Pedagogies of Place: Imbricating Physical and Digital Affordances

Abstract

Pedagogies of Place: Imbricating Physical and Digital Affordances Abstract This study evolved at a time when the rapid uptake of mobile smart devices was challenging established communication modes in traditional teaching and learning places. Place- based learning (PBL) had also gathered momentum, yet there had been little research that focused upon the impact of ubiquitous mobile digital technologies (MDT) within PBL contexts. This study's first context is a local history course taught in an Australian rural secondary school where students were positioned as producers of digital history. The second context explores how a group of visiting tertiary communication students experienced their learning in multi-modal ways during a cross institutional exchange program. To render an understanding of interactions between place-based learning, personal mobile devices, and the media cultures of students from my point of view as an educator, my inquiry accesses the Mechanisms and Conditions of Affordance framework (Davis, 2020), an innovative approach to affordance theory.

My aim was to observe the pedagogical opportunities and challenges associated with off site access to mobile digital communication devices. This involved theorising learning that is place based by considering the ways in which participants engage at the interface of the physical and virtual. It also involved exploring changes in communication styles and settings due to the increased availability of mobile technologies. I realised that autoethnography was well suited to narrate the socio-technical realities of my phenomenologically gathered data and together with the Davis (2020) framework, this approach offered an authentic way to analyse and evaluate audio-visually sourced and digitally recorded data by demonstrating how the data artifacts I observed were operationalised in each context.

Key findings from both research contexts reveal why future curricula need to incorporate mobile-spatial-audio-visual learning opportunities. Given the recent escalation in virtual learning, this research into the conditions of affordance associated with the uptake of technologically infused pedagogical practice provides important PBL considerations and directions for those designing, teaching and assessing curricula. Digital access beyond spaces typically associated with traditional institutions afforded participants enhanced engagement and agency, and the ability to record, critique and at times challenge instances of power and privilege. This was especially noticeable when knowledge transmission involved dialogic and multimodal listening. However, individual personalities, dispositions and values also affected participant responses to available opportunities and challenges. In both contexts issues of equity in the provision of devices emerged as significant. This was shown to impact the effective uptake of pedagogies in networked and multimodal learning spaces.

The Mechanisms and Conditions of Affordance framework identified circumstances that subverted effective curricula planning and practice especially when associated with diverse institutional approaches to MDT in PBL. Where generalised perspectives incorrectly assume a commonality in pedagogical values and relationships, research attuned to local culture and politics is needed to address the disconnect likely to occur in virtually conducted collaborative partnerships. As 'digital connectivity is now the water in which we swim" (Davis, 2020) insights from this inquiry regarding the imbrication of physical and virtual learning affordances is of ongoing relevance.