Thesis Proposal: Online Personal Learning Networks of Professionals - Grounded Analysis of Talk From The Edonis Project

Online Personal Learning Networks of Professionals: Grounded analysis of talk from the edonis project.
EdD Progression Board paper (draft) August 2011
David Noble, EdD student, University of Edinburgh (dafc1885@hotmail.com)
Overview
In this paper, I establish the basis for my empirical doctoral research into aspects of the online social learning of professionals. My study predominantly features Grounded Theory analysis (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) of interview talk from around seventy participants in the edonis project (Note 1), which ran between October 2008 and April 2011.
I begin this paper by providing context for much of my work across education. I illustrate how I perform roles which enable me to have professional relationships with educationists across the world, from classroom teachers, to systems managers, to thinkers on education and the Web. I refer to my proximity to discourse around teacher education in Scotland and illustrate how the policy document Teaching Scotlands Future (Scottish Government, 2011) increases expectations around the use of ICT in professional learning.
I then briefly explore the contested nature of learning and professional learning, before showing how new supportive Web technologies enable professionals to sense that they are able to construct, manage and thrive within what some educational technologists have termed a personal learning environment, comprising in part a personal learning network (Haskins, 2007; Wilson, 2008).
In examining the assumptions and language behind these terms, and the concomitant connectivist movement, I conduct an exercise in reflexivity, wher-
Note 1 Early in my EdD I set-up the edonis project to attract educationists from around the world to the early iteration of my research question. edonis stood for Educators Online Impact Study, though only the acronym is used. 1
This work is released under the Creative Commons license: Attribution - Non-commercial - Share-Alike 2.5 Scotland
eby I pursue objectivity in my interpretivist study, prior to coding research data, by becoming aware of dominant discourses and their alternatives.
By briefly examining current challenges to digital determinism, I establish that when coding data, I will use terms which are applicable to all areas of the social world and not only online.
I contrast the use of the computer network metaphor with humanistic metaphors, such as the agora (Walton, 2007) and social capital (Bourdieu, 1985b), relating to dialogue and other human interactions.
I draw on earlier work on the emergence of an online teacher habitus, in which I consider its relationship to teacher identity, restrictedness and new
performative action (Noble, 2010). I argue that as I am researching the social world of knowing agents (Reeves, 2007) and analysing the talk of actors in the field, my interpretation and eventual iterative framework should embody the complexity of human action and interaction, and eschew computer network representations.
I go on to argue that there is a methodological gap in research into professionals activity in new online environments. This allows theories to develop without being exposed to data from the social world. This has led to, for example, the notion of personal learning network being inextricably linked to communication that is mediated online.
The methodology of the edonis project, Grounded analysis of data, and methods of data collection, are then covered in depth. I chart the development of the study; from attracting participants, to early research activity around online questionnaires, to recording and broadcasting live semi-structured interviews. I begin this section by examining the epistemological basis of my research and my ontological position.
I establish that it will be my role to interpret the social world and that knowledge claims will be tentative. I go on to outline the process of Grounded Theory 2
analysis, recognising that it will not operate in its purest form due to my bounding of the research interview, the involvement of participants in examining emerging concepts and categories, and my use of an established notion of social capital in the second part of my research question.
Having established my methodology, I then discuss research ethics. Here, I look back over my research activity thus far and focus on issues arising from what might be regarded as innovative data collection practices.
To conclude the paper, I show how I intend to make a contribution to knowledge and expose my constructions to data from one other area of the social world. I establish that my emerging concepts and categories may be developed into the future.
. My Journey, Roles, and Values: from collegiality to criticality
I feel I am uniquely positioned within Scottish education as a direct result of my recent history as an educationist. In playing several distinct and visible roles, I inhabit several spaces, create and consume a variety of data, and sustain diverse relationships. Active across educational discourses, I am continually challenged as to my politics, assumptions, stances, and values.
As Vice Chair and now Chair of the Association of Chartered Teachers Scotland (ACTS), I have worked with my committee to position chartered teachers as active, autonomous, enhanced professionals who collectively have a vision regarding future professional learning, that is, one in which there is coalition with other players around the Teaching Scotlands Future agenda.
As a classroom-based teacher of general subjects in a residential special school in Fife, I have striven over the last ten years to fashion my pedagogies and curriculum, such that learning experiences, processes, and outcomes are satisfactory to the young people, purchasers of places at the school, loco parentis, and inspectorates. 3
As a street-level bureaucrat (Lipsky, 1980), I face daily frustrations due to the imposition of managerialism and performativity (Ball, 2004), and the limitations of technology. I am required to reconcile macro- and systems-level thinking deriving from my work for ACTS (a national body), with my intimate work with troubled teenage boys who are looked after and accommodated, for whom the quality of the in between, between us (that is, the child and the worker) (Garfat, 2007) is paramount.
Around the advent of Web 2.0 technologies (Note 2), my professional development and classroom practice became influenced by educationists such as Ewan McIntosh (McIntosh, 2007). McIntosh has written about a world being changed forever by new technologies; where young people are able to thrive as learners and entrepreneurs, and professionals are able to break down traditional barriers, and discover and work with new colleagues via a social Web.
I helped to build several loose online communities, supported by a range of Web technologies: The Access Network, which used Web conferencing and a blog to enable additional support needs teachers to discuss their practice with each other and learn from experts; TeachMeet, where groups of educationists work around a wiki to design an evening of activities concerned with the sharing of school practice; and my personal podcast series, Booruch (Note 3), where I reflected on my roles in education in relation to the Standard for Char-
Note 2 Commonly found in e-learning and web technology discourses in the previous decade, this term illustrates how the Web has developed into a collection of platforms, allowing people to work and socialise, and consume and publish data.
Note
have
used
an
important
personal
space
online,
at
http://booruch.libsyn.com, to broadcast (or podcast, that is, publish audio that others can subscribe to). This professional activity has contributed towards my work up to, and beyond, attaining the Chartered Teacher qualification.
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tered Teacher (Scottish Executive Education Department, 2002), and interviewed colleagues from around the UK whose practice interested me.
As I commenced the EdD, I held a firm belief that sharing was good and that the number and quality of online connections held by an individual directly related to enhanced professionalism and practice. I actively promoted the building of online communities of practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991), presenting my stance and ideas at The Scottish Learning Festival in Glasgow, and ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) annual conference in Orlando (Noble, 2009b). As an educational podcaster, I was interested in the use of digital audio within fields of professional development and communities of practice, in particular the capturing of structured or unstructured conversations which were arising during TeachMeet events.
With significant numbers of Scottish teachers blogging during this time (ScotEduBlogs, 2011), my interest in talk encompassed the written word, where dialogue would occasionally feature in the comments section of educational blogs. However, the evident low level of engagement in dialogue, accessible to all online in text or audio format, interested me and led me to consider which assumptions were being made by the early adopters of Web 2.0 technologies in education.
During my early learning on the EdD programme, I learned of the importance of being reflexive, that is, recognising and acting on the fact that through work and actions one may be contributing to or sustaining dominant theories, assumptions, or ideologies. In being reflexive, the researcher must also explore how their research activities impact upon the research itself and the construction of new knowledge.
Although interpretivist research must involve judgements by the researcher at some stages, my reading of positivism, reflexivity and Grounded Theory has led me to construct a methodology which pursues objectivity. The threats to this
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come from my position or perceived position in relation to the research participants.
I could be regarded as part of the social world in which I am studying. I have over one-thousand two-hundred followers on Twitter and use the service for me-to-many, one-to-one, and many-to-me communication. Having been visible on Twitter for four and a half years and having podcast for six years, many participants in the edonis project will have known of me and my work prior to engaging around, for example, the research interviews.
There is a need to recognise that I may be engaging in interpreting a world already partially interpreted (the double-hermeneutic) by the interviewees or by the online environments in which they inhabit. Some interviewees can be regarded as knowing agents in that they have, say, an intellectual or business interest in professional development, communities of practice, and new technologies.
The agent and actor metaphors are seductive here as many participants have expressed, and often continue to express, evangelism for technologies for learning. They appear to see themselves as part of bigger movements, such as networks of educators. They are a visible, constituent part of many networks, who understand what is occurring and can express this to others, for example, a researcher.
I could recognise myself in the above description until the early stages of the EdD and my initial interviews. As I have developed the research question and my writing, I have moved from collegial to critical discussion of new technologies in education. I have seen myself less as a participant observer or fellow knowing agent and more as a dialogue partner, encouraging participants to talk about what they do, and to consider assisting me later in the process of interpreting the research data. I consider the edonis website to be a learning resource, as I, participants, and anyone else can, on a daily basis, read online posts made by many of those who have signed-up, and can listen to edited versions of most of the interviews. 6
Policy context: Teaching Scotlands Future - professional learning in the 21st Century
Continuing professional development (CPD) is a term used in many education systems and is a feature of the terms of employment for all Scottish teachers. A Teaching Profession for the 21st Century (Scottish Executive, 2001) stated that all teachers be entitled to a minimum of 35 hours CPD per year. This was interpreted by many teachers and their managers to mean that teachers had to evidence and possibly show impact of engagement with CPD, and that 35 hours was an upper limit to be reached. This arrangement was to have been managed through the workplace-based professional review and development (PRD) process or meeting, criticised by many teachers as superficial and unhelpful.
The Donaldson Report, Teaching Scotlands Future, on teachers continuous professional development, and lifelong and intentional learning, has been broadly welcomed across Scottish civic society, including all major Scottish political parties. The report attempts to set a common agenda for teacher education across local and central government, teachers organisations and professional bodies, and higher education.
There are implications for the work of the National CPD Team within Education Scotland, with whom I work closely, and for how future education policy is implemented. The report is important as it sets the national context into which my thesis will be published and disseminated, and several recommendations draw upon key themes in my research, including the effective use of supportive technologies and fostering of professional communities. Key excerpts from Teaching Scotlands Future follow:
Professional learning communities (PLCs) could have a broader membership than only teachers, and they could focus on knowledge exchange (Scottish Government, 2011:70)
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CPD should be facilitated through blended, personalised models of delivery (Recommendation 40)
There should be more extensive provision of online CPD which will be accessed through a one stop shop (Recommendations 40 and 41)
Very high quality (online) resources and easy access (Scottish Government, 2011:98) would overcome resistance from some teachers
Supporting online resources should be created, covering the fundamentals of theories of pedagogy (Recommendation 12)
Online mechanisms other than Glow (Note 4) could be utilised (Scottish Government, 2011:96)
Extra supported study online (Recommendations 2, 11 and 21).
My recent paper on Technologies for Career-Long CPD: a literature review (Noble, 2011a) was, in part, a response to these and other recommendations in the report. I was concerned about the continuation of a policy gap and of enforced collaboration, where provision for use of technologies by teachers is facilitated, but does not account for considerable variation in teachers histories of ICT use and access to reliable technologies. Such a situation appears to cause anxiety and low levels of engagement, possibly resulting in more profes-
Note 4 - Glow is an intranet (a private portal on the Web) that enables many within the Scottish education system to share, communicate, and access data. It has seven components: a national directory of users, Glow Groups, Glow Meet (Web conference), Glow Mail, Glow Learn (virtual learning environment), Glow Chat, and Glow Messenger. Further information is at
http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/usingglowandict. 8
sionals moving from structured engagement to free activity on the Web and in online personal learning networks (PLNs).
Recently, there has been criticism of the quality of CPD provision, such as in house events, and a mismatch between the focus of an organisations improvement plan and the needs of individual staff. Since the publication of A Teaching Profession for the 21st Century, several publications have exemplified the wide range of activities which may count as CPD. Many are discrete and time-limited, however with the inclination of many to work and learn at a time and place of ones choosing (Scottish Executive, 2001) and the availability and reduced cost of broadband and mobile Web technologies, it is possible to engage in continuous professional development (or learning, or work), either on ones own or with others. At the same time, in many blogs and peer-reviewed journals, the term personal learning network has aligned with such activities.
The existence of emerging practices requires us to examine theories of learning and how notions of professional learning might be being expanded. This will reveal its theoretical (or other) basis.
Competing theories of learning and the emergence of free online professional learning
Presently, we can see several competing theories of learning in the literature. It is unclear whether those who manage frameworks of professional Standards, re-accreditation of teachers, and CPD are aware of, and responsive to, some of the following when considering whether they lead to acceptable and measurable outcomes, that is, they allow quantification and ranking based on attainment, exemplification, or observation.
Networked learning promotes connections between one learner and other learners learners and tutors (and) a learning community and its learning resources (Goodyear et al, 2004:1). Many engage in legitimate peripheral participation (Lave and Wenger, 1991) around communities of practice. 9
These are weak ties (Granovetter, 1973), which, it is claimed, are sufficient for learners needs to be met. There is no need to become immersed or familiar in a community and learners moves on to other communities or operate on the periphery of many simultaneously.
Dialogic pedagogy sees education as essentially dialogic (Matusov, 2009) and can be traced back to Socrates, Plato and Freire.
Social constructionism suggests that artefacts are created as by-products of human agency and interaction. These artefacts can include imagined worlds and perceived social realities, meaning that knowledge and reality are always tentative and shifting, as the maintenance of reality is based on its continual social renewal. Where new people are interpreting the social world, there is, inevitably, change.
Social constructivism is rooted in educational psychology. It holds that group activity creates shared artefacts and meaning-making, often through discussion and negotiation. A learning community is a social process for turning information into knowledge (Hargreaves, 2003:170), where problems can be examined from multiple contexts and viewpoints (Murphy and Laferrire, 2003).
Social construction of knowledge is a process of negotiation among participants through dialogues or conversations (Jonassen et al, 1999:5) that develops critical thinkers and analytical minds. (Abas, 2009:98) One example would be where members of a community experience a new model of pedagogy and then critically review it. Such activity may lead to adapted or new models relating to a specific context, group of learners, or skill levels, avoiding surface adoption which often results from being presented with a model (De Freitas et al, 2007).
Each individual within a community can be conceived of as a knowledge worker (Drucker, 1999) and knowledge creator. They may be involved in: auditing professional working knowledge from practice, managing the process of
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creating new professional knowledge, and validating and disseminating the professional knowledge created (Hargreaves, 1999).
Distributed cognition (Cole and Engestrm, 1997) asserts that knowledge is scattered over any number of artefacts and that when embarking on a challenge or trying to solve a problem, an initial task is to identify where cognition lies or may lie, and how social interaction could create or reveal knowledge, subsequently leading to its distribution. The theory implies an ecosystem of cognition, embodied by artefacts throughout the social and natural world. Cognition is said to reside in mental spaces or in external representations.
Cuthell (2008) describes a model of voluntary collaborative online professional learning which takes place via platforms spanning international contexts. Teachers may participate in online sharing of project-based self-directed learning (see also Day, 1999 and the notion of responsibilisation (Peters, 2001)).
Cuthells model is based on the importance of learning by doing and usually attracts self-selecting ICT enthusiasts (in Daly et al, 2009:35). It has been termed braided learning (Haythornthwaite, 2007). Braided learning appears to satisfy Daly et als (2009:54) call for a shift to a model of bottom-up or backward-mapping innovation coming from practitioners themselves to ensure a sustainable culture of change and development.
Jonassen et al (1999:5) define this social construction of knowledge (constructivism) as meaning making (through) a process of negotiation among the participants, (involving) dialogues or conversations. Such knowledge is iterative, fluid, and may only relate to a specific context such as a class, subject, school, or geographical area.
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Considering the construction of personal learning network: connectivism and the computer network metaphor
It is said that we are in an age of participation (Dutton and Peltu, 2007), where anyone can have a presence online, communicate swiftly with anyone around the world at no marginal cost, and create, mashup (Note 5), or consume content at will. Thousands of UK teachers post content on blogs and microblogs (Note 6), such as Twitter. Some speak of possessing and benefiting from their online personal learning network (Noble, 2009c).
It is possible to find oneself in educational environments where the serial adoption of new technologies is seen as a moral imperative, for example, at TeachMeet events and mainstream conferences. Ambassadors for Glow speak of the intranet lighting up learning through its virtual learning environment, programme of Web conferences, and tools for online communication, collaboration, and community-building.
The above are examples of designed environments, where there appears to be an underlying deficit model of participation. The managers of Glow, for example, publicly back the portal as an essential aspect of a teachers toolkit, despite widespread claims that it is not fit for purpose. Teachers in some auth-
Note 5 The term is used in music and Web development industries, indicating that an artefact eg song or application is materially based on the previous work of others who have given permission for their digital code to be utilised. I use the term here in relation to the act of using online data for professional purposes, then incorporating it into online activity that is visible online.
Note 6 Blogs are websites which provide a customisable space for individuals or groups to post data, via any digital media. The central frame on the site is chronologically ordered. Microblogs focus on enabling the publication of short headline statements which may link to longer text or larger media.
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orities must log-in to Glow just to access essential information sources such as email. Usage data initially appears impressive, however in drilling down into the figures, for example those of the chronically under-used Glow Groups, we can see that the rhetoric on this expensive policy is masking a strategic deficiency (Noble, 2009a).
Writing about the use of Twitter, for example within educators PLNs, I have recently outlined the risk of managerialism, and in particular performativity, emerging in these online environments, as individuals and organisations seek to grow and maintain capitals online by engaging in, for example, those activities most likely to lead to an increase in followers and instances of retweets (Noble, 2010).
In this paper, I developed concerns around authentic identity and action online. As those with a presence online are only able to present part or parts of themselves to others, one might wonder the extent to which the construction and maintenance of identities is pre-meditated.
There appears to be an illusion or imagining of community online, where those traditionally or recently perceived to be at the fulcrum of old or new systems attempt to form or replicate groupings online, almost always without evident understanding of the literature on learning communities. It may be that as a world we are moving beyond the need for narrow communication opportunities, such as those provided by designed environments, both physical and online. We may be moving from an informational to a conceptual society, where there will be demand for significantly different learning opportunities.
Some argue that, where there is free choice and a disconnection from paid work, the social Web is mostly used for safe, familiar interaction with those who are already known. Also, that it acts as a buffer from wider social interaction (Turkle, 2011), or exists as a filter bubble (Pariser, 2011) similar to that which might be encountered in an unfamiliar, physical space. Others refer to the anxiety experienced by those who use services which push data at them.
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There is a call for learning experiences to become more humanised (Tan et al, 2009).
I aim to assist the reader in being critically informed about informal learning via Web 2.0 social networking (Convery, 2009), and in considering a conceptualisation of personal learning network that recognises the broad talk of participants and the possibility that their actions refer to the physical (and metaphysical) world beyond Twitter and blogging.
Through my reading of the operational notes from each of the edonis project interviews I recognised that, often, interviewees would engage in original talk around the idea of a personal learning network. During these episodes, I was interested in the lack of mention of established learning theories relating to this term. My subsequent reading showed that the term is linked to notions of personal learning environment and connectivism (Siemens, 2005; Downes, 2008).
The early conceptualisation of online personal learning networks has primarily taken place alongside that of connectivism. Common discursive spaces include e-learning journals and conferences, and the Weblogs of educational bloggers.
Writers on connectivism claim that it is a new theory of learning, based upon the recent exponential growth in the online activities of citizens around the world who have access to the internet. Learning is seen as a social activity, managed by the individual.
The literature on PLNs often states that they are designed, managed, and owned by an individual. A range of supportive technologies are used to move beyond creating and consuming Web content, to navigating, positioning, communicating, and collaborating online. Often building on histories of ICT use and established social networks and connections, PLNs are said to feature trustful relationships at the core, with many loose, fluid connections at the periphery (Preston et al, 2009). 14
This enables us to consider that across the professions there may be constellations of PLNs through which artefacts such as: contact details, groups, practices, messages, and links, exist and can be shared. Some write of artefacts as nodes in the network, around which people position themselves and their PLN. As data, relationships and spaces can be filtered by interest, and as interests are not fixed, there is the likelihood of constant change in movement and intensity between networks. Nonetheless, many of those involved refer to enjoying many convivial relationships.
The term personal learning network has been loosely applied to a new, technology-driven milieu of personalised learning. The 2009 Horizon Report (in Johnson et al 2009:19) defines PLNs as customized, personal Web-based environments that explicitly support ones social, professional, (and) learning activities via highly personalized windows to the networked world. Learning through social and work oriented tasks (Haythornthwaite, 2000) takes place in a PLN where the relationships, spaces and sources of data are personally maintained (Warlick, 2009).
Such personalisation exists alongside developing connectivist and collegiate notions of network, interdependence, and sharing. PLNs may enable teachers to work convivially, exemplifying Illichs (1973) concept of personal
interdependence. The construction of objects, environments, actions, and mindsets within PLNs takes place and is recognised within connectivist discourse, and through the evocation of the network metaphor.
The above closely relates to an existing theory of learning, Constructionism, which is similar to constructivism (Papert, 1980; Kafai and Resnick, 1996). This theory moves beyond youthful learning; from pedagogy to andragogy, and selfexpression and exchange between knowledgeable, mature professionals. Constructionism recognises the influence and roles of media, and that the selfdirected learner resides at the centre of their network, with a collection of artefacts to think with (Ackermann, 2004).
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Notions and characteristics of the personal learning network, as stated in the recent literature, appear wedded to the computer metaphor, residing in the milieu of an increasingly social and connected Web. However, we can trace mention of learning networks back to Socrates and the age of the agora; the Greek marketplace.
Illich wrote of learning Webs, envisioning a central role for networks of computers. Tobin (1998) recognised that the PLN is tangible in the physical world, embodied in artefacts such as people and items. With the advent of Web 2.0 technologies in the mid noughties, the academic conceptualisation of the PLN is firmly linked to the development of connectivism as a learning theory.
Notion of personal learning network imply that knowledge is socially constructed within the nodes between connected data sources, online spaces, and relationships. Through the actions of actors, knowledge is continually constructed. Additionally, activity through public-facing social networks and other websites generate, deliberately or as a by-product, public artefacts which can be discovered, shared, traded, or incorporated. The experience of collaborating or engaging with ones PLN, it is claimed, leads to learner satisfaction, that is, a win/win situation or non-zero sumness (Wright, 2000).
On commencing Grounded analysis, I wish to code my data free from the underlying assumptions of the above theories, and of the dominant cloud computing tools which are inextricably linked to the operation of modern, online PLNs.
Dialogue, Habitus and Social Capital: humanising the field and making it complex
Online action outside of designed environments is not recognised by those who manage, for example, the teaching profession in Scotland, and does not feature in Standards frameworks, professional Codes, and policies. To recognise the existence of professionals activity online, and the stance that 16
those engaging often perceive of it as professional work, I refer to this as a field of peripheral professional action, with perimeter, barriers to entry, and sustenance. Unlike ones presence within the institution or organisation of employment, few restrictions exist in the field.
Agency enables the actors to construct their own common activities, etiquette, language, and other codes. The field metaphor also implies that the periphery may be an interesting site of study, where, for example, those who get it meet others looking in, such as those who manage teacher employment, professional learning, and conduct.
The free discovery learning that is possible within PLNs has been criticised for its individual nature, where shared understanding and collaborative learning is prevented due to others, particularly within sites of schooling, being disconnected from the PLNs of teachers who are working online (Noble, 2010). This results in traditional professional development activities, such as practitioner enquiry, being unable to take place within the field as it is physically and conceptually distant from school colleagues and clients of schooling, such as young people.
Professional freedom in the field appears to equate autonomy with individual freedom, rather than previously where practitioner autonomy was defined in terms of interaction with, and focus on, the student. Generative opportunities (Banathy and Jenlick, 2004) do not appear possible, although some writers claim that PLNs facilitate teacher activism (Haskins, 2007; Siemens, 2008).
There may be a disconnect due to dominant ideologies, class, and power being present in a PLN, or because the field is restricted due to technical requirements and language, where the costs of understanding or acquiring cultural and other codes are too high. Discourse on PLNs often features named commercial Web platforms and environments which are subject to changing tastes and economic factors, and may appeal to those who keep up with and spot trends, often referred to as neophiliacs.
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The computer metaphor has been useful during a time of e-vangelism among many writers in e-learning journals and those creating Mode 2 knowledge, for example, practitioners reflecting on their work on the Web. It allows simple diagramming; illustrating nodes, connections, and transfer of, for example knowledge, while appearing transparent, open, and free from bias and resistance.
There appears to be a rational, almost mechanistic process, therefore the construction of a network becomes clear and viable. We can see this in the ladder of participation (Arnstein, 1969) and the reader-to-leader (Preece and Shneiderman, 2009) frameworks. Often, the human beings within the process are not visible or regarded as complex.
When later considering capital theories, and notions of community and habitus, I move into more humanised conceptions of professional activity, among educationists whose job role is often to work with young people. As a reflexive researcher, it is necessary for me to outline criticism of the dominant computer network metaphor, as it threatens my Grounded approach to analysing the talk of interviewees.
In considering alternative metaphors, such as the marketplace, we can consider that one claimed benefit of professional networks, sharing, can be conceived of instead as trading, where changing values can be ascribed to nodes. Within a marketplace, convergence of artefacts must occur before a transaction can take place. A buyer must know of, and understand the ways of talking with, a seller. There will be hidden artefacts, values and identities, which will affect the ability of the market to operate efficiently.
One way to test the positive image of the networked society is to consider the idea of amplification, that is, the social Web or PLN growing the prominence, desirability, or value of a node (artefact). In a neutral network, free from resistance and bias, everyone would enjoy a level playing field and artefacts would be amplified or not based on common criteria. Here, we could equate the PLN with Habermas notion of (a site of) public discourse, to which all have 18
access, and power is revealed and neutralised (Ihlen et al, 2009). However, as I have established in a previous paper (Noble, 2010), the PLN is a restricted site and it is unclear how newly constructed knowledge can transfer from a PLN to another physical or online site.
Warlick (2009) writes of the online collegiality of teachers-without-a-home. There is a plurality of sites of teachers work, and roles can be carried out across physical and online spaces. The idea of a single teacher habitus, focused on the classroom and sites of schooling, has been challenged previously when examining the complex lives of teachers and the roles they play in traditional communities (Noble, 2010). By teacher habitus, I mean the structure of teachers minds; incorporating schema, dispositions, and modes of work (Bourdieu, 1985a). Habitus is learned or adopted, and for teachers this has traditionally been scaffolded in and around the classroom and school.
Recent developments in Standards and career frameworks have begun to challenge the singular habitus. Discourses on enhanced, chartered, or accomplished teaching have begun to develop the idea of a sub-group of the teaching profession, where there is an emphasis on ones own professionalism, development, and competence. Education managers often state that the aim here is to improve systems, and the practices of such teachers and their colleagues, in addition to students learning.
I have argued that those teachers who work within online PLNs are challenging notions of teacher autonomy, service, and collegiality (Noble, 2010). An additional teacher habitus is developing that is unrelated to monetary payment for professional service and is only indirectly related to the lives of colleagues and young people in sites of schooling.
In this earlier paper, I showed that in using context-free shared language, discourses around online PLNs feature dominant ideologies such as managerialism and change. Those who engage in such discourses master the codes, and embody the attributes and changes required by each ideology,
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raising the possibility of new sites and types of performativity and managerialism.
Several factors and trends make it important to consider the PLN openly, and to separate it from discourses which imply a technological determinism. In Scotland, Glow, the schools intranet, has not been effective in transforming teachers attitudes and practices around ICT. Teachers are not adopting online working, and new ways of pulling data through new spaces and relationships.
One factor may be that teachers continue to lead complex lives, with increasing managerialism and a return to poor industrial relations. Also, many have a history of using technologies for personal and professional administrative purposes. They are literate and numerate, and are able to benefit from the economies afforded by moving parts on ones life online. Teachers are in a class of society which will continue to choose, and often be required to, transact online.
On a societal level, writers are exploring how this is impacting on relationships within traditional families, communities, and places of work or schooling. There is emerging evidence that people are, desire, or plan to, look for increasing conversation, collegiality, and collaboration in physical locations (Turkle, 2011). There are many who eschew online networking, yet claim to possess a form of PLN (Noble, 2011b).
I have previously established that those teachers who are contributing to an emerging online habitus could be considered to be doing so through engaging in constructivist or constructionist activities using supportive technologies (Noble, 2010). Personal choice (agency) is at the heart of these activities. Through keyword searches and personalisable tools and interfaces,
professionals can feel in control of their online data sources, spaces, and whom they choose to have weak or strong relationships with. In terms of their PLN, the professional can be viewed of as being at the centre; deliberately constructing their identity, how they project themselves, and selecting from whom they choose to learn. 20
The opportunity to participate in the construction of identities depends on the presence of social capital in a PLN (Wasko and Faraj, 2005). Bourdieu (1985b:248) defines social capital as, the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance or recognition. Within connectivist theory, Siemens (2006) identifies the creation of currency, that is, accurate, up-to-date knowledge, as the intent of connectivist learning activities within PLNs.
There is a variety of methods of dialogue within PLNs. Walton (2007:381) states: The experience of dialogue builds trust and social capital while providing space for exploring assumptions and creating new meanings. Should the space not be used in this way, false certainties may arise, strengthening the dominant ideology or hegemony.
Networks of peers exist that are able to see themselves as change agents (I use the term pre-figurers of change (Noble, 2010)). Social capital increases as they gain knowledge of each others work. This is untypical of the street level bureaucrat, who is normally focused on their work with clients.
I have conceived of the PLN as a socially structured space; a field, where capital is accumulated and struggles take place. I have established that there is a need to consider the online work of professionals in ways which move beyond dominant metaphors around computer networks. I am able to do this by drawing on theories of capital; re-introducing notions of marketplace, power, and human agency into the analysis of learning artefacts, environments, and relationships. In doing this, I aim to expose hitherto hidden actions, experiences, and voices.
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My research question and contribution to knowledge
How do participants in the edonis project speak of their online professional spaces, relationships, and data sources?
Based upon analysis of their original talk:
How do participants speak of their actions or possible actions? What common language is used? Which ways of existing and interacting are spoken of? What are they grappling with? How do they justify what they do? In what ways am I spoken of?
Based upon analysis of talk on professional action in the online field:
What do participants bring to the field? How do participants enter the field? Around which social objects does action take place? How are capitals created, maintained, and used?
My research question has evolved through: an initial set of questionnaires, writing of operational notes during each interview, the Grounded analysis of segments from three edonis interviews (Noble, 2009c), and my intention to continue to analyse data using a Grounded approach. The research question is based on three core assumptions.
Firstly, that there are instances of original talk across the interviews, that is, interviewees, prompted or otherwise, talk about their work in a way that I interpret, or they state, as being the first time they have done so. For others, for example, knowing agents, they will have previously considered or
conceptualised the focus of our interview, either in the lead-up or through their own professional or personal histories. 22
The second assumption is that social capital is an important social construction that allows us to examine actions, power, influence, motivation, and artefacts (each a social construction in itself). This is relevant when assuming that, in making themselves visible, research participants are confirming that they are, or are becoming, actors (and, additionally, may be agents). When coding data, I will be alert to this substantive area, without imposing the language of discourses on capital.
Thirdly, a distinction is made between the free action of professionals online and the professional action, online or otherwise, of those working within an established, widely recognised educational role. This distinction is necessary in order to isolate and then analyse where interviewees talk about the online learning over which they appear to control, manage, and direct. This assumption is based on the visibility of free learning in the discourse on personal learning networks, and its absence from discourses on
professionalism and professional development.
Detailing epistemological bases and research methodology
There is a methodological gap in the literature on connectivism, PLEs, and PLNs. Cursory examination of text within blogs, microblogs, and other Web 2.0 spaces often reveals actionless thought, such as the ubiquity of articles on good practice. Accounts of practice feature in e-learning journals, however there is an absence of systematic evaluation of, for example, Glow, professional learning communities, and personal learning networks.
Many accounts of practice take a critical stance in the face of poor outcomes, however these are often not accumulated or considered at the outset of new projects. Most articles on PLNs suffer from a lack of an epistemological premise and make knowledge claims based on the interpretation of collegial discussions. It is intended that my empirical study will make a substantial contribution to the field, in the form of an emerging analytical framework relating to teachers online learning activities. 23
I am approaching my data from a relativist, as opposed to a positivist, stance. In the social world, I regard knowledge as tentative and socially-constructed. In the absence of certainty, knowledge is context-specific and inconsistent across time.
Through Grounded Theory analysis, I aim to understand aspects of the social world through particular actions, interactions and practices, while recognising the potential for bias in my stance towards interviewees and data through being reflexive (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). In aiming for value-neutrality, I need to ensure that I expressly explore and describe my previous activist and pragmatist stances through discussions with my supervisor. Knowledge will be constructed with the assistance of participants in auditing and validating interpretations.
The process will be systematic and scientific, ensuring that knowledge is based on justification, refutation, and verification, while recognising the existence of multiple statuses, identities, realities, discourses, actors, modes, locations, and audiences. There are different ways of knowing, and a danger that certain knowledge will be privileged by myself, as researcher. To ensure reflexivity, I will use a Grounded Theory approach in order that I code only the data in front of me.
All resources, including the tentative version of the framework will remain online for researchers and others to interpret, construct the next iteration of, or use otherwise. I expect it to feel authentic, in that it will be based upon an empirical study that is structured and aspires to be free from bias.
The framework will have an evidence base that should assist practitioners and those within and around policy circles relating to the policy document, Teaching Scotlands Future, in imagining possible futures. The framework may assist convergence between management, teachers, and technologies (Holmes et al, 2007).
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The work may also challenge citizen interlocutors, that is, those whom I have characterised as pre-figurers of change in their education systems (Noble, 2010), and who have the most capital to gain or lose from changes in how people consider the online learning of professionals.
The relative ease with which I accessed the research corpus or site, was as a result of accumulating acquaintances online, and a perception among many that I embody the 21st Century teacher-as-online-learner. I am an emerging researcher who can be considered to know the field, having observed and participated in it for several years (Noble, 2011b).
I initially attracted three distinct groups of professionals to the study: educationists in the residential special school sector, who had little experience of the social Web in their professional work; educationists with a stake in the chartered teacher policy in Scotland, most of whom had a brief but successful history of using the Web and social tools for professional learning; and educationists who had a visible presence and lengthy history online, and would likely talk freely about their work.
There is no formula to constructing knowledge through a Grounded approach. I must, however, be systematic and maintain an intact audit trail as I work in proximity to the data (Charmaz, 2006). In constructing a valid and reliable analytical framework from abstract data, I will require creativity when naming my interpretations and a mindset which allows me to work in a conceptual mode (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). Such conditions will lead to the development of concepts and categories, with properties and dimensions, which recognise choices and possible directions pertaining to the future action of professionals in this field.
The data with which I will work comes from the unedited edonis project interviews (Noble, 2011b). From my review of each interview, the sections relating to the research questions, above, will be transcribed and coded, along with the operational notes written by me during each interview. I will begin by coding the data line-by-line; preserving actions, discounting my knowledge of 25
the individual, avoiding preconceptions, and working with the data in an abstract and disinterested manner (Charmaz, 2006).
Having reduced the data to codes, thus making them measurable, I will then analyse my initial coding, being aware of the existence of in vivo codes, such as metaphors lifted, verbatim, from participants talk. I will look for similarities and differences, and begin to name commonalities. At this point, it will be important to remain in the abstract and close to the data, otherwise there is an increased risk of interpretation.
Through moving forwards and backwards between the data, my coding, and the emerging concepts and categories, sub-categories may emerge. This process continues until the concepts and categories, and properties and dimensions, appear saturated (Strauss and Corbin, 1998).
Based on helpful criticism from research participants during my initial Grounded analysis (Noble, 2009c), and consideration of the contribution made to the valid and reliable construction of knowledge, I will again work with some of the participants to ensure that my analysis fits the data. By this I mean, that participants see themselves in my interpretation, and that I have accurately and collectively represented the actors and their social worlds.
At regular points during the construction of concepts and categories, I will meet online with small groups of participants. During our conversations, I will encourage them to identify where I may have forced explanations and preconceptions onto data, and to consider or negotiate the names or labels that I have given the actions spoken about.
There are dangers here. For example, the participants are unlikely to have experience of Grounded Theory methodology or of coding data. They may bring their own misunderstandings and preconceptions. However, as the expert and owner of the work presented to the group, I am sensitive to the data and aware of the need to be reflexive myself, therefore making alterations will be my prerogative. Valuing participants in the process of analysis, and enabling 26
some to become collaborators, could assist future dissemination of the analytical framework.
Finally, to ensure that the concepts and categories are portable across other areas of the social world, for example, other professions, I will interview social care workers from the Scottish Residential Child Care Workers Association (SRCCWA). Ensuring that my work is under continual review in the light of fresh data, I wish to reach a stage where concepts and categories are: useful, closely fit data, have conceptual density, have been modified, and are durable in the face of change.
Data collection and consideration of research ethics
At the initial data collection stage, several early decisions were made which illustrate my interest in using the social Web and new audio technologies to collect research data. I resolved to: record interviews using internet telephony, namely Skype and Pamela Call Recorder; on a fortnightly basis, and with permission, release edited interviews online at my established podcast website, Booruch, and the edonis project Ning website; and schedule a series of edonis interviews for live broadcast online.
The above illustrates how I am playing with the idea of generating an additional audience, one which lives through the research process and is able to choose a depth of immersion in the journey of the creation of new knowledge. The audience, including research participants, were able to email or tweet during the live interviews. Many listened to live or recorded interviews prior to their own interview, therefore making themselves open to influence and change.
At the same time as expanding on how I collected data, I will detail the steps that I have taken to ensure that I have, and will continue to, operate within the College of Humanities and Social Science Research Ethics Framework.
27
The website used by the majority of the one hundred and twenty participants who signed-up to the edonis project contained statements similar to those in my initial communication to those who signed-up via email. The key messages were: that the project related to my doctoral research into educationists, personal learning networks, and the social Web (subsequent iterations of my research question were always stated on the website); that participants would be sent ten e-questionnaires over a one-year period and would be invited to schedule an interview with me; and that initial questions could be answered to introduce oneself to other participants via the social functions within the projects Ning website.
At monthly intervals during the first two years of the project, I sent an email to all notional and active participants. Here, I communicated some of the quantitative data from the previous months questionnaire, collated by Survey Monkey, and provided links to the next questionnaire and the latest published interviews. Each email detailed how participants could withdraw from the study.
Online dialogue was entered into with those who agreed to take part in an interview. We negotiated to converse face-to-face or through Skype, and agreed a time and date that suited each participant. Final details, such the acceptability of the broad topics, were checked with interviewees on two occasions as the interview date approached. At this stage, I invited interviewees to suggest an aspect of their practice that they would like to share and that was relevant to the broad focus of my research. This was designed to fit with the milieu of practitioner-sharing, evident across Scottish education at present. It also allowed interviewees to talk about themselves instead of in the abstract, as I was often asking them to do during the interview.
Recordings which were due to be released online were edited so that the conversation prior to my introduction, and following my thanks, was not included in the final .mp3 file. The original, unexpurgated versions remain on file and will be available for coding. Each edited .mp3 file was uploaded to a specific online folder for each interviewee, using SkyDrive, Box.net, or
28
Dropbox. In each case, a public URL was generated which was provided only to each individual interviewee.
Interviewees were asked to review the audio for further edits or re-recording. They were, for a second time in the study, explicitly asked for permission, where applicable, for the file to be uploaded to the Booruch and edonis websites. I stated that their audio file would be available online at least in the medium term, though could be taken offline at any time, at their request. Presently, this offer has only been taken up by one interviewee.
On each of the websites and for every .mp3 file, interviewees full name, main job title, and general location are given. Names appear in the podcast metadata alongside mine as producer, indicating that they are co-creators of the podcast. Interviewees were also entitled to add their main website to the project Ning website and to the Yahoo Pipe which provides a regularly updated feed of participants online postings.
In all my research activities, I have adhered to the relevant guides ((SERA (2005), BERA (2004), and ESRC (2005)). My intention is to make a worthwhile contribution to the quality of education in our society (SERA, 2005:i).
Throughout my research, I am engaging in professional relationships with participants. Where I have carried out an interview and then published the recording online, every action within the relationship must be deliberate and open to scrutiny, and the participant must directly benefit from their involvement. I encouraged each interviewee to share an element of their practice or that of their organisation. This was retained in the final, broadcast version and would be listened to by hundreds of educators throughout the world when published to the research websites.
After the event, many spoke of the interview being a cathartic or learning experience that they would be re-considering in the days to come. For most, this was the first time they had spoken about their work online. Many felt
29
nervous beforehand and pleased afterwards. All were immediately given the option of having the recording deleted. None requested this.
Confidentiality is maintained within a Grounded Theory analysis as all data are treated in the abstract and no participants or places can be identified. Several requested that their interview remain private. This has been ensured by storing them on a password-protected flash drive. Such participants remain part of the corpus contributing towards the study.
It is vital that disruption to the participant is kept to a minimum during the interview process. I invited each to suggest suitable time slots and I worked around these. I travelled to the workplace of several interviewees based in central or southern Scotland. The only problems arose with a small number of participants from outside of the UK. Due to difficulties with time zones and nonUK telephone codes, I was up to five minutes late in placing some calls. Where I did not have an established relationship with the participant, I invariably was unable to get through, my assumption being that they were too busy to wait on my call and were not sufficiently interested in contacting me to re-arrange a new time. For this inconvenience and loss of data, I take full responsibility.
Furthermore, this may suggest a bias in my sampling, relating to the extensive involvement of educationists familiar with my professional roles, and a difficulty in securing similar degrees of commitment and engagement from overseas people who signed-up following promotion of the study through posts on thirdparty blogs and microblogs.
I have considered the extent to which my research might exploit or objectify certain participants. The .mp3 files are hosted on my professional and research websites, where permission has been given. These sites are owned by me and recognised as such by others. However, each file has a AttributionNonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 UK: Scotland (CC BY-NC-SA 2.5) license (Creative Commons, 2011) which allows others to: copy, distribute, display, perform the work, and make derivative works, under the following conditions:
30
Attribution one must give the original author credit non-commercial one may not use work for commercial purposes share alike if altered, transformed, or built upon, one may distribute the resulting work only under a licence identical to this one.
There is the potential that others might exploit the talk of the interviewee, however each was explicitly informed of the terms under which the recording would be hosted, prior to permission being sought for publication online.
Several participants in my research are regarded as prominent and influential within the teaching profession or their specific field. By securing a publishable interview with them, I would be likely to attract more Twitter followers and downloads from my website, particularly if they mentioned online that they were the subject of an edonis interview (this could, of course, work both ways).
Some interviewees circumvented objectification by asserting their right to a copy of the .mp3 file. Many of these files were then posted on the individuals own blog or website. I believe that in conducting a semi-structured interview, the interviewee likely retained a degree of agency sufficient that others would see them as a whole person and not only as, for example, a person behind their blog or research participant.
On occasion, interviews appeared to shift in nature. For example, I may have been asked a technical question about an online resource, or to state my opinion on a matter relating to educational technologies. An interviewees talk, or my questioning, often moved away significantly from the broad areas agreed beforehand. I constantly monitored the conversation for indications of discomfort, particularly when my questioning or prompting was unclear, and when the agreed time limit was approaching. Despite concerns at the time over future coding workload during my Grounded analysis, I never restricted the length of conversations, therefore as long as the interviewee wished to continue, I continued to give prompts and feedback.
31
The conversational nature of the interview, essential where no body language clues were visible from the beginning of the telephone call, was deliberate as I considered what the needs might be of those listening to the live stream or recording. I wanted the audience to have an enjoyable experience, to learn from others talk on educational practice, and to consider some of the themes for possible future involvement, either as interviewee or interrogator of my early concepts and categories.
Beforehand, interviewees engaged in email conversations, the focus of which was to ensure their comfort and familiarity with likely conversation prompts. It also encouraged them to share a favourite aspect of their practice. In hindsight, this could have been a restriction, for example if they wished to talk about a relevant political matter, however I often concluded by asking if they had anything else to talk about.
Moving forward
I intend my work to be an example of journeyman research. This recognises the iterative nature of the knowledge with which I am assisting in the construction. Continuing with a Grounded approach, and recognising the professional use of Web 2.0 technologies by educationists and social care workers, I will approach a number of colleagues from across the UK to take part in a second, smaller series of interviews.
When capturing the talk of these professionals later in the study, I will utilise a Web tool that I have helped to develop, and is presently being used across the UK to record, upload, store, and share the voices of educationists. EDUtalk is a website hosted by the online publishing platform, Posterous. EDUtalk encourages people to use a variety of means to create content for the website. Using any mobile and/or telephonic device, audio can be recorded from, for example, conference presentations, small and group discussions, monologues, and interviews. Where the interviewer and interviewee are in the same physical location, they tend to use the Audioboo application (app) on a mobile device. 32
Recorded audio is uploaded to the website via wifi, and if tagged edutalk, will appear in the moderation queue at the EDUtalk website.
As my interviews will continue to be conducted via internet telephony, I will continue to set-up a Skype conference call each time, with iPadio as a participant. This will allow me, where permission has been given by the interviewee, to broadcast interviews live online, providing the potential for audience input. These events will be promoted through the SRCCWA and Residential Child Care Ning websites.
Present timescale
October - December 2011
Listen to all unedited published and unpublished edonis project interviews. Identify all interviews which meet the criteria for coding and collate operational notes. These interviewees will now be known as participants.
Transcribe interviews.
December 2011 February 2012
Carry out line-by-line coding of all interview segments relating to the research questions
February April 2012
Construct early concepts and categories. Hold small group meetings with participants to interrogate concepts and categories
April June 2012
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Write literature review.
June July 2012
Interview several social care workers.
Transcribe sections relating to research questions.
August September 2012
Revisit concepts and categories.
34
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Thesis Proposal: Online Personal Learning Networks of Professionals - Grounded Analysis of Talk From The Edonis Project

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Online Personal Learning Networks of Professionals: Grounded analysis of talk from the edonis project.

EdD Progression Board paper (draft) August 2011

David Noble, EdD student, University of Edinburgh (dafc1885@hotmail.com)

. My Journey, Roles, and Values: from collegiality to criticality

come from my position or perceived position in relation to the research participants.

Extra supported study online (Recommendations 2, 11 and 21).

My research question and contribution to knowledge

Based upon analysis of their original talk:

Based upon analysis of talk on professional action in the online field:

professionalism and professional development.

Detailing epistemological bases and research methodology

Data collection and consideration of research ethics

October - December 2011

December 2011 February 2012

February April 2012

April June 2012

Write literature review.

June July 2012

Interview several social care workers.

Transcribe sections relating to research questions.

August September 2012

Revisit concepts and categories.

psychological and educational considerations. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge

Downes, S. (2008). Connectivism: a theory of personal learning [online]. Available at http://www.slideshare.net/Downes/connectivism-a-theory-of-

personal-learning [Accessed 13th June 2011]

http://www.iplayback.com/product/3178/181 [Accessed 20th June 2011]

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