, it is a chaotic void, and in such a place no learning is likely to occur” (Koseoglu, 2017), the research findings exemplify the lived experiences of the participants’ teaching and learning environments that can best be described as being bounded yet open (Palmer, 2017). Boundaries are created through their critical use of digital tools such as learning management systems, open-source technologies, and closed or open educational technologies. One example relates to the experiences LV shares about efforts to consistently create learning spaces outside of the LMS systems that most higher education environments use for student online learning. This bounded yet open description of learning space is also exemplified in ER’s use of Discord as the primary learning space for students in their courses.Efforts by the TEds in this research to apply an intentional and critical lens to materials, processes, and technologies for teaching and learning can be clouded by a veil of protectionism. I notice how the participants’ stories reveal how they work within, yet push against the tensions between protection and permissions, as exemplified by NK’s comments of the feelings of stress between their desire for student to share openly versus their need to ensure student safety. Participants in this research provide shared examples of how they negotiate with themselves and their students when making intentional decisions to share teaching and learning transparently and openly with each other, but also when considering intentional choices to share with wider audiences, as exemplified in RB and BC’s open Pressbook publication created by students in their courses. This critical approach also recognizes the ongoing efforts participants make to break down barriers and confront ongoing issues that occur while infusing MDL into their OEPr. For example, SH states a commitment to push boundaries for scholarly works with a commitment to only publish in open access journals which exemplifies a recognition and awareness of the needs of a opening boundaries to a broader audience. RG mentions a commitment to push boundaries of decolonization and amplifying marginalized voices, which exemplifies an MDL focusing on access and entry. RB relates a commitment to designing options for open learning spaces within their course designs which exemplifies a stance toward knowledge building and sharing.
Criticality is also evident in the findings in how participants examine, impose, and push through boundaries as they construct and share their digital identity and in how they make decisions about circulating and sharing their own or student media productions and the learning artifacts (Veletsianos & Stewart, 2016). Boundaries for the participants involve how, where, what, and when they disclose academic and personal information that shapes their identities (Belshaw, 2011; Veletsianos & Stewart, 2016). Critical approaches for disclosure are selective and intentional, while also being dependent on the networks or communities in which they are participating (Veletsianos & Stewart, 2016).
While I prefer the term digital persona (Hinrichsen & Coombs, 2013) to describe an individual’s digital presence, participants in this research share stories of their strategic decisions to cross boundaries or stretch the boundaries within which their digital persona is shared. This includes specific approaches for the use of singular or multiple avatar images, both realistic and figurative, to shape their complex digital personas, thus applying flexible, multiple, and nuanced representations of self in digital spaces (Hildebrandt & Couros, 2016; Hinrichsen & Coombs, 2013; Veletsianos & Stewart, 2016).
The teacher educators in this research apply their media skills and fluencies to the production and creation of digital avatars, voices, and multimodal renderings of who they are becoming as teacher educators, scholars, and open education practitioners. This is seen for example in the images, audio recordings, and web curation work done by FJ or the web curated materials by OW, shared openly as part of their course content collections which are critically shaped and created to support student learning. The boundaries for transitional and evolving digital persona links to the notion of "being" and "becoming" as identified by Gee (2017), emphasizing this state of impermanence of digital personas. In this research becoming an open educator or becoming media and digitally literate shifts toward the liminality of these persona, whereby participant TEds are continually becoming by crossing personal and professional boundaries, both self-drawn and organizationally expected. Tur et al., (2020) posit that this process occurs through boundary crossing as a right-of-passage involving doing (experiences), sense making (knowledge) and identities (being) that are transformative, troublesome, and liminal.
Nascimbeni and Burgos (2016) suggest that an open educator aims to work “through an open online identity and relies on online social networking to enrich and implement his/her work, understanding that collaboration bears a responsibility towards the work of others” (p. 4). Beyond creating and communicating digital versions of themselves and course materials, the participants set boundaries in their personal and professional communications within intra and inter- professional networks while they web-together learning opportunities for their students and themselves in ongoing and dynamic ways (Mentis et al., 2015; Veletsianos & Stewart, 2016). The integration of internet publication for circulating and sharing learning activities through blogging or other social media tools is part of course work for students, which in turn requires the participants themselves to model how to open boundaries safely and ethically when communicating to an unknown audience using multimedia productions. For example, SH ponders how to pay close attention and scaffold reflective, critical, open participation in order to discover boundaries between personal/professional and home/school for self and students. A critical media awareness is enhanced through text selection, use of space on the ‘page’, integration of accessibility standards, use of non-text-based elements such as icons or images, an increasing awareness of Creative Commons licensing, and the application of a publication status ranging from private, unlisted, or publicly accessible communications. In this way, the participants indicate how they model efforts to critically analyse and push through organizational structures that close boundaries and negate student voice. Several participants mention having critical conversations with students about the safe and ethical circulation of media productions.