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Media and digital literacies in Canadian teacher educators’ open educational practices: A post-intentional phenomenology

homo faber

Homo faber is described by Thomas and Seely Brown (2009) as (hu)man as maker, stressing our ability as a species to make and create. In the world of digital technologies and teaching, this describes the "most important and transformational elements of the networked world and provides a unique set of affordances for understanding the relationship between new media and learning" (p. 8).

constitutes knowing as an embodied set of experiences that we create through our practices of being in the world and attending to things in the world through our experiences with them. To know something deeply is to understand the explicit dimension though our embodied engagement with its tacit dimension (Thomas & Seely Brown, 2009, p. 7)

For this research and dissertation, the concept of homo faber is foundational since it is described as "creating an epistemology which is centred on knowing and becoming, rather than knowledge and being" (emphasis in original) (Thomas & Seely Brown, p. 7).
A core premise of the concept of homo faber suggests that through the process of creation, humans develop understanding and

comprehend the world, not merely as a set of object, artifacts, or creations, but as coherent entities which we come to dwell in and which we make sense of the “jointness” and interconnection of the parts that constitute the whole, both at the explicit level of the object itself and at the tacit level in terms of its social context and relations. It is this level of tacit knowledge, that which is known, embodied and most importantly felt that begins to constitute a basis for a new understanding of learning (Thomas and Seely Brown, 2009, p. 8).

Reference
Thomas, D., & Seely Brown, J. (2009, June). Learning for a world of constant change: Homo sapiens, homo faber & homo ludens revisited. 7th Glion Colloquium. https://johnseelybrown.com/Learning4aWorldofConstantChangeannotated.pdf

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Alternative Dissertation Design
What is the reading of a text, in fact, except the recording of certain thematic recurrences, certain inconsistencies of forms and meanings? (Calvino, 1979)
To honour the topic of media and digital literacies, and to authentically share and reveal the MDL under investigation, the results of my research is presented in an openly accessible, alternatively created, digitally enabled format. This document is presented as an interactive text to explore thematic recurrences and inconsistent forms or meanings, as suggested by Calvino (1979). Although I use and apply a variety of media and digital strategies and techniques, this “open-ended, problematic, critical, polyphonic” text (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005, p. 1124) is my attempt to bend and circumvent the boundaries imposed by traditional alpha/numeric dissertation representations. In this dissertation format I reflect and create a non-linear, hyper-textually linked, dialogic, conceptually and topically interconnected and networked rendering of my research, thus mirroring the nature of this qualitative research. By reading this text, as Calvino suggests in the quote above, you will undoubtedly become aware of and possibly record occasions of thematic recurrences, inconsistencies, and shifting meanings.

Idhe and Malafouris (2019) referenced the notion of homo faber, which connected to the writing by Thomas and Seely Brown (2009) who positioned humans as maker and emphasized our ability to create. This is grounded in the words of Arendt (1998/ 1958) who suggested that the "implements and tools of homo faber, from which the most fundamental experience of instrumentality arises, determine all work and fabrication" (p. 153). This suggests that humanity is evolutionarily constituted and shaped by the technologies we use. New materialities and digital ecospheres encompass all aspects of living and learning (Pahl et al., 2020; Sameshima et al., 2019). We are thus constructed by the tools that we've constructed and by which we engage in relationships and construct our learning (Ihde & Malafouris, 2019). I am constructed as an academic and researcher in this PhD process while creating the dissertation as product. This dissertation echoes McLuhan's position that the medium is the message (McLuhan, 1964).

My dissertation process and product look beyond what may be obvious and common, seeking the hidden “changes or effects that are enabled, enhanced, accelerated or extended by the new thing” (Federman, 2004). This alternative dissertation will ”suit the style as much as possible to the matter” (McLuhan & McLuhan, 1992, p. xi). In this way, my research and this resulting dissertation can be seen to critically analyze the privilege of representation, voice, and academy.

Deciding to shift my research process and product into a fully interactive and digital environment fits with the ontological and epistemological frameworks within which I study. Pockley, the creator of the first electronic dissertation in 1995, described texts as “mutable streams of thought, open to annotation, revision, re-presentation and part of the very fabric of their community of interest” (Jacobs, 2008, p. 245). By preparing and presenting my research and dissertation in an alternative dissertation (ALT-DISS) format, I contribute to the breaking open of “calcified conventions” sustaining the linear privilege of print text (Covey, 2013) as traditionally found in electronic dissertation and theses formats relying on static portable document format (PDF) manuscripts. With my experiences in producing and sharing media texts, I recognize the “cultural agoraphobia, the cognitive bias that leads us to underestimate the potential of openness” (Covey, 2013, p. 550) and will push open the structure, media, notions of authorship, and methods of assessment in the process and products in research and dissertations.

As evidenced in this dissertation, I have designed paths through the research information, but it is YOU, the reader of this interactive web created document, who will control the serendipitous navigation through the content. YOU control the reading experience. YOU determine the strategic use of hyperlinks, embedded media, graphic organizers, taxonomic features, and visualization options and affordances in the Scalar software. These elements reflect a media filled, rich, thick description, and exemplifies the open nature of this dissertation.

Scalar software was strategically and intentionally selected to present the research results within a fluid, editable, elastic format that is “open to annotation and responsive to change” (Jacobs, 2008, p. 237). Previously published Scalar dissertations model the use of this digital tool and Dixon (2014) provide the opportunity to explore, experience and understand the digital mechanisms available in this form of digital publication (Dixon, 2014).

Since my research and dissertation are not without political considerations, and to meet institutional requirements for a ‘frozen in time’ document as a representation of my research capabilities (Barrett, 2014; Jacobs, 2008), a secondary linear PDF version was also be produced. Dissemination of research results will be pursued through traditional, peer reviewed Canadian and international journals, conference presentations, and through open social media and web publications.

In rendering this dissertation differently, I heed Denzin's (2017) call to "unsettle traditional concepts of what counts as research, as evidence, as legitimate inquiry" (p. 8). There may be elements here that reflect postmodernist compositions, such as those found within Italo Calvino's novel If on a Winter's Night A Traveler (Calvino, 1979) and Luigi Serafini's (1981) Codex Seraphinianus which is described as an illustrated encyclopedia of an imaginary world using an imaginary language and code. This dissertation is alternatively both creator and created. It is both dispositio, described as a remix or mashup, a composition and arrangement of an academic argument, and inventio, described as being traditional, original, and sole authorship production (Hoechsmann in Mackenzie et al., 2022).
Glossary 19 alphabetic listing of glossary items with links to notes that describe each item plain 2023-06-28T15:29:30+00:00
Here is an alphabetic listing of the glossary items included in this dissertation document. Each item is linked to a note where the item is defined, described, and/or examples provided. These glossary items are also embedded throughout the document as notes within pages, where they provide 'just in time' clarification for you, the reader.
- Actor Network Theory
- Affinity Spaces
- Alternative Dissertation
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Black Box technology
- Block Chain
- ChatGPT
- Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS)
- Creative Commons
- Cynefin framework
- Data Gathering
- Digital Rights Management (DRM)
- Educommunication
- Emirec
- Episteme / Phronesis
- Faculty of Education (FoE)
- #FemEdTech
- Free and Open Software (FOSS)
- Homo Faber
- Hupomnemata
- Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)
- Learning Management Systems (LMS)
- Makerspace
- Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)
- Media and Information Literacy (MIL)
- Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
- Open Educational Practices (OEPr)
- Paywall
- Platforms
- PDF
- Portable Graphics Network (PNG)
- Post-Intentional Phenomenology (P-IP)
- Practice - both noun and verb
- Research Ethics Board (REB)
- Safety, Security, Privacy, Permission (SSPP)
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada (SSHRC)
- Teacher Candidates (TCs)
- Teacher Educators (TEds)
- Teacher Educator Technology Competencies (TETCs)
- TPACK
- Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans
- UNESCO
- Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
- Universal Serial Bus (USB)
- Visitors / Residents