New research project, new blog

Welcome to my new blog and my new research project. I will be using these pages to publish an ongoing journal of my research activities. It will help me to keep track of and understand all of the many and varied things that I will be doing. And judging from the response that I have already received when presenting these ideas and plans at conferences, it should also be of interest to lots of other people in HE and beyond.

Firstly, a few words about me and my project, to give you an insight into why this particular channel of communication will be so essential to my work. Here's a summary of what I am trying to achieve, taken from the more complete abstract:

This is the PhD project of Robert O'Toole. It will investigate the effects of the current dramatic increase in the user-configurability of physical and online learning (teaching) spaces, and the tools and techniques with which they are constructed. The concept of 'learning space' will be explored and developed into a methodology for design and evaluation. This methodology will be applied to a range of new physical learning spaces (online, offline and blended), including (at Warwick) the Teaching Grid, Learning Grid, CAPITAL Centre and Reinvention Studio, as well as new developments in schools and businesses. Most significantly, a design-led approach to choosing, adapting and using technology enhanced learning spaces will be promoted to students and teachers, through a series of action-research studies - the aim being to empower people to take control of their learning spaces, so as to fully exploit the new possibilities offered by increased user-configurability. Beyond 'information literacy' and 'digital literacy', with the addition of a 'design literacy' that enables students and teachers to become effective designers and users of their own learning and learning spaces.

I've highlighted that last sentence for two reasons: it's the "big idea" that I want to explore; but also, it should be taken as more than just a research proposition - it's a manifesto for how I think teaching and learning should be done. This certainly will not be a research project to be filed away and forgotten upon completion. Right from the start, I am setting out to change practice and to open up new opportunities for excellence and achievement. As a successful [e]learning developer and consultant at Warwick, I already have lots of scope for doing that - perhaps too much! But in setting this up as a formal research project, a PhD even, I am aiming to join up all of the many things that I already do with a more "academic" more "rigorous" stance. This blog will help me in making those connections and building that conceptual/pragmatic continuum. It will also help me to more efficiently record and make the most of all of the things that I encounter in this research and my work - important considering that I have a full-time job and a small child to look after.

What then will you find in this blog as it develops? Here's some things that I will be writing about: 

• Why the study of learning space matters, and what it means.
• A formal methodology for the study and design of learning space.
• How cognitive science, philosophy, sociology, arts and design helps.
• What this means for practice and policy.
  

I will be carrying out observations and investigations of learning spaces in action, reporting on what I see at Warwick and elsewhere (with photos, video, audio, text and diagrams). And from all of this, I will undertake "action research" to establish how we can enable "students and teachers to become effective designers and users of their own learning and learning spaces."

There will also be image galleries and podcasts that may be of use more widely (you can use any of the resources I publish for your own work), as well as book and event reviews. In the left hand column on the blog design, you can find links to the many partners that I will be working with, as well as other useful web sites and blogs.

I'll end this first entry with a provocational image. I am very much a "HE" researcher. But I will be looking at what we can learn from other educational contexts, especially primary schools and museums. There is much for us to learn! I'm not saying that a university should look like a primary school. I am saying that in the primary sector design is taken very seriously. They understand the transformational effect that can be achieved through standing back and thinking about it with care, flare and the right methodology. Here's a great example from a school at the forefront of "creativity" and "design":

Ashmead Primary School, Aylesbury.

Robert O'Toole : 17 Jun 2009 07:50 |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem