Paper presented at the Networked Learning conference, May 14-15, 2018, Zagreb, Chroatia

1. KNOWLEDGEABILITY AND
MODES OF IDENTIFICATION
IN (DIS)EMBODIED BOUNDARY PRACTICE
IN NETWORKED LEARNING
Marianne Riis, Senior Lecturer, Ph.d.
– University College Copenhagen, Denmark
Lone Dirckinck-Holmfeld, Professor, Ph.d.
– Aalborg University, Denmark

2. AGENDA
•Background
•Focus
•Method and context
•A socio-cultural perspective on design for learning
•Boundary practice and boundary objects
•Findings from study I ( a 2DVLE, 2006)
•Findings from study II (a 3DVLE, 2016)
•Discussion → a socio-material perspective on design for learning

3. BACKGROUND
•All learning – especially networked learning - involves boundaries
•Learning and collaborating at and across boundaries is complex due
to lack of shared vocabulary, habits, world view etc.
•Boundary objects → a way of talking about objects that mediate
knowledge between practices and discourses
↓
•The challenge is to create possibilities for the learners to participate
in meaningful ways while transcending the boundaries

4. FOCUS
•Differences and similarities in 2D and 3D virtual learning
environments (VLE) with regards to boundary practices and
boundary objects
•Two studies at the same educational programme 10 years apart
The Master Programme of ICT and Learning (MIL) at Aalborg
University, Denmark
•Students were predominantly in-service teachers
•Students and teachers/researchers only met f2f four times a
online teaching and learning

5. METHOD AND CONTEXT
Analysis of findings from two different studies:
•Study I (Dirckinck-Holmfeld, 2006) – focus on student
learning and practice in a project-based module
•Study II (Riis, 2016) – focus on student engagement, learning
practice in a course-based module
•In both studies the students were asked to work with real
from their practices → Problem-Oriented Project Pedagogy

6. DOMINANT FEATURES IN
THE TWO SETTINGS

7. A SOCIO-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE
Initially a socio-cultural perspective on learning:
 Learning is constructed
 Learning is social
 Learning is situated
 Learning is mediated
 Learning is distributed
 Learning is coming to be (Riis, 2016)

8. KNOWLEDGEABILITY AND
IDENTIFICATION
Knowledgeability: the body of
knowledge and complex relations
that people build and maintain
between intersecting practices
↓
Identity modulation through modes
of identification
(Wenger-Trayner & Wenger Trayner, 2015)
(Riis, 2016)

9. BOUNDARIES IN EDUCATION
Akkerman & Bakker (2011):
•A boundary is any socio-cultural difference that leads to
discontinuity in action or interaction
•Not static or predefined, but rather experienced subjectively and
contextually
Wenger-Trayner et al. (2017):
•Boundaries should be regarded as learning assets – design for
boundary practices

10. BOUNDARY OBJECTS
Star & Griesemer (1989): an object
that serves to mediate several
intersecting social worlds while
simultaneously satisfying both
Carlile (2002;2004): ‘effective’
boundary objects hierarchically
organized
←

11. BOUNDARY OBJECTS IN 2D
– STUDY I
•Group products
•Ideal types of frameworks, concepts, models
•Standards and guidelines
•Communication infrastructure
↓
•...What determines the ‘efficiency’ of boundary objects is relational
to the situation and to the objectives (Dirckinck-Holmfeld, 2006, p.
7)
•Efficiency of boundary objects depends on design

12. BOUNDARY OBJECTS IN STUDY I

13. BOUNDARY OBJECTS IN 3D
– STUDY II
•Group products
•Ideal types of frameworks, concepts, models
•Standards and guidelines
•Communication infrastructure
•The avatar
•It was through the avatar the students experienced and participated
in the learning activities → the materialisation of identity struggles
and a medium of agency and performance
•Boundaries are not only cultural, but material as well

14. BOUNDARY OBJECTS IN STUDY II

15. BOUNDARY OBJECTS IN THE
TWO STUDIES

16. A SOCIO-MATERIAL PERSPECTIVE
The question of producing knowledge and learning shifts
from a representational idiom, mapping and understanding a
world that is out there, to a view that the world is doing things,
full of agency. Not only humans act, because non-humans act
on and with humans. (Fenwick, Edwards & Sawchuk, 2011, p. 3)
↓
•Attention to the entanglement of material artifacts and the bodily
performance of the learners – still entwined with discourse!
•Facilitation of boundary practices emphasizing the dependencies
between agency and identity

17. DESIGN FOR LEARNING IN
NETWORKED POPP
In both studies the strongest
dependency between learners
and boundary objects, occurred
in relation to the dialogical and
collaborative fabric of the
learning designs, calling for a
continued focus on the social
and relational aspects of
design for learning in problem-
oriented and problem-based
networked learning.

18. Questions?

19. REFERENCES
Paper available at:
http://networkedlearningconference.org.uk/abstracts/riis.html