Faculty of Education - Theses

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Author: Campbell, Lynette Joan × Type: Masters Research thesis × Subject: Australia × Subject: Education, Higher ×

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    Networked learning/learning networks: a case study of constructivist pedagogies in an online post-graduate higher education setting
    Campbell, Lynette Joan ( 2004)
    The study investigates teaching and learning practices in an online postgraduate higher education setting. It is concerned with how networked teaching and learning practices are organised in space and time. The first part of the study sets the scene and explores the diverse � literatures of online education, which include functionalist, socially critical and post modern accounts. The ontological variety of these accounts is discussed with the writer concluding that actor-network theory has something to contribute to understanding the complexity of socio-technical practices. This section closes with consideration of the methodological approach and ethical concerns of the study. The second part of the study is concerned with discussion of the data stories. These stories tell tales of the shaping and reshaping of learning technologies. They talk of teachers and programmers as network builders, seeking to attract, recruit, enrol and mobilise entities. The stories relate some of the compromises made when the network shudders with dissent or the unexpected and the patchwork done to hold the network together. This section also speaks of networked spaces as uncertain, intersected spaces. It closes with a discussion of how ICTs un/settle learning networks and of the ways in which entities manage their multiple memberships through numerous renegotiations. The third and final section concludes the study. It analyses the data stories and finds that actor-networks are porous and vulnerable. Suggesting that when entities maintain membership in multiple networks identities are constantly contested and redrawn. In lifting contested practices up to view, the study proposes that dis/order might be a positive feature of learning in networked environments. This final section includes some discussion of the implications for the University. And, most importantly perhaps, it makes a call for a new vocabulary, a new way to describe the flows of net(work).