Values can be espoused; they can be enacted; but they can also be represented in the way that structures and systems are created (Feenberg, 1999). Students’ engagement with Higher Education is shaped in important ways by the spaces in which they study, the resources they work with and the materials they produce, things that are widely overlooked in educational research (Fenwick, Edwards & Sawchuk, 2011). This lack of scrutiny limits our ability to understand the values of higher education, and how they vary not only by discipline but also setting – which is an issue, since technologies (including resources and designed spaces) are so much more durable than talk or action in the way that they shape society (Latour, 1999). In this paper, we report on a research project that explored sociomaterial aspects of students’ experiences of learning. 12 students (3 each of PGCE students, Masters’ students, Doctoral students and Masters’ students studying at a distance) undertook multimodal journaling over a period of 9 months to document the ways in which they used resources, technologies and spaces to be ‘digitally literate’, in order to achieve success in their studies. In addition to generating images, videos and field notes, the students were each interviewed three or more times to generate accounts of their studies. The analysis of this dataset showed how markedly different ‘success’ was, in terms of resources and practices, to different students. It demonstrated that the phrase, “the student experience”, is misleadingly singular: students’ experiences varied considerably. It also revealed where and when their learning was or was not valued. Examples of such situations will be provided, to show how the configuration of spaces, technologies and other resources affects students’ ability to succeed in their studies, and what individuals did to overcome these. Finally, we will illustrate how these issues relate to institutional policy making, looking at an example of how evidence about student experience does (and does not) link through to institutional action.

1. Spaces, places and
technologies
Can we know, value and shape
policy to provide what students
need to support their digital
literacy practices?
Martin Oliver & Lesley Gourlay
Institute of Education

2. Values and technology

3. Theorising technology and values
Design is socially relative: it incorporates social
terms of reference
Where design prefers particular groups, social
injustice arises
Dominant technical codes, and the over-
determination of action: managerial control
„Room for maneuver‟ as necessary and desirable
in designs
Feenberg (e.g. 2010)

4. The „margin of maneuver‟
Power expresses itself in plans which inevitably
require implementation by those situated in the
tactical exteriority. But no plan is perfect; all
implementation involves unplanned actions in what I
call the “margin of maneuver” of those charged with
carrying it out. In all technically mediated
organizations margin of maneuver is at work,
modifying work pace, misappropriating resources,
improvising solutions to problems and so on.
Technical tactics belong to strategies as
implementation belongs to planning.
(Feenberg, 1998: 113)

5. How can we work with
this?
What is the evidence base on which we are
designing our IT infrastructure, training
programme, curricula, etc?
To what extent does this evidence show what
students actually value?
Not just whether they like some broad category of
provision we have designed
Not just selections from a list of our guesses
Not just what they say they value
Developing a sociomaterial account of studying

6. Sociomateriality

7. Humans, and what they take to be their learning and
social process, do not float, distinct, in container-like
contexts of education, such a classrooms or
community sits, that can be sits, that can be
conceptualised and dismissed as simply a wash of
material stuff and spaces. The things that assemble
these contexts, and incidentally the actions and
bodies including human ones that are part of these
assemblages, are continuously acting upon each
other to bring forth and distribute, as well as to
obscure and deny, knowledge.
(Fenwick et al, 2011)

8. Universities and textual
practices
Removing the agency of texts and tools in
formalising movements risks romanticising the
practices as well as the humans in them; focusing
uniquely on the texts and tools lapses into naïve
formalism or techno-centrism.
Leander and Lovvorn (2006:301), quoted in Fenwick
et al (p104)

9. Reflexive relationship between textual media and
knowledge practices in higher education (Kittler
2004)
Need to explore ramifications of devices & digitally
mediated semiotic practices on meaning making

10. The research

11. Digital
Literacies as a
Postgraduate
Attribute?
• JISC Developing Digital
Literacies Programme
• Focus groups / multimodal
journalling in year 1
PGCE, taught Masters, taught
Masters (Distance), PhD
• Case studies in year 2:
Academic Writing Centre
Learning Technologies Unit
Library

12. Moving on from
taxonomies
“Digital literacy defines those capabilities which
fit an individual for living, learning and working in
a digital society.” (Beetham, 2010)
Four-tier framework:
Access
Skills
Social practices
Identity

13. …towards
digital
academic
practice
• Academic practices are
overwhelming textual
• These are situated in
social and disciplinary
contexts
• Textual practices are
increasingly digitally
mediated
• These practices take place
across a range of domains
• Students create complex
assemblages enrolling a
range of digital, material,
spatial and temporal
resources

14. Why it‟s not all about
technologies

15. Complex resources
Neither all „institutional‟, nor personal
Office tools (primarily Microsoft, plus Google docs and Prezi)
Institutional VLEs (Moodle and Blackboard)
Email (institutional, personal and work-based)
Synchronous conferencing services (Skype, Elluminate)
Calendars (iCal, Google)
Search engines and databases (including Google, Google
Scholar, library databases, professional databases such as
Medline, etc),
Social networking sites (Facebook, Academia.edu, LinkedIn) and
services (Twitter)
Image editing software (photoshop, lightbox)
Endnote
Reference works (Wikipedia, online dictionaries and social
bookmarking sites such as Mendeley)
GPS services
Devices (PCs at the institution and at home, laptops including
MacBooks, iPhones, iPads, Blackberries and E-book readers).

16. A taxonomic list would be problematic
Time specific (and rapidly dated)
Unfeasibly long
Containing much that‟s irrelevant for individuals
Digital literacy as a kind of coping
Personal and situated, not monolithic and
general

17. “The student experience”
No evidence that the student experience is
singular
Marked differences in experiences and priorities
across the four groups
PGCE, MA students, PhD students, Online
masters‟ students
Coping with whiteboards and staff room politics of
access; using the VLE to access materials; library
databases; using the VLE to create a sense of
community (…and Skype behind the scenes…)
Professional, personal, study

18. Orientations

19. Yuki: „curation‟

20. For example when I attend a lecture or a session I
always record the session, and it‟s after the session,
but sometimes I listen to the lecture again to confirm
my knowledge or reflect the session...when I, for
example we‟re writing an essay and I have
to...confirm what the lecturer said, I could confirm
with the recording data. (Yuki Interview 1)

21. Sally:
„combat‟

22. I was like bullied into it by people saying, oh, you‟ll be left
behind if you don‟t use Facebook. So yes, that was
when I got into it, so... And then... so now I would say
Facebook, I‟m not the most... like I said to you in the
focus group, I‟m a bit uncomfortable about the whole kind
of like Big Brother aspect. (Sally Interview 1)
I feel like, also that Google is equally watching you. You
know, they‟re all watching you, they‟re all trying to sell
you things, and the thing is not, I don‟t so much mind
being bombarded with advertising as I mind having things
put about me on things like Facebook that I don‟t want.
You know, I don‟t want my friends to spy on me, I don‟t
want my friends to know what I listen to on YouTube.
(Sally Interview 1)

23. Faith: „coping‟

24. In my school, I… we had… our staff room was
equipped… one, two, three, four, five, six, seven… seven
computers now we can use and only one of them
attached with a printer. So, actually we‟ve got six PGC
students over there, so it‟s, kind of, everybody wants to
get to that computer where you can use the printer. Yes,
so in the end I found actually I can also use the printer
from the library in the school.
So, six student teachers tried to use other computer. So,
it, kind of, sometimes feels a bit crowded. And when the
school staff want to use it, well, okay, it seems like we are
the invaders, intruders?

25. Spaces

26. Yuki
Japanese, female in her 40s, MA student
For me the most important thing is portability, because I use
technologies, ICT, everywhere I go, anywhere I go. For
example of course I use some technologies, PCs and
laptops and my iPad in the IOE building, and in the IOE
building I use PC, I use them in PC room, in library, and for
searching some data or journals. In the lecture room I record
my, record the lectures and taking memos by that.

27. 27

31. Activity
Map out where you undertake your work

32. Now discuss…
Are spaces associated with particular times or
patterns?
Which spaces do you feel in control of? Where
do you feel supported?
Are there spaces where you avoid undertaking
certain kinds of work? Why?

33. Identity

34. Managing the separation and integration of
personal, professional and study places
Email accounts
Social network profiles
etc

35. One of the challenges of undertaking an online
course is that most probably you will do this
alongside „other‟ activities such as a job or other. As
a result you end up with multiple email addresses
and different folders, files and docs in your
computer. I am finding that one needs to be very
organised and a practical thinker in order to: retrieve
the information you need, navigate between one and
in the other. (Lara email)

36. Activity
What identities are you having to manage?
Where on your map do you do these?
(Do they stay where you want them?)

37. Texts

38. Yuki‟s books
From print to digital and back
again

39. “The bathroom is a good place to
read”
Digitally connected texts in a very embodied
setting – neither „virtual‟ nor „real‟ (Jurgenson 2012)

40. Activity
Pick a text, and trace…
Where did it come from?
Where did you take it?
When did it become digital, and when printed?
What did you turn it into?

41. Wrapping up

42. Research summary
Complex, constantly shifting set of practices
Permeated with digital mediation
Strongly situated / contingent on the material
Distributed across human /nonhuman actors
Texts are restless, constantly crossing apparent
boundaries of human/nonhuman,
digital/analogue, here/not here, now/not now

43. How we have acted
on the evidence
Reshaping policy
IT User Group: increasing diversity through
representation from the four student groups
Desktop/hardware provision: describing academic
work to ensure policy reflects practice
Developing practice
Development of synchronous audio conference
support for academic writing
Development of adaptive library resources
(LibGuides)

44. Project blog:
http://diglitpga.jiscinvolve.org/wp/
Project webpage:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elea
rning/developingdigitalliteracies/DigLitPGAttribut
e.aspx
Project contacts:
Lesley Gourlay (l.gourlay@ioe.ac.uk)
Martin Oliver (m.oliver@ioe.ac.uk)

45. References
Feenberg, A. (1999) Questioning Technology. London: Routledge.
Feenberg, A. (2010) Between reason and experience: essays in
technology and modernity. London: MIT Press.
Fenwick, T., Edwards,R. & Sawchuk, P. (2011) Emerging
Approaches to Educational Research: Tracing the Sociomaterial.
London: Routledge.
JISC (2012) Digital Literacies as a Postgraduate Attribute?
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning/developin
gdigitalliteracies/DigLitPGAttribute.aspx [Accessed 30 June 2012]
Jurgenson, N. (2012) When atoms meet bits: Social Media, the
Mobile Web and Augmented Revolution. Future Internet, 4, 83-91.
Kittler, F. (2004). Universities: wet, hard, soft, and harder. Critical
Enquiry 31(1): 244-255.
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to
Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.