Module 4 - Section 2

Design Thinking: A Crash Course

In this section we will to explore different aspects of online and networked learning we need to understand how our learners engage with digital landscapes, whether they are colleagues and professionals working in our own organisations, individuals in training, or other groups in the community.

When you’re teaching or developing and creating learning and training resources of any type it’s always critical to know who your learners are. This is perhaps even more important when it comes to developing online learning and training approaches, understanding your target audience together with the environment and the context that their learning is situated in is essential. So as we start to explore different aspects of online and networked learning we need to understand how our target group of learners engage with digital landscapes, whether they are colleagues and professionals working in our own organisations, individuals in training, patients or other groups in the community. Understanding what technologies they have access to and use and the spaces they interact with can help to inform the design of learning interventions. As well as individuals’ ability to use and engage with digital tools there are issues of privacy and identity that need to be considered. To help us begin to unpick some of these elements we’ll start off by looking at our own personal digital behaviours and our own approach to online learning.

What do you do Online?

Let’s begin by looking at what we do on the internet. Think about your own online behaviour. What types of activities do you undertake online? Do you have a task-based approach, or are you a "serial browser"? What proportion of time do you spend on general browsing and exploring, as opposed to completing actual tasks or interacting with others? Think about those tasks - why are you completing them online? Is it time-saving and more convenient? Or is it more enjoyable? Are you cautious about doing too much online, do you have concerns about doing too much online?

Complete this short poll.


Once you’ve completed the poll move on to look at this data set from the Office for National Statistics on “Internet access - households and individuals 2018”

This report outlines some trends in internet use and highlights that

  • Daily internet use has doubled since 2016
  • Smartphones and mobile devices are the most popular devices used to access the internet
  • Email remains the most common internet activity.

Also take a look at the Ofcom report, ‘Adults: Media use and attitudes report 2019”. [https://www.ofcom.org.uk/research-and-data/media-literacy-research/adults/adults-media-use-and-attitudes

This report is part of a longitudinal project that has been looking at people’s media literacy. It too provides insights into how smartphones are increasingly being used to access media content and provides more detailed breakdowns of online media use and engagement based on age and social groupings.

To see how the UK compares with other countries and to get a snapshot of the global use of social media and internet engagement have a look at this Slideshare presentation from We are Social Singapore .

This group regularly publish global digital snapshots and you can take a look back over previous years slides to see how usage has grown and changed over the past several years as new platforms have emerged and new technologies have taken hold.

Activity 1

Blog

Having completed the poll and explored these reports and global digital snapshots reflect on your personal online activity., consider the following questions and record your answers on your blog:

  1. How often do you engage in these various online activities?
  2. Has this increased, have there been changes in your online behaviour?
  3. Have you always embraced the online world or is it something that you’ve started to engage with more recently. Has studying on this course also increased your engagement in online spaces?
  4. Thinking about the groups of people that you are involved in developing online learning or training for, is there any information from these reports that you need to be mindful of, such as age, social-economic status?
  5. Are there any key points from the reports that strike you as relevant?

Your Online Identity

Having thought about the range of activities we undertake online we’ll now go on to look at digital identity and the different online spaces you spend time in and also might learn in and as a trainer/teacher might want to teach in. As many of us live out different elements of our lives in digital spaces it’s important to consider how we manage our digital identities.

Digital Natives and Immigrants

Back in 2001 Marc Prensky coined the terms digital natives and digital immigrants as a framework for informing how people engage with technology. Prensky described a younger generation of people, digital natives, who have grown up with technology and consequently are more tech savvy whilst older, digital immigrants, have had to adapt to technology and engage differently with technology and have an accent associated with the past. Others have referred to younger people as the ‘net generation’ or the ‘Google generation’ and made similar assumptions about their ability to use and apply technology in their every-day lives. These labels quickly gained traction and as the social web and Web 2.0 started to come to the fore from 2005 onwards, with the development of Google docs, Twitter, social bookmarking tools etc, many made the assumption that younger people at school, college and university could make expert use of these tools. Studies, however, began to show that this was not the case and that whilst students were very adept at using Facebook to support their social lives and personal communication they were not always so skilled in using them to support their learning. By 2009 even Prensky began to question the validity of categorising individuals as digital natives and immigrants based on age. As technology became more pervasive he saw this distinction as being less relevant and began to talk about ‘digital wisdom’ and the wisdom gained from using digital technology and the wisdom in using it to enhance our abilities. Some might correlate digital wisdom with digital literacy skills, though the term digital fluency is perhaps a better match.

Digital Residents and Visitors

Even though Prensky changed his thinking, the notion of digital immigrants and natives prevails and it continues to perpetuate assumptions about individuals' digital skills and online behaviours and label them based on their age. It’s not uncommon to hear some organisations talk about and present on how they’ve used this framework to underpin and inform the development of their digital strategies.

An alternative metaphor that can be helpful when thinking about online learning and developing online learning approaches is that of the digital visitor and the digital resident. This metaphor was proposed by David White and Alison Le Cornu to help us map how we engage with the web and different technologies in both our personal lives and professional lives as a continuum of visitors and residents. This approach is not based on age, but rather how we interact with online spaces and whether we are quite targeted in going online to do a specific task or whether we visit spaces to interact, comment and engage in conversations and posting feedback. In simple terms the premise behind White and Le Cornu’s metaphor is that we visit some online spaces and don’t leave a footprint or trail of our presence whilst in other spaces we are resident and a record of our engagement is evident. Many of us are visitors on Google as we undertake a search, we might also be visitors on a site like YouTube as we look for and watch videos but if we’re posting our own videos or commenting on videos on YouTube we can be seen as residents in this online landscape. Where we sit on the continuum of visitors and residents may also be influenced by the various personas that we have and specifically our professional or work identity and our personal or non-work identity.

Watch this video where David White gives a helpful overview of visitors and residents:

You can explore David White’s work further on his blog.

Digital Visitor and Resident Mapping

Having watched the video have a go at mapping out your own digital visitors and residents map, either draw your own out on a piece of paper or download this Digital resident-visitor mapping template and complete. If you struggle to get going with this do an image search for digital visitors and residents maps to see some examples or look at the example below. Also take a look at the apps on your phone to see what digital spaces you engage with.

Once you’ve completed your map upload it your blog, if you’ve hand drawn in photograph it and upload it.

Activity 2

Blog

Once you’ve completed the mapping exercise, consider the following points and record your reflections on your blog:

  1. What’s your initial reaction to your map, is there anything that surprises you?
  2. How likely is your map to be similar to that of your peers?
  3. Do you think it would differ much from one created by one of your managers or your parents or grandparents or your children?
  4. Is there a distinct difference in the mapping for your work-like and your personal life? Are you conscious of having different online personas and identities that relate to different aspects of your life?
  5. Given that individuals may have different motivations and philosophies which shape their interactions with and use of technologies, what impact do you think this might have on using different technologies in training and teaching activities and learning. Think in particular about the use of social media tools such as Facebook or Twitter in teaching and training. Do you think they have a role? Have a read of Catherine Cronin’s post on Enacting Digital Identity.
  6. Look at each other’s maps. Are there big differences across the group?
  7. No metaphor is perfect, do you think the concept of digital visitors and residents is better than digital natives and immigrants?

Activity 3 - Developing a Learner Profile

Blog

Having explored your own online behaviours and digital identities you are now tasked with conducting a brief interview with a representative from a learning/training target group that you are involved in designing and developing online learning or training for. The focus for the interview is to learn about their digital lifestyle and uses of technology to help you construct a ‘learner profile’.

The interview doesn’t need to be long, 30-60 minutes. The questions need not relate exclusively to online learning - the idea is to build up a picture of what kinds of hardware, software, devices etc. they use on a daily/regular basis, and whether they consider themselves to have a digital identity? For example, do they use apps like WhatsApp, social media and networking sites, do they use Spotify, listen to podcasts? Do they have any views about online learning and the emphasis it should be given as opposed to more traditional methods? You could ask your interviewee to complete the online behaviour poll or to complete a digital visitor and resident mapping. Another point to discuss is whether they have any challenges accessing online learning in the workspace, are there any connectivity issues that impact their ability to access learning?

Post the learner profile to your blog and conclude with a brief reflection on your findings and how these might inform your practise as an online learning designer, developer or teacher.

Summary

In this section we’ve explored our online behaviours and digital identities. We’ve also considered whether we are digital visitors or residents. It’s always important to understand who your learners are but when we design learning and training for the online space it’s doubly important. Developing online learning is not always a cheap option, at least initially and there are countless examples of online development that have not been effective as time hasn’t been taken to understand the audience or the context of the learning environment. A classic example from the past was the production of DVDs to support training in the NHS where staff had no sound cards on their PCs and therefore couldn’t hear video content. In the context of online learning, a mistake that’s been often repeated is to think that because the target group are younger they are confident with all technology and happy to use social media channels like Twitter to support formal learning. The reality can often be that they restrict social media use to their personal lives and actually don’t use Twitter and struggle to understand why it would be used for learning and end up not learning anything.

A question that’s frequently asked when developing online and networked learning interventions is, “if we build it, will they come?”. Too often the answer is no, they won’t. Taking the time to understand your target learners can help you develop more informed approaches which will hopefully mean that they will come, engage, connect and learn.