Using actor-network theory as a lens to explore lecture capture practices in and across spatial (re) Home : Annual Conference 2017

Public Group Active 5 years, 6 months ago

Thu, Sep 7 2017, 10:45am – 12:00pm

Authors: Karl Luke

Room: McAusland Rm (1)

Theme: Learning Spaces

Type: 20-minute session

Description

Lecture capture, using semi-automated systems, is an increasingly common practice in UK universities. Despite a large body of literature in this arena, much of the current research fails to examine the potential workings of lecture recordings across variable contexts, beyond the control or awareness of academics (Cornock 2015). This presentation attempts to contribute to this area by providing an exploratory case study, using theoretical and conceptual tools offered by actor-network theory (ANT), to explore lecture capture practices emerging from the site of the lecture theatre and also within the varied environments of student consumption.

This presentation is closely aligned to the conference theme of “Learning Spaces”, whereby the presentation explores the entanglements involved in enacting lecture capture practices across spatial dimensions. ANT contests that space can also be understood as an effect of relational activity that emerges from within diverse networks, involving heterogeneous “things” (or actors) – both human and non-human (Latour 2005). This presentation raises questions around how spatial categorisations are viewed and how teaching and learning are enacted within concepts of place and space (Murdoch 1998).

The presentation is informed by diverse data collected from a UK Russell Group university, using perspectives provided by multi-sited ethnography. Visualisation mapping (Decuypere and Simons 2014), using a visualisation mapping platform, was deployed to trace the relations and movements between technologies, people, artefacts and objects. Mapping offered opportunities for scrutinising how lecture capture practices are enacted and the contingent and active spaces produced. The data collected reveals how individualised study practices materialised within emergent connections, and partially through the ad-hoc use of available objects and artefacts, across various physical and virtual spaces.

The presentation introduces key concepts offered by ANT and argues that ANT provides a theoretical approach to analysing the messy complexities involved in education (Fenwick & Edwards 2010). ANT, if used pragmatically, can provide nuanced insights for educationists whereby successful learning design, including the development and deployment of learning technologies, should pursue ways of embracing this complexity (Johri 2011). Visualisation mapping may also provide perspectives into opportunities for imagining and enacting alternatives to teaching and learning. This opens up the opportunity to attend to debates concerning the material organisation of spaces, which can be an important focus for future research.

References

Cornock, M. (2015). Justifying lecture capture: the importance of student experiences in understanding the value of learning technologies. Extended paper, #867, ALT-C 2015 – Shaping the future of learning together. Annual Conference of the Association for Learning Technology, 8-10 September 2015, University of Manchester, UK.

Decuypere, M. and Simons, M. (2014). An atlas of academic practice in digital times. Open Review of Educational Research, 1(1), pp.116-143.

Fenwick, T. and Edwards, R. (2010). Actor-network theory in education. Oxon: Routledge.

Johri, A. (2011). The socio-materiality of learning practices and implications for the field of learning technology. Research in Learning Technology, (19)3 pp.207-217.

Latour, B. 2005. Reassembling the Social. An introduction to actor network theory. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Murdoch, J. (1998). The spaces of actor-network theory. Geoforum, 29(4), pp.357-374.

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