{"id":7917,"date":"2018-05-05T18:43:41","date_gmt":"2018-05-05T18:43:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/citejournal.org\/\/\/"},"modified":"2018-09-07T15:42:55","modified_gmt":"2018-09-07T15:42:55","slug":"learners-without-borders-connected-learning-in-a-digital-third-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citejournal.org\/volume-18\/issue-2-18\/english-language-arts\/learners-without-borders-connected-learning-in-a-digital-third-space","title":{"rendered":"Learners Without Borders: Connected Learning in a Digital Third Space"},"content":{"rendered":"
Recently, as I set up my PowerPoint slideshow and computer for my undergraduate digital literacies course, I overheard one of my students complaining: \u201cWe hardly ever get to talk to real students, and then we are expected to just go in and teach them. I\u2019m not very tech savvy. What if they know more than I do?\u201d<\/p>\n
I pretended to shuffle a few papers and adjust the settings on my computer, but I was fascinated by her comments. In my opinion, the preservice teachers at my university had ample opportunities to interact with students in other courses before they embarked on a year-long student teaching experience. Yet, this was not the first time I had heard a future teacher say she feared a disconnect between her own technology knowledge and her future students\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think things have changed a lot since I was in high school\u201d is a comment I have heard frequently while teaching a digital technologies\/new literacies in English language arts (ELA) course \u2013 even though many of my preservice teachers are in their early 20s and only a few years out of high school. Reassuring them that not all teenagers are technology wizards does not seem to allay their fears. They want real-world, interactive experiences and the chance to test the waters with actual students before they are expected to teach them.<\/p>\n
Although we reflect critically on Marc Prensky\u2019s (2001a; 2001b) theories about \u201cdigital natives,\u201d the preservice teachers at my university have genuine concerns that their future students\u2019 digital technology knowledge outstrips their own. Prensky\u2019s (2001a) notion that all students born around the Millennium are adept with digital technology does not always jibe with the reality of today\u2019s preservice teachers \u2013 many of whom may demonstrate some skepticism about technology use in schools and its relevance in an ELA classroom (Kist & Pytash, 2015; Laughter, 2015).<\/p>\n
They have learned in their teacher education program about the importance of bridging the binary of traditional texts and newer practices (Hicks, 2006; Kajder, 2006; Swenson, Young, McGrail, Rozema, & Whitin, 2006). Yet, they feel at a loss on how to begin (Banas & York, 2014).<\/p>\n
I was interested in finding a way for these future ELA teachers to increase their sense of self-efficacy in integrating technology into the ELA curriculum and to gain firsthand insight into the practices and beliefs that today\u2019s teenagers have about digital literacies. Authentic field experiences are an important aspect of most teacher education programs (Le Maistre & Pare, 2010; McMahan & Garza, 2017), and these encounters with the real world of school are particularly crucial for encouraging preservice teachers to integrate technology into the curriculum (Banas & York, 2014). Without opportunities to interact with students directly, preservice teachers may not be able to address the learning needs of an increasingly diverse school population (Case & Traynor, 2016; Darling-Hammond, 2006).<\/p>\n
I wanted to provide a collaborative digital exploration in tandem with high school ELA students that would give the preservice teachers a chance to improve their self-efficacy and practice working with digital literacies before they embarked on their important yearlong student teaching experience. In addition, I wanted to offer a group of local high school students an opportunity to create multimodal compositions and interact with digital tools they may not have had previous experience using.<\/p>\n
Creating mutually beneficial partnerships is one of the five standards that the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) recommended in 2013 for universities seeking accreditation for their educator preparation providers (EPPs). CAEP\u2019s Standard 2 states that EPPs must establish partnerships in which \u201cpartners co-construct mutually beneficial P\u201312 school and community arrangements\u201d (Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, 2013, para. 2).<\/p>\n
These partnerships are meant to provide rich opportunities for K-12 schools, as well as the universities that seek to work with them. Rather than using K-12 schools as training grounds for inexperienced future teachers, CAEP encourages partnerships in which both the preservice teachers and their K-12 students profit equally from the connection. Tangible evidence of the mutual benefits is required of EPPs wishing to maintain CAEP accreditation.<\/p>\n
However, I had experienced roadblocks with school partnerships in the past. Finding willing partners for a digital technology collaboration between my university and some local schools had proven difficult due to district paperwork and reticence by some parents and administrators to allow college students to work with underage minors. In addition, some veteran teachers had been reluctant to engage in a technology project due to time commitments and, perhaps, potential embarrassment over their own lack of technology knowledge (as found by Fabry & Higgs, 1997).<\/p>\n
To address these concerns, I conceived of the idea of a virtual partnership, one in which my ELA preservice teachers and students from a local high school would collaborate together on a digital project, but would not meet face to face. This approach would allow a high school classroom teacher the opportunity to integrate the project into her regular curriculum as she saw fit (and learn to use new digital tools at her own pace without university onlookers), and it would eliminate the hassle of getting all of the preservice teachers to a local high school in a large metropolitan area notorious for its traffic jams.<\/p>\n
In addition, the partnership would embody the heart of the connected learning (CL) framework (Ito et al, 2013), which emphasizes interest-powered, peer-supported, shared-purpose, academically oriented, production-centered, and openly networked principles. This article details the ensuing study, in which 17 English education preservice teachers collaborated with 30 ninth-grade ELA students through a digital Third Space.<\/p>\n
The following section provides a description of Third Space theory and its application to literacy and multimodal studies. More information about the CL framework and how it tied into Third Space theory is also included. The methodology and data sources are described, followed by the findings, which indicated that digital Third Spaces constructed with CL principles can offer authentic learning experiences and act as viable sites for field work when face-to-face partnerships are difficult. The findings also suggested a need for ELA teacher educators to encourage their preservice teachers to develop strategic ways to use digital environments to build genuine relationships.<\/p>\n
The Third Space was conceived as a political and cultural site of resistance by Bhabha (1994). In this original definition, the Third Space served as a place where previous symbols of culture \u2013 including those of colonial oppression \u2013 could be \u201cappropriated, translated, rehistoricized and read anew\u201d to represent a new ideal (p. 55).<\/p>\n
In this paradigm, a hybridized amalgam of cultures, practices, and language could thrive. Bhabha (1994) defined the First Space as that in which indigenous cultural knowledge and identity are created. The First Space is the cultural origins of a people before anyone attempts to overtake or influence them. The Second Space, then, consists of imposed knowledge and culture and is one that is imparted on indigenous people \u2013 often against their will.<\/p>\n
The Third Space, Bhabha (1994) theorized, could be a hybrid and alternative paradigm in which two contradictory cultural identities merge and interact (Forgasz, Heck, Williams, Ambrosetti, & Willis, 2017). It belongs neither to the indigenous culture nor the colonial culture; it is a third, neutral site that encompasses aspects of both the First and Second Spaces. Bhaba felt that \u201cby exploring this Third Space, we may elude the politics of polarity and emerge as the others of ourselves,\u201d (p. 56).<\/p>\n
Moje et al., (2004) sought to expand the definition of Third Space beyond the political sphere and use it as construct for envisioning a classroom environment. They aimed to capitalize on students\u2019 funds of knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff & Gonzalez, 1992), arguing that classroom spaces could be constructed to bridge in- and out-of-school literacy practices. The classroom could serve as the Third Space in which students\u2019 physical, cultural, and social practices were blended and honored.<\/p>\n
Guiterrez (2008) argued that the Third Space could act as a zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) in which students were able to learn rapidly because the learning was socially situated and incorporated aspects of their own cultural knowledge. In this Third Space\/ZPD, students could mesh their sociocultural practices and lived knowledge with the formal learning environment. Learning occurred in overlapping contexts, rather than in a linear or horizontal fashion.<\/p>\n
This notion was applied to a digital context by Benson (2010), who demonstrated that a Third Space could be constructed through the inclusion of New Literacies (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000) in the traditional ELA curriculum and position students as experts. Benson wrote about \u201cBud,\u201d who avoided reading and writing in his 11th<\/sup>-grade ELA course and used a book as a screen to have covert conversations with friends instead of working.<\/p>\n Bud became engaged with the content, however, when he had the opportunity to complete a multimodal assignment. This assignment allowed him to bring his funds of knowledge on digital tools and platforms into his ELA work. The assignment gave Bud permission to alter his identity and enter a Third Space, in which he could demonstrate his digital knowledge and artistic skill in a way that traditional assignments denied. It was \u201ca space in which he had expertise, but because discussion parameters were defined solely by print-based literacy activities, his (previous) efforts were ineffective\u201d (Benson, 2010, p. 561).<\/p>\n Finally, the application of Third Space theory to the digital realm was proposed by Potter and McDougall (2017), who posited that websites and online spaces could act as \u201ca negotiated and contested area in which meanings are made and shared, some of which may relate to encountering new knowledge, learning or developing new skills and dispositions,\u201d (p. 7). \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 T<\/strong>his study is situated within this definition, as it sought to use the digital Third Space as a place where the preservice teachers and secondary students could bring their out-of-school expertise and interact, each transforming the other in a shared space that belonged to neither of them, but to all of them.<\/p>\n