Cyber-Spaces & Virtual Learning ESRC Seminar University of Southampton

Introducing...

Beyond Current Horizons year Research Programme 6 Socio-technical trends

Beyond Current Horizons Information landscape - “know more stuff about more stuff” - gather, store, use, share more data Importance of geography - both less and more important

Beyond Current Horizons Institutional boundaries - weakened & porous; info not tied to institution; blurring ‘work’ & ‘leisure’ Socio-technological trends – more communication, collaboration, content creation, social etc.

Beyond Current Horizons ‘Digital natives’ grow up – over 50% pop. 50+ by 2030?; extended life expectancy; adult-child relationships changing Working with machines – redefining intelligence; challenging dependencies

Some thoughts New technologies are changing our navigation and experience of different spaces and places – in new ways/different media – we should be critical as to how positive it all is Beware utopias/dystopias – challenge techno-romanticism New ways of thinking – new frameworks (UK schools – ‘container model’? Individual knowledge acquisition and knowledge transfer – broadcast model – any wonder new technologies get mediated and colonised – e.g. VLE and Whiteboards How cyber-worlds can enhance existing cultural and national identities under certain circumstances

Some thoughts Need to debate nature of space – virtual-real- interplay Within broader analysis of power and structures Day prisons? - built power relationships – expression of power relationships – overtly and as bi product of ‘what has gone before’ - or what the ‘market’ or ’field’ demands Which structures of the past and present, which power inequalities are at play...and when?

Some thoughts How do these impact individual expectations and how, in turn, are these mediated by the past? Ask a pupil what a school of the future will look like and... Need alternative narratives about the future that empower individuals Interconnected web of ‘structuring structures’ – perceptions, roles, positions, schools ‘aims’, educational purpose, measures, standards politics, global – micro, meso, macro structures and fields within those that mediate – myriad – complex

Politics and Ideology in the UK – potential effects on education, spaces and cyberspaces How do we respond to the ‘Big Society’? Increasing ‘marketisation’ – roll back of the state – neo liberalism – growth of para-professionals and consultancy? Globalisation of pedagogy (pedagogies) or consumption of ‘schooling’ ? Consumerism and education – including growth of consultants – alternative measures and approaches?