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Ecology of learning with new media tools
- 2. Ecology of… • I do not use ecology concepts merely as a metaphor to describe the analogy of the system components interrela6ons and func6oning in digital and hybrid environments, but I believe ecology principles are directly applicable for describing… • A metaphor is an analogy between two objects or ideas, conveyed by the use of a word instead of another. An analogy is a comparison of certain similari6es between things which are otherwise unlike. • A principle is a rule or law concerning a natural phenomenon or the func6on of a complex system. • NOTE: By Lackoff a "metaphor" is a maPer of thought, not merely a decora6on of words, so his “metaphors” are directly used in embodied cogni6on framework.
- 3. …learning and designing learning • …in hybrid new media spaces, using the ecosystem model. • Who learns, what is learning? • …the cogni6ve process in which learner is acquiring knowledge, behaviors, skills, values or preferences. • … the process in which learner ac;vely searches for meaning and constructs the reality based upon their mental ac6vity and shares and nego;ates it socially • …a rela6vely permanent change in learner’s behavior that occurs as a result of prior experience. • …the process in which learner and system (community, culture) detects and corrects errors in order to fit and be responsive Compare with Adapta6on ‐ the adjustment of an organism to its environment in the process by which it enhances fitness to its niche
- 5. Learning ecology in hybrid ecosystems Behavioral ecology Ecosystem ecology Community ecology Associa6on of communi6es (community) Person (individual) Community/culture (species) Ac6vity system Personal environment Personal network Affordances Community/cultural habitat Community/cultural niche Distributed cogni6ve niche Geo‐conceptual (ontological) space Community/cultural taskspace Community/cultural affordances Affordance network Ar6fact‐actor network who where Abstract space Hybrid spaces how Digital ecosystem Affordance network why Person adapts behaviors to be fit to the niche, and niche has evolu6onary pressure on him Community/culture and niche evolves Ecosystem evolves
- 6. Person and the environment… • Are these two separate realms? – Persons: The realm of mental phenomena located within the domain of one person (experiences, thoughts, emo6ons) – The environment: The realm of physical objects (the features of the objects in the environment, external representa6ons of mental phenomena) • How can the body can be viewed as func;oning as an intermediary between the environment and the mental realm?
- 10. Distributed cogni6on: Processing distributed representa6ons • Patel and Zhang (2006), maintain that affordances can be also related to the role of distributed representa;ons extended across the environment and the organism. • These kinds of representa6on come about as the result of a blending process between two different domains: – A) on one hand the internal representa;on space, that is the physical structure of an organism (biological, perceptual, and cogni6ve facul6es); – B) on the other the external representa;on of space, namely, the structure of the environment and the informa6on it provides. Both these two domains are described by constraints so that the blend consists of the allowable ac6ons.
- 12. Crea6ng and ac6ng upon ecological chances • Humans turn environmental constraints into ecological chances when facing the challenges posed by the environment itself. • Human cogni;on is chance‐seeking system that is developed within an evolu6onary framework based on the no6on of cogni;ve niche construc;on. • We build and manipulate cogni;ve niches so as to unearth addi;onal resources for behavior control. Bardone, 2010
- 13. Eco‐cogni6ve engineering • Humans constantly delegate cogni;ve func;ons to the environment • Human beings overcome their internal limita;ons by (1) disembodying thoughts and then (2) re‐projec;ng internally that occurring outside • to find new ways of thinking. Bardone, 2010
- 16. Embodied cogni6on • Embodied cogni6on is an alterna6ve standard for cogni6ve sciences. Three important themes in embodied cogni6on are (Shapiro, 2010): – Conceptualiza;on – the proper6es of the organism’s body constrain which concepts an organism can acquire. – Replacement – the organism’s body in interac6on with the environment replaces the need for symbolic representa6onal processes. (systems do not include representa6onal states) – Cons;tu;on – the body or world plays a cons6tu6ve role rather than causal role in cogni6ve processing.
- 17. Embodied simula6on • Together with the “father” of embodied simula;on ViPorio Gallese, George Lackoff wrote and ar6cle “The Brain’s Concepts: The Role of the Sensory‐Motor System in Conceptual Knowledge.” (2005). • The argue against the cogni6ve processing: “A common philosophical posi6on is that all concepts—even concepts about ac6on and percep6on—are symbolic and abstract, and therefore must be implemented outside the brain’s sensory‐motor system.” • They suggest embodied simula;on, assuming that: “sensory‐motor regions of brain are directly exploited to characterize the so‐called “abstract” concepts that cons6tute the meanings of gramma6cal construc6ons and general inference paDerns.”
- 22. How? Ac6vity system Personal affordances Affordance network Cultural affordances Community affordances
- 23. Iden6ty as a mul6layered (distributed) self • Every iden;ty is constantly mediated through mul6ple plasorms and standards. • We feel our iden;ty not anymore as an indivisible whole, but as composed of different pieces that are deeply and reciprocally influenced by our online experience. • Iden;;es are formed of layers of the enriched self by mul;ple par;al representa;ons of the self in a mul6layered form. Alessandro Ludovico hPp://nextnode.net/sites/emst/wp/?p=273
- 25. PLEs in digital ecosystem • Personal learning environments (PLEs) that people construct and use in their daily ac6vi6es are not merely the mediators • PLEs are dynamically evolving ac;vity systems in which the personal objec;ves and human and material resources are integrated in the course of ac6on. • PLE is also distributed ecologically, integra;ng our minds with the environment.
- 27. Affordances as a networked system? • Affordances may constrain each other • Synergy may be arrived from using several affordances simultaneously • Some affordances may need the presence or the co‐ac6va6on of other affordances to be used effec6vely • Using one affordance may actualize another affordance in the network
- 29. Affordance networks • Learning is a process of becoming prepared to engage dynamic networks in the world in a goal‐ directed manner (Hoffmann & Roth, 2005). • Affordance networks are dynamic socio‐cultural configura;ons • …include sets of perceptual and cogni6ve affordances that collec;vely come to form the network for par;cular goal sets • …affordance networks are extended in both ;me and space Compare it with taskspace defini6on!
- 33. Community niches • People with various perspec;ves are simultaneously at present in ecosystems and influencing them. • Many abstract subspaces can be formed within ecosystems. • Such spaces emerge when parts of the environment are embodied and used similar way by many people. • Groups of individuals who have something in common in their iden;ty create abstract learning spaces in the ecology ‐ niches.
- 34. Community niches • Hutchinson (1957) defined a niche as a region (n‐ dimensional hypervolume) in a mul;‐dimensional space of environmental factors that affect the welfare of a species. • Niches have been conceptualized as the environmental gradients with certain ecological amplitude, where the ecological op;mum marks the gradient peaks where the organisms are most abundant. • Each niche gradient defines one dimension of the space. • All niche gradients are situated and establish a mul;‐ dimensional hyper‐room, which axes are different environmental parameters.
- 35. Defining community niches by affordances • People determine the personal learning affordances within their PLEs. • Any individual conceptualizes affordances personally, but the range of similar learning affordance conceptualiza6ons may be clustered into more general affordance groups eg. ‘pulling social awareness informa6on’ or ‘searching ar6facts by social filtering’ etc. • These affordance clusters may be interpreted and used as the abstract learning niche gradients.
- 38. Taskspace as a kind of niche • Taskspace is an array of ac;vi;es related to a certain environment (Ingold, 2000; In: the percep6on of the environment). • A taskspace fosters a range of affordances of an environment, delimi6ng some and enabling others (Edensor, 2004, In: Automobility and na6onal iden6ty). • We may iden6fy community/cultural taskspaces.
- 40. Niche construc6on as an ecological factor • A recent literature in evolu6onary theory emphasizes the idea of niche construc;on (Odling‐Smee et al., 2003) as an ecological factor. • It is argued, the organism has a profound effect on the very environment as a feedback loop. • Organisms have influence on their environment, and the affected environment can have a reciprocal effect on other organisms of this species or on other species, crea6ng an environment different from what it would have been before it was modified. Odling‐Smee, F.J., Laland, K.N., & Feldman, M.W. (2003). Niche Construc6on: The Neglected Process in Evolu6on. Monographs in Popula6on Biology, 37, Princeton University Press.