John Cook

Connections with the Edge

Subcultures Network International Conference, 13-14 April 2023, UWE Bristol, UK, see https://www.uwe.ac.uk/events/subcultures-network-international-conference. Abstract: https://tinyurl.com/562kmvh5

This paper identifies and elaborates on a 'London in the 80s Indie music milieu'; this bohemian milieu was typified by a socially unconventional network of squats and housing coops, and often included those involved in Indie music (for example Figure 1). Figure 1: Top left clockwise: Popular Russians (playing at Carol Street Particularly, the newly...

AI in learning. leisure and work: ethical considerations Abstract, John Cook. In my recent lecture to Goethe University Frankfurt students (Summer 2022, see link to slides below), I highlight what I think are key ethical concerns regarding AI with respect to learning, leisure and work. A key question for me, in terms of social justice, is who are...

This paper identifies and elaborates on a 'London in the 80s Indie music milieu'; this bohemian milieu was typified by a socially unconventional network of squats and housing coops, and often included those involved in Indie music. Particularly, the newly formed milieu was seen as a potential resource for developing agency and for changing cultural...

As we emerge from the Covid pandemic, learning technology in Higher Education finds itself centre stage. Not all of the attention is welcome, with UK Government Ministers demanding the return to face-to-face teaching (Mail Online, 2022). Research into the early experiences of Covid was collated into 138 publications in the COVID – 19 Higher Educati...

Got this and sent file but uploaded here as well. "XXX is requesting access to a file via an old link, which is no longer valid due to a security update. Share the file with this person directly, or copy and send the new link in sharing settings". This report provides the first part of the conceptual basis for our work (Lead: UWE Bristol) and is s...

First session from short Hybrid Learning Spaces (HLS) course I teach at Goethe University Frankfurt. Course objective is To explore the questions “Hybrid Learning Spaces: A Passing Hype or the New Normal?”. Includes cases study from Springer book on HLS. I am pleased with our paper, authors' final draft download-able from https://tinyurl.com/5f56sn...

Our chapter responds to the need to investigate and represent a more nuanced theoretical proposition in the area of Hybrid Learning Spaces (HLS). The work is positioned along two axes of pedagogical theory and practice implications derived from case studies. The following research question (RQ) originates from the Zone of Possibility (ZoP) body of...

The paper contributes to design discourse by drawing on Educational Design Research (EDR) that has been conducted into what we call a Zone of Possibility (ZoP) over the past seven years. We define a ZoP as a place where individuals can overcome the constraints of expectations and power structures to effect desired change. Specifically, this paper p...

Learning Analytics und ihre Metriken – Annäherung an einen pädagogischen Rahmen über einen sozialsemiotischen Weg Der Beitrag stellt sich die Aufgabe, Metriken auf Bildung anzuwenden und schlägt dazu vor, Lernanalytik und ihre metrischen Verfahren in ein sozialsemiotisches Konzept von Lernen als Entwicklung von Bedeutung einzuordnen. Solch ein soz...

Through Bristol Learning Co-op (BLC), we intend establish an alternative organisation for teaching, learning, and co-producing knowledge for social transformation in Bristol. BLC is being constituted as a co-operative that is collectively owned and non-hierarchically governed by all its members for the benefit of its members and the City of Bristol...

One page position paper surrounding: - A cultural event that foregrounds cooperative knowledge production - Related questions for Bristol Learning Co-Op

In this paper, we define the notion of the Hybrid Social Learning Network. We propose mechanisms for interlinking and enhancing both the practice of professional learning and theories on informal learning. Our approach shows how we employ empirical and design work and a Participatory Pattern Workshop to move from (kernel) theories via Design Princi...

This paper proposes a methodology which attempts to address the barriers to the development of successful educational design research through a process which identifies gaps in current practices and devises innovations to target them. Educational design research assumes an ambitious position: a dual commitment to understand and contribute to both t...

Social learning networks enable the sharing, transfer and enhancement of knowledge in the workplace that builds the ground to exchange informal learning practices. In this work, three healthcare networks are studied in order to understand how to enable the building, maintaining and activation of new contacts at work and the exchange of knowledge be...

The Internet-mobile device enabled social networks of today stand accused of being so called 'weapons of mass distraction' or worse. However, we point out that modern fears about the dangers of social networking are overdone. The paper goes on to present three phases of mobile learning state-of-the-art that articulate what is possible now and in th...

This paper proposes a framework which attempts to address the barriers to the development of successful educational design research through a process which identifies gaps in current practices and devises innovations to target them. Educational design research assumes an ambitious position: a dual commitment to understand and contribute to both the...

The contributions for this Special Collection on ‘Ideas in Mobile Learning’ expand on the trends explored in the successful ‘Bristol Ideas in Mobile Learning Symposium’ which ran on the 6th and 7th March, 2014 (see Cloudworks, 2014; BIML, 2014). Four papers in this Special Issue are expanded versions of presentations at the Bristol Symposium. Taken...

We present KnowBrain (KB), an open source Dropbox-like knowledge repository with social features for informal workplace learning. KB enables users (i) to share and collaboratively structure knowledge , (ii) to access knowledge via sophisticated content-and metadata-based search and recommendation, and (iii) to discuss artefacts by means of multimed...

The work reported in this position paper explores the development of citizen led 'hybrid cities' in which augmented and social web technologies mediate learning and innovation in what we term the Zone of Possibility. An example of a Hybrid Stokes Croft app is given early on to illustrate key concepts. The notion of a Zone of Possibility has been de...

In this paper we define the notion of the Hybrid Social Learning Network. We propose mechanisms for interlinking and enhancing both the practice of professional learning and theories on informal learning. Our approach shows how we employ empirical and design work and a participatory pattern workshop to move from (kernel) theories via Design Princip...

Authentic assessment is important in formal and informal learning. Technology has the potential to be used to support the assessment of higher order skills particularly with respect to real life tasks. In particular, the use of mobile devices allows the learner to increase her interactions with physical objects, various environments (indoors and ou...

The purpose of this paper is to begin to examine how the intersection of mobile learning and design research prompts the reconceptualization of research and design individually as well as their integration appropriate for current, complex learning environments. To fully conceptualize and reconceptualize design research in mobile learning, the autho...

Authentic assessment is important in formal and informal learning. Technology has the potential to be used to support the assessment of higher order skills particularly with respect to real life tasks. In particular, the use of mobile devices allows the learner to increase her interactions with physical objects, various environments (indoors and ou...

Workplace learning happens in work processes in the context of work, is multi episodic, often informal, problem based and takes place on a just in time basis. While this is a very effective means of delivery, it also does not scale very well beyond the immediate context. We review three types of technologies that have been suggested to scale learni...

Bei Kulturökologie geht es zum einen um den systemischen Zugang zu Kultur mit ihren Artfakten, dazu gehören Medien, und zum anderen um die Frage nach Ressourcen. Artefakte und Ressourcen definieren Kindheit z. B. in der Weise, wie die Elterngeneration ihre Kinder als Teil der Gesellschaft z. B. der Wissensgesellschaft oder der Mediengesellschaft si...

In this paper, we argue that there is much that we can learn from the past as we explore the issues raised when designing innovative social media and mobile technologies for learning. Like the social networking that took place in coffee houses in the 1600s, the Internet-enabled social networks of today stand accused of being the so-called “weapons...

In this paper, we argue that there is much that we can learn from the past as we explore the issues raised when designing innovative social media and mobile technologies for learning. Like the social networking that took place in coffee houses in the 1600s, the Internet-enabled social networks of today stand accused of being the so-called “weapons...

Die mittlerweile weltweit alltäglichen Handys und Smartphones sind der Anlass, einen kulturökologischen Rahmen für Medienbildung zu skizzieren. Ausgangspunkt ist die Überlegung, mobile, digitale und konvergente Medien als Kulturressourcen zu verstehen. Dazu schlägt der folgende Beitrag ein Triangulationsmodell vor, das hilft, gesellschaftliche und...

This paper contributes a new model for Design Research that extends existing approaches by taking into account the neglected areas of design seeking and scaling in the underexplored area of workplace informal learning; we place an emphasis on design that is based on a new empirically base. We use PANDORA as an exemplary case study to identify and i...

This workshop aims to bring together different experiences of various design approaches for active and early scaling up of the appropriation of tools and practices. There exists, many Design Research approaches for developing TEL, but synthesising these approaches into a systematic framework is rare, even more so for scaling the use of TEL to suppo...

While several technological advances have been suggested to scale learning at the workplace, none has been successful to scale informal learning. We review three theoretical discourses and suggest an integrated systems model of scaffolding informal workplace learning that has been created to tackle this challenge. We derive research questions that...

Non basta limitarsi ad aggiungere i telefoni cellulari alla lunga lista dei media che sono entrati nel mondo nella scuola per migliorare l’offerta formativa. In quest’ottica, il contributo qui presentato si sofferma sui telefoni cellulari considerandoli come una nuova risorsa culturale emergente in un sistema massmediale connotato da personalizzazi...

Using social media and personally-owned mobile devices as a means of providing a bridge from media use in everyday life to the expectations of school and higher education potentially has enormous attraction. This chapter discusses access to ‘cultural resources’ facilitated by digital media from a wide perspective (e.g. learning resources, health in...

This chapter provides an overview of the socio-cultural ecology of mobile learning developed by the London Mobile Learning Group, an interdisciplinary international group of researchers. It discusses the main features of the theory incl. the notions of the mobile complex, cultural resources, appropriation and user-generated contexts and the interpl...

This paper contributes a new model for Design Research that extends existing approaches by taking into account the neglected areas of design seeking and scaling in the underexplored area of workplace informal learning; we place an emphasis on design that is based on a new empirically base. We use PANDORA as an exemplary case study to identify and i...

Social and mobile technologies offer users unprecedented opportunities for communicating, interacting, sharing, meaning‐making, content and context generation. And, these affordances are in constant flux driven by a powerful interplay between technological innovation and emerging cultural practices. Significantly, also, they are starting to transce...

This special issue aims at exploring educational and socio-cultural perspectives on the use of the increasing convergence of mobile devices and digital media for social networking in formal and informal contexts of learning. It originated from the work of the Theme Team SoMobNet (Social Mobile Networking for Informal Learning; http://www.somobnet.e...

This paper presents an original approach to designing social media that support informal learning in the digital workplace. It adapts design-based research to take into account the embeddedness of interactions within digitally mediated work-based contexts. The approach is demonstrated through the design, implementation, and evaluation of software t...

This article proposes appropriation as the key for the recognition of mobile devices—as well as the artefacts accessed through, and produced with them—as cultural resources across different cultural practices of use, in everyday life and formal education. The article analyses the interrelationship of users of mobile devices with the structures, age...

This chapter will focus on the design, implementation, and evaluation of a recent location based, context aware system for urban education students, trainee teachers, and language learning students. We first describe the detailed design of a case iteration centered on urban education and then move on to briefly describe how the design was iterative...

This article argues that mobile phones should be viewed as new cultural resources that operate within an individualized, mobile and convergent mass communication; such a recognition facilitates the options for a cultural ecology. A particular challenge here is to find adequate curricular functions in school where the inclusion of these new cultural...

In this position paper, we (i) set out the background, problems and questions involved in moving towards a design methodology for incorporating motivational and affective factors in networks of practice, (ii) define networks of practice, highlighting that motivational and affective factors are intertwined with a range of other complex issues, (iii)...

As our title suggests, this chapter looks in some detail at one specific aspect of the use of mobile technologies, appropriation, which we consider to be central to our ability to understand fully the potential of mobile devices, particularly in relation to the interface between formal and informal learning

The nature of learning is being augmented by new digital tools, particularly by mobile devices and the networks and structures to which they connect people. In this paper I examine some longitudinal research 'threads' that have pervaded my work over the last two decades: (i) the powerful perspectives on learning and development put forward by Vygot...

Hvis mobile enheder med specifikke sociale og teknologiske strukturer og medfølgende kulturelle praksisser rent faktisk er blevet en integreret del af hverdagen, må det uddannelsesmæssige felt reagere. Men hvordan og hvem?

‘Mobile learning’ is an emerging, and rapidly expanding field of educational research and practice. However, there exist as yet no comprehensive theoretical and conceptual frameworks to explain the complex interrelationship between the characteristics of rapid and sometimes groundbreaking technological developments, their potential for education an...

The chapter carries out a social semiotic multimodal analysis of the affordances of mobile devices. Through the analysis of the hardware and software design and of the functionalities of a Nokia N95, taken as an instance of various smartphone models, the chapter analyses what types of representations are foregrounded and backgrounded by these devic...

This chapter provides a brief overview of the ‘history’ as well as the most pertinent current issues in mobile learning (research and practice). The research underpinning this chapter necessarily involved attendance at, and the organisation of specialist conferences and engagement with relevant blogs and other social networking tools. The chapter p...

This chapter provides an overview of the detailed discussion of the relationship of the two dominant fields under discussion in Part II of this book: the mobile complex in everyday life and the teaching and learning practices of schools. We argue that, in order to be able to assimilate the cultural practices around mobile device use in everyday lif...

The chapter about at-risk learners focuses on mobile devices as cultural resources. And, it discusses mobile resources for learning. We argue that mobile, cultural resources and learning are two central aspects of the so-called information society. We are mindful that the allocation of the cultural resources of learning, and cultural resources for...

This chapter looks at issues surround our proposal that mobile/cell phones should be seen as resources for learning and we argue that it is very important for teachers to assume responsibility for seeing it as part of their role to sensitise young people to the need for a reflective use of new technologies. We take a detailed look at adoption trend...

In this concluding chapter, we recapitulate some of the issues, which we have discussed in this book and allow ourselves the luxury of some ‘visions’. Here and there too we indicate suspicions around problems, pitfalls and wrong directions in speculating about the future of mobile devices and technologies and mobile learning. It is not our intentio...

New mobile, individualised mass communication with mobile devices and the internet offers flexible contexts, which have become normalised in young people’s everyday lives. Our look at internet-based video platforms reveals learner-generated contexts in the form of mobile videos, which link to the classroom, e.g. Maths work. We discuss the potential...

In this chapter we present some selected cases of mobile learning as well as an analytical framework based on our socio-cultural ecological approach around structures, agency and cultural practices with which to examine them. The framework draws on several methods, which are used in contemporary qualitative media research and which are also acknowl...

This short chapter sets the scene for Part III of the book, in which we look at where mobile learning is likely to be heading over the next few years. It sounds a cautionary note about the inherent problems of using mobile/cell phones for learning and presents some critical questions that need to be asked.

In this chapter we attempt an overview, and critique of the dominant theoretical and conceptual frames currently used by researchers to explain and analyse learning with mobile devices. In particular, we discuss Activity Theory (Engeström) as well as, to a lesser extent, situated learning theory (Lave and Wenger), the Conversational Framework (Laur...

Changes in the underpinning technologies for TEL is occurring at a pace that we have never before experienced, and this is unlikely to slow down. This necessitates a broader and more profound understanding of design that needs to be more future-proof than relying on the latest or emerging technologies and yet embraces the collaborative, multimodal...

This paper argues for the need to re-examine approaches to the design of, and research into, learning experiences that incorporate mobile phones in the learning context. Following an overview of 'mobile learning' the author's argument describes two initiatives: Firstly, Design Research is presented as an approach that tends to have interventionist...

This article presents an original approach to designing complex systems to realise informal learning and knowledge maturing that is being conducted as part of a large-scale EC project called MATURE. In addressing the challenge of designing work integrated Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) systems within the ‘web 2.0 workplace’, we have developed a...

Society is currently witnessing a significant shift away from traditional forms of mass communication and editorial push towards user generated content and individualised communication contexts.

The first full-length authored treatment of the relationship between the centrality of technological development in daily life and its potential as a means of education, Mobile Learning charts the rapid emergence of new forms of mass communication and their potential for gathering, shaping, and analyzing information, studying their transformative c...

In this paper we propose appropriation as the key for the recognition of mobile devices as well as the artefacts accessed through, and produced with them as cultural resources in and across different cultural practices of use, in particular everyday life and formal education. We analyse the interrelationship of mobile device users with the structur...

A report from the STELLAR Alpine RendezVous workshop series Edited by Elizabeth Brown 2 The STELLAR Network of Excellence represents the effort of the leading institutions and projects in European Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) to unify our diverse community. This Network of Excellence is motivated by the need for European research on TEL to bu...

As with television and computers before it, today's mobile technology challenges educators to respond and ensure their work is relevant to students. What's changed is that this portable, cross-contextual way of engaging with the world is driving a more proactive approach to learning on the part of young people. The first full-length authored treatm...

In this chapter the authors present the concept of Learner-Generated Contexts as a potential framework through which the more effective use of technology to support learning might be supported and engendered. In particular, they concentrate on the theoretical grounding for consideration of LearnerGenerated Contexts as a context-based model and orga...

This chapter takes a critical perspective on what is being promised for mobile learning and what is possible and feasible. An overarching question that frames our discussion is whether emerging, i.e. mobile and ubiquitous technologies will change teaching and learning practices. Another question we ask is whether and how mobile devices can become t...

This chapter spans the bridge from our discussion of the epistemology of appropriation to user-generated ‘mobile’ contexts and reflexive context awareness. We discuss, at a theoretical level, how the new contexts of mobile and individualised mass communication work like other cultural products, albeit in a more fluid, provisional mode of representa...

In this book we propose the augmentation and broadening of existing school-based learning and teaching by assimilating the native expertise of students with mobile devices and contexts. For analyzing and planning learning with mobile devices in schools we propose four didactic parameters in this chapter. These parameters give the opportunity to con...

The integration of mobile devices into everyday life by all groups in society leads to a socialisation effect around ubiquitous mobility and in turn to a quasi mobile identity around the availability and disposition of social activities and space. This does not mean that typical school competences, such as reading written texts, are irrelevant; on...

Given the increasingly pervasive and important role of the net in our everyday lives, along with the many practices it mediates and supports, it is becoming crucial that we consider the role of motivation in TEL. This will help us to ensure that our TEL innovations are adopted, and their related learning activities are favoured, supported and reali...

If it is the case that mobile devices, with their specific social and technological structures and attendant cultural practices, have become an integral part of everyday life, then the educational field has to react. But how and who? Fact is that mobile devices have reached and become fully integrated in everyday life, worldwide and across social m...

The development of Technology Enhanced Learning has been dominated by the education paradigm. However social software and new forms of knowledge development and collaborative meaning making are challenging such domination. Technology is increasingly being used to mediate the development of work process knowledge and these processes are leading to t...

For the last 20 years or so the UK has been what one might call a hyperactive educational policy domain. The role of technology, in particular its harnessing for education, has been no exception. Unlike other European countries, the UK education sector benefits not just from professional associations providing self-help support for educational prof...

This chapter reports on the methodological dimension of a qualitative study of the use of high-end mobile phones for off-site and on-campus mobile learning. The aim of the study was to investigate how mobile devices are being integrated by learners in their informal/private ‘space’ and what use they make of mobile devices in formal learning context...

This chapter discusses the design and development of a series of prototypes of a multimedia learning object for the mobile phone. It begins with the rationale for this development, and the underlying design and development principles of our learning objects. It then presents the iterative development process that ensued in creating four prototypes...