Following your suggestion about trying to go further into exploring the use of different resources this week I have intended to use tools I never used before, for example, ThingLink, actually, I think it is the first time I do an interactive image.
In this image I am trying to express what is my engagement with the IDEL course, making special attention to this week’s topic: learning spaces.
I used the University ID because it is my personal connection to the programme. I wanted to make the ID the protagonist of the image story. I carry my ID everywhere, basically because I have it in my phone case. An interesting fact is that I don’t carry it in my wallet. When I got it, I decided to put it on the phone case where I don’t have many spaces for ids, but I keep the important ones: bus ticket, debit card and university ID. Why did I decide to carry it there? I am not sure, maybe I am giving some mysticism, but I have realised that this ID is what makes me feel connected to the course and makes me identify as a student, probably it what makes me feel to be in the campus, whatever I am, embracing the concept of new mobilities paradigm’ that is discussed by Bayne, Gallagher and Lamb (2014), which supports learning in unbounded regions and terrains.
It has shown that the material campus continues to be a symbolically and materially significant ‘mooring’ for a group of students who may never physically attend that campus.
Bayne, Gallagher and Lamb (2014)
With the image, I want to present the different places where I have engaged with the IDEL course and the different tools and resources I have used so far. I would say that my laptop has been my main moored item. It is quite funny because my laptop is not portable anymore, it only turns on when is charging, so it really moors me. However, I feel that my learning space has been fluid in terms that I move around my home depending on what is space is free and quiet to be. Usually, the headquarters is my living room, a comfortable armchair in a nice corner where I like to sit to read and, of course, to write all the post in my blog.
Sometimes, I go to use the uplift desk (usually when I want to keep my eyes open and don’t fall asleep), or a read in the bedroom when everyone is sleeping. On this week Padlet I have discovered that some classmates use a voice reader to hear the articles and be able to do another thing at the same time. I have been inspired by them, and I am sure I will use it in the future to brake more bounded and rigid container that is “reading”.
As you can see in the image, I have used a Kindle, which helped me to be freer and bring my learning space outside the house, for example checking the materials from a playground. But I have also used inside, reading in the Kindle and writing in the laptop. Many times I have found myself having two virtual places used at the same time, for example playing Minecraft on my phone while I was checking tutorials on the laptop. I can say that I have deflated the sedentarist claims.
How fascinating to think you stroll the streets of Barcelona carrying your student card! And what a great connection with the Bayne et al. paper. You’ve reminded me that, when we came to launch our book about the Manifesto for Teaching Online, one of our recent graduates sent me a picture of the ‘We are the campus’ t-shirts that she and fellow students had had printed as a kind of identifier with the programme.
Nice use of Thinglink, too – it’s a really nice space to support different media, isn’t it?
‘I would say that my laptop has been my main moored item. It is quite funny because my laptop is not portable anymore, it only turns on when is charging, so it really moors me.’
Ha! This acts as a nice contrast to the imagery that is so often associated with online education, which tends towards the latest technologies or suited execs checking email while sitting in an airport lounge. On the contrary, when we gathered the photos that contributed to the Bayne et al. paper, most of the spaces we generated were distinctly not high-tech: they tended towards slightly tired laptops, kitchen tables and soft furnishings.