Category: NLC10 (Networked Learning Conference)

Marguerite Koole from Athabasca and Lancaster Universities is presenting her paper, The Web of Identity: Selfhood and Belonging in Online Learning. She did a distance-learning master’s degree, and she felt disconnected with her faculty there, without any face-to-face engagement. She experienced few ah-ha moments within the required discussion forums. She did not relate to other  students in the program, and as a result of not feeling connected and engaged, she began exploring identity and how the individual differentiates between the self and other.

Her work around identity was influenced by Ricoeur (1992), Mead (1934), Ferreday, Jones, and Hodgson (2006). She was also interested in impressions management from Goffman (1959) and also saw Foucault’s work on the technologies of the self. She then demonstrated how these issues from Goffman could be interpreted through a Foucauldian lens, and then presented her Web of Identity Model. She includes an element of Cognitive Resonance component, which is an individual’s identityt as reflected or refracted through the strategies with the final goals to achieve a comfortable level of resonance and harmony.

There were numerous implications for learning, and it will be intersting to see how this model develops over time. I think that the follow-up questions at the end, many of which were very theoretical, demonstrates how rich this area may be.

Helle Wentzer is speaking about her work that addresses her work with MOPEM. She is bulding on Hegel’s work, the dialectical result of home – out – home movement. Not sure I am able to follow the Hegel (and Gadamer) references, but will trust their work informs Helle’s research and will read the paper after the session.

Ahh, the true, good, and beautiful–I recall them from my philosophical studies. Alas, she is reading (perhaps from her work?) at us, and it is all going a bit fast for me as I am struggling to recall what some of these major thinkers said, and how they were being used in her work. Of course, given some of the presentation I have experienced today, it may just be me considering this. Anyway, enough about me . . .

Ahh, it seems that when we go from home – out and then back to home, we are changed (we have experienced leraning), though  the home has not changed.I think this is avery valuable insight. Re-reading my post at the end of the session before publishing it, I seem to notice that I have spent some time considering this during part of the session, as it seemed to stop me in my place to consider it.

MOPEM–Marketing Online Path to Enter new Markets is an EU research project. Why does there seem to be so much interesting work funded by the EU? Doesn’t the US have any interesting fundedd research? No, I am not saying this since I do not  haveany  funding, but stilL . . .

I also really need to read this paper, as a few things I missed left some gaps that I think will be valuable for me to fill.

Jen Ross from Edinburgh is presenting her paper, Just what is being reflected in online reflection?: new literacies for new media practices. She is exploring reflection in a professional body, and forms the current work in her dissertation. She is looking at areas of identity, authenticity, and performance, especially as found through blogs. She is using blogs as that is a technology that is being used in higher education in several of the virtual learning places, as as such is becoming more HE mainstream (even though, as I pointed out, students have generally moved on to Facebook or the like).

Reflection online needs new literacies–from Carpenter 2009. She speaks how blogging takes on a new significance. She will tell 6 stories on blogging, and will look at these through 6 different blogging lenses:

1. Authenticity–blogs should be authentic and honest
2. Risk–Sharing too much information is dangerous
3. Pretense–No one is really themselves online
4. Commodification–Your online presence is your personal brand
5. Otherness–What kind of person would do this?
6. Narcissism–Bloggers are shallow and self-obsessed

Clear, that I need to read Jen’s work, partly as I blog quite a bit, but also because it seems there may be some similarities with this, both in research as well as in practice. We have an opportunity with online reflection to think about voice.