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• 1 2022-10-26T20:12:09+00:00 Crystallizing the findings 19 summary of the data analysis section of this dissertation plain 2023-10-02T14:55:49+00:00 By applying the P-IP methodology, I paused to analyze the findings using a whole, part, whole process. I returned to the crystallization methodology in order to bring clarity to the views that framed my seeing (Lather, 2006).  I remixed the findings into a concept map in order to make sense of the data gatherings. I understood that the graphic tacitly included individual cognitive components — what participants know and think — and their actions within social contexts — what they say and do (Gee, 2015) within their OEPr. I recalled the Cynefin framework as I emerged from the chaotic and confusing mix of lived experiences and stories of MDL that the participants shared throughout the data gathering moments – the interviews, artifacts, notes, memos, and web-creations.
  
            First, I crystallized the findings into a final version of a concept map (see Figure 20). 
  
           What emerged and crystallized was a metaphor to describe and focus on the facets found in the complex, inter-relational conception of MDL within an OEPr. I considered the image of a navigational gyroscope to assist my understanding. For you, the reader, try if you will to envision MDL within OEPr represented by a navigational gyroscope, spinning on a series of rotating wheels set on an axis. Perhaps a graphics interchange format (GIF) visualization will assist this seeing (see Figure 21).
  
  
  
   As a crystallization of the findings, I created the MDL in OEPr navigational gyroscope described below (see Figure 22).
  
            Now imagine teacher educators on the central platform which is a rotating wheel in the middle of the gyroscope. I positioned this as the inner layer of teacher education where critical digital literacies influenced TEds' actions and learning design decisions. I framed this from the foundational components of critical digital literacy as identified by Hinrichsen and Coombs (2013) building on the critical literacies identified by Luke (2012). These components included code breaking, meaning making, using and creating, analyzing, and developing digital persona. These aspects of digital literacy were also evident in several of the MDL frameworks examined (see Table 4). This wheel, representing the faculties of education in Canada, was positioned as the central platform. This platform spins around an axle which is attached to an inner wheel called a gimbal. This gimbal floats freely inside a larger outer wheel, a second gimbal, both nested within a stabilizing frame which is attached to a base. 
  
            I envisioned the inner ring, or gimbal of the gyroscope, as holding the components of MDL that were generated from the data as outlined in the findings. The moving sliders on this inner gimbal include the MDL factors of text, audience and production which shaped the focus of participants’ lived experiences on the components of communication, creativity, and criticality. These components included underlying elements of ethical practice, an emirec stance as both emitter and receptor of multimodal productions and performances, data management with consideration of SSPP, development of persona and identity, and circulation. The sliders on this ring point are indicative of the shifts of focus participants applied when making decisions about factors shaping text, audience and production. These elements were evident in many MDL frameworks and were represented in the Association for Media Literacy (AML) media triangle (Association for Media Literacy, 2022) (see Figure 11). 
  
            The outer gimbal of the gyroscope image is where I positioned components of OEPr as generated from the data and outlined in the findings. The sliders on this wheel were factors that focus on access, choice and connections as generated from the findings. On the wheel itself were the elements found within the participants’ lived experiences with OEPr including entry, intentionality, language, relationship, collaboration, knowledge building, agency and ownership, design, and sharing. Since the sliders can rotate around this outer ring, it suggested fluid yet intentional decisional forces that influence and focus the underlying components.
  
            The final, exterior and outermost ring appeared to be a stabilizing ring because it is attached to a standing base. I positioned this wheel as representative of the contextual and cultural environments within which participants’ lived experience are enacted. These included the local, provincial, national, and international ecospheres within which the TEds in FoEs enact their MDL within an OEPr. It was within this exterior ring where the inner rings were in motion. Although the interior rings were fixed together at pivot points in a semi-structured way, there was fluid motion of these interior rings. The outermost ring was perceived to provide a stabilizing influence and anchored the actions of the other rings. Despite the perception that the cultural and contextual factors represented by this exterior element appear anchored, it should be recognized that culture and contexts are also potentially in motion, albeit somewhat less obviously or less rapidly as the interior elements.
  
            Evident from this moving and spinning image was the realization that infusing MDL into a teaching practice can be challenging, particularly when the subject matter being taught may already be complex in itself. Infusing MDL elements within an open educational practice brought additional challenges to the art and science of teaching. This was further complicated for teacher educators as they attempted to develop a sense of what it meant to be a teacher within the novice teaching practice of their students, the TCs in the FoE.
  
            What was not evident within this image of the moving layers of the gyroscope was the movement along the wheel rim itself where elements of MDL and OEPr were positioned, which I have represented by the sliders on each inner wheel. What may also be missed was the potential interplay between the wheels, as indications of the iterative and fluid navigation TEds experienced when applying MDL into their OEPr. In viewing these multiple layers and potential moves between layers, I recognized the intentional decision-making about MDL that the participants made when including or excluding elements within the full scope of their OEPr. This intentionality was reflective of the multiple complexities participants face in the MDL they apply as they navigate the nuanced layers of their OEPr.
  
            Although the graphic image may suggest the layered and fluid motion among the elements found in the lived experiences of the participants, it was through the analysis of the findings in contrast to frameworks of MDL that deeper understanding emerged. By reflecting on previous assemblages of MDL frameworks (Belshaw, 2011; DQ Institute, 2021; Hoechsmann & Poyntz, 2012; Inamorato dos Santos et al., 2016; Martínez-Bravo et al., 2022; MediaSmarts, n.d.; Redecker, 2017). I looked for commonalities and connections to the facets generated in the findings (see Table 4). By aligning the elements found in a variety of research frameworks, I focused on dimensions that consistently appeared between and among the conceptions of MDL evident in these frameworks. These include communication, connecting, creativity, and criticality (see Figure 23). These framed the dimensions in the discussion of my findings. The chart and graphics supported the framing of my seeing (Lather, 2006).
  
             This chapter focused on the lived experiences with MDL of the TEds within their OEPr. When describing their experiences, participants explored themes of access, choice, and connections. Access touched on issues of entry, intentionality, and language. Choice revealed decisions when the participants shared, designed, and enhanced agency within media and digital teaching and learning activities. Connections revealed concerns with trust and power dynamics within OEPr in teacher education. Within their MDL, participants described communication considerations, creativity, and criticality within their teaching practices and the learning designs shared with students. Communication elements in the MDL of participants touched on audience, ethics, and data management specifically safety, security, privacy, and permissions with student data in an OEPr. Creativity was revealed through multimodal and intertextual, media infused productions that shared learning content and assessments created with media and digital tools. Productions and performance for the participants became focused on voice and co-creation. Criticality was revealed through both creating and sharing, identity work, and in circulation and distribution practices. In the next chapter these OEPr and MDL elements will be discussed in my quest for understanding of the lived experiences with MDL in the OEPr of TEds in Canadian FoE.
• 1 2022-06-04T18:04:31+00:00 Discussion 19 this is the discussion of the data and analysis reflecting the research conducted for this dissertation plain 207 2023-10-30T20:48:50+00:00 In this chapter I review the findings to explore the complexities of MDL within OEPr reflected in the participants’ lived experiences as TEds. I make sense of these lived experiences within the broader field of media and digital literacy, and teacher education. This section of the dissertation is a liminal space, sifting through what is known and unknown, becoming as it is written. In this way, I generate “knowledge that is partial and prismatic. Knowledge that admits its failures and opens up new ways of thinking” (Cannon, 2018, p. 572).
  
            In order to stay true to the P-IP approach and the crystallization methodologies that are foundational to this research, this discussion section is offered as a kaleidoscope of ideas – both noesis (mode of experiencing) and noema (what is experienced) (Rosenberger & Verbeek, 2015). I remix from MDL frameworks that include the individual cognitive components (what participants know and think) and their actions within social contexts (what they say and do) (Gee, 2015) within their OEPr. I explore where data gatherings from the lived experiences, interviews, observations, and media productions stand proxy for the MDL within the participants’ offerings (Rocha, 2015). Through these crystallizing moments, I reflexively open myself to possibilities as I turn to wonder (Rocha, 2015; Vagle, 2018).
  
            I appreciate that the intertwined concepts of media literacy and digital literacy are recognized in literature as complex concepts (Martinez-Bravo et al., 2022; Nichols & Stornaiuolo, 2019; Stordy, 2015). The extent to which global efforts attempt to bring media literacy and digital literacy into focus is evident in documents such as the Common Framework for Digital Literacy, Skills and Readiness (DQ Institute, n.d.) and the Media and Information Literacy Country Analysis (UNESCO, 2013). Although media literacy and digital literacy are more frequently seen as separate and distinct concepts, it is through a process of combination that I attempt to clarify my thinking (see Figure 22). I attempt to elicidate but not minimize the complexity of teaching and learning with MDL within an OEPr as a TEd, which may be as challenging and complex to understand as the inner workings and systems of practice responsible for sending the Hubble telescope into space. Thus, I focus on individual dimensions of MDL and OEPr as generated by the participants and identified in the findings.
  
            I revisit the research question in order to frame the findings: What lived experiences of media and digital literacies are evident in the open educational practices of teacher educators in Canadian faculties of education? I re-examine the concept map created from the findings, seeking to consolidate my understanding (see Figure 20). I analyze the navigational gyroscope graphic created from the findings (see Figure 22) and closely examine the layers and facets of the complex lived experiences of the participants with MDL within an OEPr in their roles as TEds in FoE in Canada.  I consider how the arbitrary delimiting boundary of selecting participants from within the geographic boundaries of the country of Canada offers little in terms of commonalities of experiences since it was applied to conveniently contain the scope of the research. Because of the dissimilarities in governance and funding structures of education in Canada, there may little in the lived experiences of the participants that can be drawn from the research that speaks to the unique Canadian-ness of those experiences. Perhaps future research could focus on making this type of comparison, seeking out similarities and differences within lived experiences of TEds in FoE in other global contexts.
  
            I attempt to break out of the siloed thinking that exists in the fields of teacher education, media studies, digital literacies, communication and information literacies, and critical literacies (Leaning, 2019) to allow synergies to emerge. I create and revise a table where I compare and contrast assemblages of MDL frameworks (see Table 4 in Appendix I). The map, the graphic and the table are analytic forms of ‘dispositio’, arrangements resulting from my “careful consideration of how component pieces should come together in a composition, both narratively and logically” (Hoechsmann in MacKenzie et al., 2022, p. 295). These analytic arrangements are representative assemblages of the participants’ MDL in their OEPr.
  
            I share share these crystallizations of media, specifically sketchnotes and concept maps, in order to make sense of the lived experiences of the participants in this research. My P-IP approach recognizes the impermanence and imperfection in these offerings. I acknowledge that this writing and the graphic renderings are dependent on language and that semiotics may shift meanings. The words I chose to use to represent the ‘thing’ called MDL in the participants’ OEPr may fail me. MDL and OEPr understandings depend on language where I as author, and you the reader, rely on code breaking and meaning-making to understand the nuanced and tacit scripts presented in these multimodal formats.
  
            From these diverse formats (Figure 20, Figure 22; Table 4) my focus turns toward identifying terms from within the findings that are more likely to be referenced within frameworks describing MDL. Despite my intentional focus on FoE in Canada, I critically selected both media and digital literacies frameworks that are representative of Canadian and global perspectives, providing a range of dimensions and factors relevant to this research. Two of the selected frameworks are compilations and distillations of numerous international frameworks (Martinez-Bravo, 2022; DQ website, n.d.) with the DQ framework identified as being comprehensive (Park et al., 2020). From a comparison of these frameworks, specific facets of MDL emerge as being more likely to be associated with teaching practices, particularly within an OEPr. Although these are not the only possible terms to explore, the ones I have selected as the dimensions on which to focus this discussion include the terms communication, creativity, connection, and criticality. As I examine these elements in this discussion, I reconnect to the research literature and reflect on the participants’ lived experiences as enacted within the autonomous and ideological conceptions of literacies, acknowledging MDL as cognitive and socially-contextual practices (Stordy, 2015; Street, 2003).