A3: OPEN AND MOBILE WORLD, AND ITS BEACONS

Open and Mobile World and Its Beacons

My A3 grew up from an ETEC 523 Week 3 Mobile Culture/Social Media Ethics focus, through the topic of open and mobile learning under the influence of our brilliant professor and available UBC resources, and turned into something technologically philosophical.

Firstly, the following observations of my ETEC 523 predecessors directed my attention toward teaching effects of social media and internet figures of trust:  

• “we are all social by nature” (Aaron Chan),
• “when people use new ways to engage in their activities such as accessing information, communicating or interacting, they are building new connections with each other. The  traditional ideas of community are gradually diluted, and are instead partly replaced by virtual communities on network and social media” (Shirley),
• “ubiquitous and unrestricted access to learning materials does not lead to learning. Students have to be guided, to learn how to sift through information, and this begins with finding adult role models. Thinking back to my earliest memories, the first adults I learned to trust after my parents, and the adults that my parents introduced me to, were my teachers. Teachers hold a special kind of power over youth” (Ying Gu),
• “education has always been in tune with the community due to the fact the teachers usually live in the community they serve. With mobile education and the no boundaries mobile technologies provide this simply may no longer be the case” (Michael Yates), etc.

Secondly, my previous knowledge and information from MET courses ETEC 500 “Research Methodology in Education”, ETEC 520 “Planning and Managing Learning Technologies in Higher Education”, and ETEC 531 “Curriculum Issues in Cultural and New Media Studies” together with my own mini-research on social media (presented in Week 3 “Who Can Be Trusted?” post here https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec523/2023/01/27/w03-who-can-be-trusted/ ) allowed me to tentatively describe a trustworthy real-life advisor for modern kids and adults in a virtual world – anyone positive, mature, accomplished, moral, and with proven common sense, like some parents, grown-up siblings, grandparents, spouses, teachers, coaches, adult friends, colleagues, research advisors, etc.  

However, I was still not sure about best virtual guides for the digital world though I understand their extreme importance, and how right my groupmates are to point out problems with many popular media influencers.

There came the third part of my investigation where I looked for answers in the current literature on open and mobile learning applied to foreign language studies.

After reading through respectable resources (Benson, 2021; Kearney et al., 2020; Marcus-Quinn & Hourigan, 2021; Santoianni et al., 2021; Stockwell, 2021; Trede et al., 2019; Uther, 2018), I came to a conclusion that whenever the author mentions an authentic, contextualized, participatory, situated, real-world learning, a hybrid or liquid spaces, a situated practice, or praises participating in unexpected or unplanned learning situations, etc., he or she again sends a learner to a brave new world of open and mobile learning where anything might happen.

For example, Mann et al. (2022) in the book “Online Language Learning” start with the advice to language teachers to bring social media into teaching in meaningful ways (p. 19), and we all know how useful and unpredictable social media can be for all learners. I guess the authors realized how shaky the ground is here, and that is why they include the irrational and uncontrollable into an equation too, and thus their last recommendation (and a book chapter) is titled, “Don’t lose faith” (p. 127).

Kearney et al. (2020) in the “Theorising and Implementing Mobile Learning” book explain that “the very nature of mobile devices … encourages their use outside the school context” as well as collaboration with others (p. 28) while Benson (2021), describing mobile second language acquisition in his book “Language Learning Environments”, calls an educational setting “one space, whereas an environment consists of multiple spaces that are related to each other either geographically or in the life of an individual” (p. 9) and continues that “human development involves participation in more and more settings over time” (p. 91).

Benson (2021) also provides more details on online resources, important for foreign language acquisition and yet difficult to control: “audio and video hosting and streaming services such as YouTube, Spotify and Netflix” as well as “social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok” while “other online contexts for informal second language learning include online games, online shopping, interpersonal communication using videoconferencing and text messaging, and web sites and mobile applications designed for language learning” (p. 118).

As it is, the question stands, “Who can be trusted online?” I am sure that I am not the only proponent of open and mobile learning who worries about the safety and sanity of digital spaces.

Stockwell (2021) asks “how capable are the learners of engaging in learning activities without constant supervision or support?” (p. 7) and answers this question by classifying the students and stating that “learners who possess direct personal agency can take responsibility for their own learning and seek ways of doing this without relying on others, whereas learners relying on the proxy agency have a dependency on others to assist them in achieving their learning goals” (p. 132).

While I look forward to hearing from my dear colleagues about their preferrable beacons in the rough sea of an open and mobile world that includes education, I would dare give adult learners two suggestions of my own:

first of all, trust yourself,

and second, listen to the educators. 

Of course, this is a teacher in me speaking, but currently, I would definitely trust my colleagues from academic and educational circles – academicians, theorists, practitioners, researchers, teachers, advisors, counselors, educational guides, educational businessmen, instructional designers, librarians, educational technologists, etc. Whether they are real or virtual figures (the authors of the books, for example), they share more or less similar professional and personal stories, and can easily recommend something from their rich and applicable experiences.

My most memorable “virtual colleague” experience was my acquaintance with the biography of Dr. Albert Bandura. This truly amazing life of a real scholar and a man will impress anyone who will decide to study it. My only regret is that I didn’t know about his accomplishments earlier when he was still alive. Dr. Bandura can easily become an inspiration for a young researcher and teach resilience, bravery, perseverance, and self-guidance. He even was in bad company in his youth but parted ways with the wrong people to reach the highest achievements in psychology. This legendary personality is a true beacon to me. Do you have virtual people whom you admire?

I have been thinking about reliable virtual guides more lately because I worry about my limited knowledge of this world. I don’t have the time and resources to study everything, and as a result, my perception of things beyond education, teaching English, or making borsch is mostly based on assumptions that can be absolutely incorrect. Social interaction and collective intelligence can clear things up to some extent, and I welcome this opportunity. Therefore, I will be delighted to know how you are solving the problem of possible guides in mobile and open learning and the digital world in general. Thank you!

References

Benson, P. (2021). Language learning environments: Spatial perspectives on SLA. Multilingual Matters. https://doi.org/10.21832/9781788924917

Kearney, M., Burden, K., & Schuck, S. (2020). Theorising and implementing mobile learning: Using the iPAC framework to inform research and teaching practice. Springer.

Marcus-Quinn, A., & Hourigan, T. (2021). Handbook for online learning contexts: Digital, mobile and open: Policy and practice. Springer.

Santoianni, F., Petrucco, C., Ciasullo, A., & Agostini, D. (2021). Teaching and mobile learning: Interactive educational design. CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781003052869

Stockwell, G. (2021). Mobile assisted language learning: Concepts, contexts and challenges. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108652087

Trede, F., Markauskaite, L., McEwen, C., & Macfarlane, S. (2019). Education for practice in a hybrid space: Enhancing professional learning with mobile technology. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7410-4

Uther, M. (2019). Mobile learning. MDPI AG. https://doi.org/10.3390/books978-3-03897-661-5

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