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• 1 2022-06-08T21:23:24+00:00 Research Phases and Timeline 30 outlines the research phases and timeline for this research plain 2023-10-02T17:40:38+00:00 Next the phases and timeline are provided in both text and graphic formats. Although this timeline suggested a linear process, spirals and recursions occurred throughout the research process in order to revisit, review, and reflect on data gatherings and research journal notes. This is symptomatic of P-IP methodology as an iterative and rhizomatic process. This supported the assembling of data engagements (Ellingson & Sotirin, 2020) since data were generated from the lived experiences and intentionality of the participants, as revealed through actions, artifacts, technologies, and discourses within each research phase (see Figure 15).
            Phase One included the preparatory work of seeking research ethics board (REB) approval, preparing the informed consent forms, drafting the interview protocol, developing a draft interview schedule, and searching the internet for potential participants. During this phase I conducted one interview with a teacher educator outside the Canadian teacher education context who was familiar to me. As a novice researcher, this pilot interview allowed me to reflect on the interview process and prompts, and make adjustments to the interview protocol as part of the REB submission. This first phase ended once the REB approval was received (see Appendix A).
  
            Phase Two included a sequence of initial contacts over the space of five months. I aimed to schedule these at least one week apart in order to manage the data gathering and data-engagement process I had planned. Throughout this phase I maintained both an electronic spreadsheet and a research notebook form of tracking to ensure I followed a consistent sequence with each participant. An introductory email was sent to the participant (see Appendix B-1). Once the TEd agreed to participate, I conducted a web search for information that may be relevant for this research e.g. publications, course related information, and social media posts. I recorded this information in a Word doc version of my research journal, along with any notes on insights into MDL connections or thoughts for possible inclusion in the interview.
  
            After the initial agreement to participate, I sent out the informed consent information (see Appendix C) along with a video link as a way of introducing myself to the participant and providing information about the research. The interview was then scheduled for a mutually convenient time and the informed consent was collected. I also sent a copy of the interview protocol (see Appendix D), not with an expectation that participants would prepare prior to meeting, but to provide a guide to our conversation. After the first few interviews were completed, I changed the process slightly to include sending out an electronic calendar invitation which included the Zoom link so participants could see this event on their preferred calendar software.
  
            The interview was then conducted. Immediately prior to meeting the participant, I reviewed my research journal notes to ensure I was fully prepared for the conversation. At the end of the interview participants were asked to prepare a digital artifact using a technology of their choice (text, image, graphic, audio, video) that was reflective of their MDL and OEPr lived experiences. As suggested by Ellingson and Sotirin (2020), this “participatory data engagement requires exceptional openness to change, to uncertainty and ambiguity, and to attending carefully to how different forms of knowledge emerge” (p. 95).
  
            After the interview ended, the recording was saved to my laptop. The audio file provided from the Zoom recording was uploaded to Otter.ai and transcribed, usually within one hour of the upload. After downloading the transcription from Otter.ai, I reviewed the document as I listened and watched the recorded interview. This supported making any necessary edits and observational notes. In this way, I re-encountered the data within an agentic and dynamic state (Ellingson & Sotirin, 2020). Although the recordings or transcripts did not materially change (Ellingson & Sotirin, 2020), my engagement with these data shifted to a different moment in time, thus altering my views in subtle and sometimes dramatic ways. Once the transcript was reviewed, it was saved prior to conducting a process of redacting identifying information such as names or geographic references. This redacted version of the transcript was then inserted into the Word Art software. The rendered word cloud image was then downloaded as a portable graphics network (PNG) file and stored on my computer. I also created a short screen-cast video of some of the interactive word clouds which allowed me to detect words that were not noticed in the first viewing.
  
            In the post-interview email sent to each participant (see Appendix B-2), I included links to the transcript, the audio recording, and the PNG of the word cloud image for review and comments (see this curated collection of word cloud images). In this email I reminded the TEds of the second part of their participation – the creation of a digital artifact representative of their lived experiences with MDL in their OEPr. To provoke their thinking, I provided links to media and digital literacy frameworks that could be referenced for this artifact production. A soft due date was set for two weeks post-interview. I also included a digital e-card to a national bookstore chain as a way to recognize their gift of time with this project.
  
            When I examined the artifacts, I delved more deeply into the TEds lived experiences with MDL within OEPr. This was an opportunity to “focus on analysis and creative representations of participants’ experiences, with consideration of the researcher in a secondary role” (Ellingson, 2009, p. 23). The participants created artifacts in a variety of formats – infographics, a sketch-note, blog post, video recording, interactive story created using Twine, and audio recordings. These digital artifacts revealed a representation of MDL and OEPr in action as a process of becoming. This part of the second phase was a way of “leading to a co-authored understanding of the experience being discussed between the participant and the researcher” (Ranse et al., 2020, p. 6). As mentioned, a spreadsheet and research journal chart were maintained throughout this phase to confirm completion of each task, to track progress, and ensure I reached projected timeline benchmarks.
  
            Phase Three included work done after the interview phase was fully complete. During this phase I blocked one week to review all the interview video recordings while reading the transcripts, modelling the whole-part-whole process in P-IP methodology. This allowed me to make note of connections among and between participants’ stories, as I began to notice trends and commonalities. Immediately following this week-long review, I took time to revisit codes already done in NVivo for each transcript (see Table 2) and then created updated coding charts. I revisited the word art collections from the transcripts and created an overarching word art from all the keywords created by the Otter.ai software. As I did a third review of the transcripts, I further redacted the documents to ensure confidentiality, and added notes and memos as marginalia.
  
            The time came to generate unifying codes to discern the overarching research story. I reviewed the codebook within NVivo to combine to reduce the listing and provided detailed descriptions (see Table 3 in Appendix H). Once this was completed, I created a graphic rendering of early and emergent ideas (see Figure 17) and a preliminary concept map (see Figure 18) as I attempted to bring ideas and conceptions together. I shared these digital artifacts with critical friends in my PLN. After receiving feedback, I took a pause from my immersion into the data. During the next period of time I immersed myself in reading and rereading literature, while also attending and viewing webinars relating to coding and generating themes. Phase three ended with a renewed plan for revising themes and organizing quotes for the writing of the findings section of the dissertation.
   
• 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).