CC BY
36
A
Media Culture
Digital, individualized mobile devices as cultural resources for learning
in the process of migration
Prof. Dr. Ben Bachmair, Prof. Em. University of Kassel, Germany Honorary Professor UCL Institute of Education,
University of London, 20 Bedford Way, London, WC1H 0AL, E-mail: utnvbb0@ucl.ac.uk
Abstract. Digital, individual, mobile devices are outcomes of current detraditionalization processes in our societies. Within a globalizing world, mobility appears in the form of migration and refuge also as digital mobility. Both are results of detraditionalization. This paper attempts to link this double mode of mobility educationally by defining digital, individual mobile devices as cultural resources for learning, especially for the acquisition of a new second language by the population on the move. To explain this interrelation of mobilities (Sheller 2014), the paper presents practical examples of learning German as a second language in the crisis situation of refuge and mass migration in a special transfer class of a secondary school, but also in the normality of migration in an elementary school. Both examples are based on mobile devices, smartphones and tablets in peer-to-peer learning situations and the environment of everyday life outside of the school. Along side other methods, pupils investigate the new language by taking photos with smartphones or tablets. At heoretical framework for such a conversational design for learning is presented. This focuses on learning as appropriation and personal development, on learning as meaning-making and semiotic work in context (Kress 2010), and on mobile devices as cultural resources related to social justice. Finally, the outcomes of the language investigation in the elementary school are discussed on the basis of a qualitative analysis of the pupils'media products. This discussion of learning outcomes is an attempt to open assessment as qualitative evaluation to a conversational design for learning.
Keywords: mobility, detraditionalization, migration, conversational design for learning, second language, mobile learning, smartphones, tablets, peer-to-peer learning
Introduction (Framing mobility and learning) How can the digital, individualized mobile devices of everyday life be framed educationally as tools in formal learning? What kind of learning practices should these mobile tools promote and enhance?Although theseare not new questions,they are necessary in the context of the global spread and normality of smartphones and tablets. In not dealing seriously with these questions, education would become just reactive to the mobile technologies.
Of course, basic ideas around a theoretical framework for mobile learning are widely discussed. As stated by Sharples, Taylor and Vavoula (2007), the mobility of digital devices alone is not a defining criterion for bringing mobile learning into the formal education of schools. Sharpies et. al. deliver a "social-constructivist approach" (p. 223) as an adequate framework focused on learner and "community-centred" (p. 223) procedures, which are open to the conversational consideration (Laurillard 2002, Pask 1976) of the learner with himself or herself and the environment: "Learning is a continual conversation with the external world and its artefacts, with oneself, and also with other learners and teachers" (p. 227). The following argumentative strands adhere to this communicative baseline, but integrate a conversational,
constructivist approach to learning in the tradition of 'Bildung' as personal development through the appropriation of cultural commodities. Mobile cultural commodities, not least their moulding dynamic in mass communication, already have the status of cultural resources, but not in formal learning as yet. Mobile cultural commodities in the process of personal development function within a mobile complex (Bachmair, Pachler 2014, p. 63) of predefined structures of mobility, the personal agency of the mobile learners, and the cultural practices of mass communication and learning.
The practical issues of second language learning was chosen explicitly to illustrate this concept, as this is crucial at a time where large population groups are mobile as a result of migration or seeking refuge. It seems manifest that mobile devices also work as global cultural resources for migrants and refugees, and that they the reforecould and should be integrated into formal learning. The view of mobile devices as cultural resources is the starting point of the third theoretical strand. In this regard, an elementary school invited migrant families to use their smartphones to take photos of visible language, so-called language markers, in a shopping centre and send them to the school via the Dropbox app.
The appropriation of cultural commodities is an essential dynamic for the personal development of humans (Pachler et al. 2010), as referred to in the first strand. Appropriation corresponds to the "social-constructivist approach" (Sharples et al. 2007), in the sense that all learning depends on internalizing the external world and gaining experiences, processing these experiences personally, and externalising them into the social world. The examples in the third strand concern the appropriation of language. In the context of this study, to appropriate means to look for written language in the life world of consumption, to select and evaluate what seems relevant by taking photos, and to process the photos by combining them in a poster and finding a version of the selected words in the learner's home language. This exercise was undertaken in a special class of recently arrived refugees and migrants aged between 13 and 16 years.
In this group, some girls started to appropriate German by opposing it: they did not speak any German words in the classroom. However, they were supported by their peers. These classmates checked a dictionary app on their own smartphones in order to understand, for example, the very specialised language in an advertisement for a local bakery shop, and communicated this to the language deniers via Whats App. These activities led to successful group work as a form of appropriation of new vocabulary. Appropriation included taking responsibility for the deniers of the new language. Both the supporters and deniers embarked on a route of personal development with their smartphones in their hands.
Since the Enlightenment, appropriation has been the key word of a traditional educational line of reflection about learning. Appropriation refers to learning and the personal development of children and young people (first strand), but also to their semiotic work to produce meaning. Semiotic work correlates to the concept of social constructivism and describes the activities of making meaning as a central activity of learning. In a time of individualisation and with so-called lifelong learning, standardized forms of learning also depend on the process of individual semiotic work. The latest generation of mobile devices serve as a resource in these processes.
Why access the educational dimension of digital, individualized mobile devices for learning in such a general way? Essentially, this is about an educational answer to the actual dynamic of detraditionalization, for which refugees and migrants are also an indicator. Further, the dynamic of detraditionalization is amalgamated with the function of digital, mobile devices as global cultural resources. Detraditionalization leads to the question of what learning is about, as well as learning being supported or defined by smartphones, tablets etc. It is helpful to consider learning as an essential contribution to personal development, as well as meaning-making and semiotic work with the cultural resources of the learners to which individualized, digital devices belong.
Material and methods
The research is based on the hermeneutic interrelation of theory and practice. A hermeneutic approach links systematic theory and existing educational practice interpretatively, while the systematic theory describes and explains education inclusive learning as being integrated in a globalizing culture driven, among other factors, by mass technology. In this situation, the focus of the theory is on educational practices, and is directed to institutionalized, formal learning in schools. Concretely, the practice is on learning a second language in the process of migration via individualized, digital devices like smartphones. Referring to Friedrich Krotz' categorization of types of empirically-based theories (2005, p. 90), the applied theory comprises statements about limited facts in a condensed form and explains facts within structures and processes. The hermeneutic procedure, which combines theory and education practice, is seen as interpretative, qualitative research in communication with the acting persons in the school environment. This opens theory beyond structures to the agency of people within cultural practices, which is theoretically prepared by Anthony Giddens' structuration model (1984).
The input for the communication-driven hermeneutic procedure takes the form of proposing a teaching and learning design to a school. The interrelation of research and the educational practice in the school environment is based on the systematic theory of the research, which works as a framework for offering the school's agents concrete proposals for a teaching and learning design. In the case studies below, the design is based on peer-to-peer and mobile learning. This practical contribution from the research side is seen as an impulse within an interpretive and progressive spiral of theory and practice. Concretely, it is a communicative and interactive process between the research agent and the agents in the school context. These agents are people from school administration, but mainly teachers and pupils. The communicative and interactive input from theory and research is provided by the proposals for a teaching and learning design, and participant observation documents comprising photographs and a written description and summary. This methodological procedure refers to the Grounded Theory (Glaser, Strauss 1967).
Discussion (Mobile devices in the processes of personal development as cultural resources for meaning-making in contexts)
This conceptually packed headline illustrates the argumentative risks of expanding the discourse about mobile learning. However, the social reality of mobility is challenging and requires complex theoretical answers which should lead to practical suggestions. This discussion follows three stands of argumentation.
Learning as personal development and mobile devices in the hands of citizens
A conversational approach (Sharples et al 2007, p. 225, Laurillard 2002, 2007, Pask 1976) links mobile learning to the long educational debate about formal learning as personal appropriation and as an essential part of human development. This is a historical line of discussion from Wilhelm von Humboldt (2002/1792) to Lev Vygotzky (1978/1930).From the perspective of Humboldt, during the period of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, the processing of acquired cultural commodities was seen as personal appropriation. Learning in the sense of appropriation was a circular process of internalizing objects of the outer world, processing the internalized as experiences, and externalizing these experiences into the outer world. Reading and reacting to a book was a process of appropriation as a kind of conversation with the socially and culturally constructed surroundings, framed by Vernunft (rationality) as the form of reflexivity of the Enlightenment. Freedom was a further essential feature of appropriation, being a prerequisite for a person's capacity to appropriate. But in the rationality of industrial society and its specific learning institution, the school, learning is based on standardized learning practices for acquiring curricula-defined learning objects. In the globalized
world of migrating populations, these standardized forms of learning, mainly instruction, are losing their validity.
There are many reasons for this development, and it takes many forms. In the examples below, students were acquiring German as a second language as a result of the process of migration. This circumstance makes alienation possible, in terms of both alienation from the unknown second language -for example, three non-German girls forced to come to Germany by parents who found work there and refused to speak a single word of German - and alienation from learning in school, perhaps appearing as illiterate or analphabet. In contrast, the same circumstance may also produce highly motivated students. Those who are alienated, especially younger learners, can be integrated into formal learning by open, flexible, constructivist, situated forms of learning - both case studies presented below are based on this leading assumption. These forms of learning can be summarized by "conversational", but conversational forms of learning can be rather alien, especially for migrant parents who often prefer learning through memorizing. The cultural diversity in a German classroom, however, does not allow only the memorizing forms of learning that migrating families may be more familiar with. What all learners and their families have in common, though, are the global forms of using digital mobile devices in everyday life. Therefore, in the project described below, everyday life was chosen as contact point to language learning: supported by learning peers, the visible language in shop windows, the language upon brands, etc. was investigated. In addition, the mobile photo application, as a common tool, was used to approach the alien new language.
Being aware of this alienation of scholastic learning from personal appropriation, Vygotzky, among others, enforces the idea of appropriation as essential for a child's development. However, the development of children or young people does not follow the naturally defined procedure of human development promoted by Jean Piaget, and scholastic learning must respond to a child in their personal context of development. Sharples et al.'s conversational approach to learning, with the specificity of mobile learning, follows this pedagogical idea of learning as appropriation in a developmentally relevant context. This definition sees learning integrated by communication with social learning in contexts.
What function do mobile devices have within this conversational framework? The example below of two boys in elementary school shows how a tablet enhances a way of learning that is both relaxing and successful. The boys work in pairs with a tablet provided by the school. With this mobile device, they find their learning site in a large school hall where they produce their own vocabulary called "word treasure book". Their photos of language markers, for example from an indoor swimming pool, have the lead function for writing their word treasure book. The migrant boy in particular enjoyed this peer-to-peer learning situation with the tablet and found it relaxing, relieving the stressful situation of the classroom.
Citizenship
Of course, the question arises of what kind of social person is intended by our society. Motivated by globalization and having in mind the massive cultural conflict about identity, arid Panjwani, focusing on Islamic education, discusses the democratic idea of citizenship within the frame of Islamic cultures (Panjwani 2008).He refers to the connection of secularization, self-determination and economic prosperity, which have failed during the last two or three decades in Islamic-orientated areas of the world (p. 294). There, the western antidemocratic, so-called, populist movements were intertwined with the denial of citizenship based on social sensitivity and political awareness. As an alternative, and with the intention to emphasize a socially sensitive and politically aware citizenship, a pilot project for supporting children and young people in the process of migration focuses on peer-to-peer learning and the integration of mobile devices as cultural resources. It "seeks to address the responsibilities resulting from migration and believes that citizenship can be the pivot around which a society which both thrives on diversity but also shares some common values can be constructed. In this perspective, citizenship
acquires the dimensions: responsibility and trust; social and cultural awareness; and recognition of social justice in everyday life." (Panjwani, Bachmair 2017) The peer-to-peer learning situation, enhanced by tablets or smartphones, encourages students to feel responsible to their peers as learning partners and to receive trust. Familiarity with mobile devices as a common resource for learning is a helpful frame.
Semiotic work in contexts
At the point of linking the epistemology of mobile learning to the history of pedagogical reflexion, it seems obvious that the concept of context should be added to that of conversation. Referring to situated learning (Lave, Wenger 1991), which explicitly builds learning in contexts, this epistemological position combines educational approaches of conversation with context, via social semiotic access. This present contribution to mobile learning focuses on social semiotics in the sense that learning is always situated and contextualized through making meaning and semiotic work. The examples below show the intensive group work of the migrants and refugees to condense photos with written German language in the shopping mall into a small selection using WhatsApp (see figure 1) and their endeavour to find equivalents in the home languages of the learning group. For this, students use their familiar mobile dictionary app (see figure 2). The peer-to-peer learning with the app Book Creator in the elementary school represents rather elaborate semiotic work on the German language (see section 4). Through trial and error, they go different steps from an isolated noun to a statement.
Beyond the discussion on learning as making meaning and semiotic work, the second argument concerns cultural resources: In the context of semiotic work, mobile devices are to be considered educationally as cultural resources. The issue of semiotic work as making meaning is essential in understanding educationally why mobile devices and mobility are functioning as cultural devices in our culture. Smartphones, for example, are a visible part of mobility in our culture, but the actual mobility is based on flexible and individualized contexts. Contexts in the sense of social semiotics are frames under construction for optional combinations of actions, representational resources, inclusive media and literacy, virtual and local sites, or social sites like sociocultural milieus. This definition refers to Dourish (2004, p. 4) in terms of "context as a representational problem" in the relationship «between objects or activities" which "arises from the activity".
The success of mobile devices like smartphones or tablets results from their conversational and ubiquitous integration into everyday life, inclusive informal learning and professional life. Conversational and ubiquitous integration means to set up or be part of the contexts that people generate, usually by combining everyday situations with online activities. Internet sites like YouTube or applications such as WhatsApp follow the rationale of mass media, but with a new structure based on multimodality and provisional contexts.
Mass communication and access to the semiotic specificity of digital mobile devices
To understand the success of individual mobile devices, it is helpful to also consider these handheld tools as media for taking videos, reading texts, listening to music, etc. However, there is a big "BUT" in terms of seeing smartphones, for example, as media, because the mass communication structure that frames them is completely different to the mass communication of the preceding period. Since the 1960s, when television became an increasingly integrated part of everyday life and the leading medium, the linear sender-receiver model of mass communication has lost its power to explain how mass communication works. Television audiences, through meaning-making in everyday life, made the sender-receiver-model invalid. Among others, Stuart Hall (1980), the key protagonist of Cultural Studies, argued that producing and using television as "cultural practices" constitutes meaning-making as "signifying practices". The production of media as well their usage depends on "encoding" and "decoding" activities within or by cultural practices. Television in the BBC model depends on cultural practices with specific "modes of reading". Within the cultural context of the dominance of television, education acknowledged its
social importance by developing programmes to support a television-oriented literacy in the form of critique, production competencies and awareness of using television, for example. Nowadays, the societal and cultural dynamic of the individualization and mobilization of the Internet with Web 2.0 affordances is blurring the familiar perspective of mass communication. The positioning of mobile devices as leading tools for all kinds of communication modes in everyday and professional life, for learning as well as for entertainment, is underway. User-generated content and contexts are key factors in the new digital, mobile and individualized mass communication. Ubiquity is its headline.
The semiotic access to mobile devices within formal learning, such as in schools, leads to the intersection of making meaning as semiotic work in contexts. In the user-generated contexts of everyday life and standardized scholastic learning contexts, for mass communication in the sender-receiver line of the BBC model and the smartphone-Internet connection, there is a basic commonality: all contexts depend on meaning-making and semiotic work. Dourish's definition of contexts (2004) offers the theoretical link to all activities of meaning by the core element of representation. Representation combines the discussion about media and mass communication as well as the debate around innovative approaches to learning by referring to multimodality (Kress 2010, Kress, Bezemer 2015) and situated learning (Lave, Wenger 1991). In this perspective, Zane Berge and Lin Muilenburg (2013, p.xxxi) define mobile learning.
"Wireless, easy-to-carry, mobile devices lead to the learner's mobility, untethering that individual from a particular place. This also allows learners to converse and explore information across the many locations and contexts in which they find themselves throughout the day. As the learner faces the need for information or problem-solving, the need is for personal, just-in-time performance support, information, or learning to meet these individual challenges. To a large extent, m-learning can be thought of as communication in context."
The issue of contexts as feature of practical education was on the agenda in the example of German as a second language for migrants and refugees. The pupils discovered the new and written language in the life world of a shopping centre and in the neighbourhood of the school. The photo application of the personal smartphone or (in elementary school) the family's smartphone is essential as a means of connecting with the German language. The setting spans the school, sites like shopping centre sand the school neighbourhood by means of WhatsApp or Drop box. As mentioned previously, social learning is fostered by peer-to-peer learning.
Mobile learning via the concept of cultural resources and the related question of social
justice
Looking for social semiotics with the core concepts of representation, meaning-making and contexts follows the theorem of delimitation of our culture (Beck et al. 2004). Individual, digital, mobile devices with their user-generated contexts forman essential structure of the actual version of mass communication which results from and contributes to the dynamic of cultural and societal delimitation. Delimitation leads to adequate representational cultural resources within a mobile, individualized, convergent, multimodal mass communication. Furthermore, mobility appears as migration and refuge, which results from and enhances such delimitation. Delimitation hints at the active process of the detraditionalization of invalid or dysfunctional cultural and societal structures. These are no longer just replaced by new and generally valid structures. Instead, there is a transfer of invalid structures into provisional processes (Kress 2010a) of individualized meaning-making.
Through these processes, new cultural products appear which are used as resources for communication, providing social inclusion, for organizing everyday life or personal catastrophes, for example. In line with Pierre Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital (Bourdieu 1983, 1997) individual, digital mobile devices work as cultural resources offering ubiquity, in the sense of being available always and everywhere. One of Bourdieu's initial considerations, here extremely condensed, is that of the personal appropriation of objectified social actions and working.
Cultural resources are the products and forms of action in a society which are appropriated in social actions in the context of life, and thereby now socially structure social actions. In this sense, individualized, digital mobility is a cultural resource - or "cultural capital" in the terminology of Bourdieu (1983, p. 186) - in which mobile phones or tablets are technical objects.
However, mobile cultural resources are not yet accepted everywhere. They are, generally, not currently accepted in schools, for example, perhaps in part due to their competition with the traditional book. Basil Bernstein (1987) referred to such resource conflicts in schools as far back as the 1960s. Bernstein raised the question of social class-specific language codes as resources in schools, referring to the elaborate language code of middle-class teachers who tried to exclude the restricted language code of pupils within the school.
The educational tasks and practical proposals following the two forms of mobility attempt to consider both forms of mobility together: mobile devices in the hands of migrants or refugees for learning a new second language, incorporating the social learning of the migrating and the settled population. To deal with both forms of mobility, it is helpful to understand the new mobile devices as cultural resources. In our examples, smartphones work as cultural resources in the process of mobility of migrating people. The prominent public images are of refugees at a frontier, mobiles in hand, communicating with the homeland left behind and orientating themselves in a new geographic and cultural landscape.
For mobile resources, our society needs a critical ecology that reaches beyond ecology of resources and commodities such as cars, energy and nature. Its pursuit is to assess and design the production of and the practices with mobile media as delimitated representational cultural resources. One of its intentions is to outline a media education under the societal condition of provisional, multimodal, mobile cultural resources (Pachler 2010, Cook et al. 2011, Bachmair, Pachler 2014). Furthermore, and in line with the wider debate on social justice, education should focus on representational, individualized, mobile cultural resources within divergent life styles (Sen 1999). A political and media-aware education should contribute to the "social recognition» of modes of agency and cultural practices which are related to representational cultural resources.
Results: Practical answers from school on the mobility of learners -Conversational scenarios for German as a second language
The mobility of learners and learning is seen, as described, in the double form of smartphones or tablets and the migration of people. In the following two examples from German schools, both forms of mobility were considered in combination, in the sense of mobile devices as global cultural resources in the hands of migrants and refugees. Taking mobile devices as a cultural resource in everyday life, they were explicitly used as devices for learning as semiotic work to access German as a second language.
Investigation of language markers in a shopping centre, organized by migrant peer-students as
tutors (Bachmair 2015)
Around 20 students participated in a one-week project. Some were refugees from Afghanistan to Eritrea in precarious situations; some were migrants under the Schengen Agreement from Poland to Greece. The students were part of a so-called transfer class, with an almost daily changing number of incoming and leaving students. They were generally aged between 14 and 16, with some up to18 years. Some of the girls from Schengen states refused to use any German words as they felt they had been forced to leave their homes and native language in Greece and Italy by parents working in Germany. A male student from Afghanistan was obviously traumatised and in a personal situation of speechlessness. A group of four pupils, also migrants, from another class in the school accompanied this transfer class on an excursion to a local shopping centre during the course of the week. The pupils of this tutor group were
already familiar with the way of living in Germany and how a German school works. These pupils acted in the role of tutor and were like scouts to the German life world. Not all pupils in this tutor group were able or liked to speak German. The pupils invented a mixture of languages for their group communication which worked.
The procedure with the tutor group was organized as a project based on group work, with the intended outcome of presenting a poster with photos of written language with translation into the group's respective languages. The group of tutors organized the investigation of the visible language of a shopping centre (language markers). The photographic function of the students' personal smartphones was essential. For this reason, the school explicitly accepted the pupils' smartphones as their cultural resource which should support their access to the German life world and its new language.
On the first day of the project week, the tutor group prepared the excursion, including methods for the subsequent group work (e.g. PowerPoint presentations). Supported by a teacher, they planned how to organize the activities of the week; for example, taking photos in a grocery shop, checking the bus schedule to get from the school to the shopping mall. On the second day, the tutor group guided the students from the transfer class to the shopping mall. The tutor group was self-organized and aware of their responsibility for students from the transfer class. They accompanied the transfer class carefully and with a high degree of attention to all students, both while on foot and on the bus journey, providing a perfect example of responsible and sensitive citizenship. In the shopping mall, the class split into self-organized groups with a pupil-tutor and wandered around to find and take photos of visible written language (see figure 1).
On return to the school and during the following days, the tutor group coordinated the group work. One task was to organize communication outside of the school via the smartphone app WhatsApp in order to make the students' photos available to their group and to the class. WhatsApp offers a form of communication typical in contemporary youth culture, and was a familiar cultural resource to all of the students in the process of migration. It enhanced the engagement of the learners and delivered a conversational tool for the semiotic work on the German vocabulary investigated. On subsequent days, the students, in their groups and with their student tutor, created posters with photos of words or short statements such as "Original Augsburger Zirbelnusskuchen" (Original Augsburg nut cake). This statement belongs to the advert of a local bakery which works only in the local language context, but students were interested in this statement and the strange word "Zirbelnusskuchen" (see figure 1).
The learning objective was to produce a poster with photographed German words and handwritten translations in the several home languages of each group. Combining German vocabulary and the group's home languages, the posters worked like a selection from a dictionary. All groups were successful and all students contributed actively and with high motivation to reach this outcome. The question now is how the smartphones contributed to this success.
The context, its multimodal representation and the related semiotic work, with the smartphone as
cultural resource
The context of investigation stretched from the school to the shopping centre. It was clear that personally-owned smartphones were an adequate tool for taking photos of the language markers in the shopping centre. The language markers in a shopping centre consist of and are embedded in a wide range of multimodal elements, from writing with typed characters to images and displayed objects. This conversational feature of the group work in the shopping centre and in school recommended the smartphones and their photo application. The students' smartphones were indispensable for their communication once at home about the photos they had taken in the afternoon. This worked perfectly with WhatsApp and was based on the tutor group's discussion of how to select relevant words. It was this step that made the difference, as by taking photos in everyday life, it linked the smartphone to formal learning in school.
Figure 1: Collection of the most relevant photos from the excursion to the shopping centre. This collection is the result of a WhatsApp communication outside of the school.
Smartphones as a successful resource for translation The students continued to have a positive attitude to formal learning during the multi-language translation of vocabulary in groups, supported by self-selected smartphone apps. As the posters were produced on paper only, the selected photos were printed on a school printer.
Figure 2: Translation work in groups using apps on smartphones
The groups undertook this task differently: differently creatively or neatly, and at different paces. Nevertheless, all three groups achieved the goal of producing a multilingual poster. All three groups "wrote" their own text. Writing, in this sense, means to cutout and glue the photos to the poster and add words. The language work at this point is focused on translation, with the posters representing something like a multilingual vocabulary book.
Personal development: to communicate by interacting with peers without German as a
conversational resource The case of the girls who considered themselves to have been forced by their parents to migrate to Germany informs the interrelation of learning and personal development in the sense of Vygotsky's concept of a "zone of proximal development" (1978/ 1930, pp. 84 ff.).In this particular context, crucial feature elements were the communicative support given by the tutor group and the learners' familiarity with their smartphones. Furthermore, the translation work was communicative, both associative and deliberate, and with a clear focus on the product, i.e. poster. The groups were very cooperative and helped each other to find the words in their different mother tongues by searching on the Internet or using a dictionary app on their smartphones.
This style of learning in the school is the result of the wider context of everyday life and the school. But the essential contribution comes from the peer-to-peer learning, together with personal smartphones as a lifestyle element of the youth culture. The pupil-tutors are in an intensive conversation with their respective groups. The groups organized themselves quite well and enjoyed it, and the personal development of the tutor group was enormous. After the preparing the group for the excursion as responsible tutors and the processing of the vocabulary photos, the four tutor students motivated and guided the students of the transfer class. Being familiar with the smartphone obviously provided significant support for the groups in the social situation of being "outsiders" in their social environment. The recognition of their smartphones as devices for learning gave additional support.
The design of the project with group communication engaged support from the pupil-tutor group, and going through the work on the visible German vocabulary slowly and without pressure was helpful for the traumatized student from Afghanistan. Reluctant but integrated, he contributed to the group work. Working with his own smartphone enriched this communicative attitude towards the learning activities.
The three girls in explicit opposition to the German language fully changed their negative attitude in the conversational school situation. The main and decisive input came from the boys from the group of tutors and their communicative group work. With their familiar smartphones in their hands, the girls were happy, supportive and target-oriented.
A collaborative learning scenario in an elementary school: Word treasure hunt with learning
tandems (Bachmair, Hierdeis 2016) This scenario worked in an elementary school in addition to a language course for German based on a printed exercise books. Not only as a supplement, but more or less as a contrast to this book-based course, the pupils worked in pairs, called "learning tandems". 8 children were in the process of migration and came from families working in Germany within the framework of the Schengen Agreement. They do not live in precarious situations. They came from classes in the second and third grade of elementary school, and were aged from 7 to 9 years. The pairs - always one migrant and one or two residents - met weekly in a workshop. Each learning tandem had its own tablet supplied by the school. By means of the "Book Creator" app each learning tandem produced its own individual, digital exercise book in which photos were verbalized by written or spoken language. The learning object was the spoken and written verbalization of the language markers discovered by the children in the everyday life of their families or in the neighbourhood of their school. The children took photos of language markers, uploaded them on the school-owned tablets and produced a book page with a photo plus the written word. The learning object was to use the tablets in a peer-to-peer communication partnership to create a word treasure book comprising word-images and their oral and written verbalization, with the book on the tablet becoming an individual vocabulary book consisting of word-image units. The communication of the tandems was in German only.
Widening the context from the school to family life via family smartphones and school tablets Some photos with language markers came from the migrants' families, and were taken with family smartphones and sent to a Drop box account at the school. In addition, the learning tandems took photos during short excursions in the neighbourhood of the school. Described in terms of a learning context, the word treasure hunt project took place in three contexts of learning and language. One context was family life, in which parents and their children concentrate on German language as a process in their daily life. This is a field of informal learning in which the family's smartphone plays a key role. The second field was the formal learning context of school, where the children created their own book on the school's tablet. The connection between the learning and language in school and the learning and language in the family worked via the Internet and Drop box, and also with the school tablets. The third context of learning was the neighbourhood of the school. On excursions into the neighbourhood of the
school, e.g. to an indoor swimming pool, the pupils looked for language markers. In this context, looking means to have in mind the photo function of the school tablet or the family smartphone.
The school opened its learning context by inviting the families of the resident and migrant pupils into the school for an informational meeting about the project. In addition to the effect of increasing awareness of the vocabulary of everyday life, the migrant families were invited to support language learning in the school. This means the school formally recognised the family as competent in supporting learning in school.
Photos of the family context and recognition of the smartphone as an essential conversational
cultural resource in migrant families At the beginning of the project and shortly after the school meeting, families sent their photos to the school via Drop box. Among these, there were very few photos containing language markers, indicating a need to enhance the link to the family context. In the elementary school's follow up project, the families did not send in any photos. The school therefore allowed the pupils to take their school tablets home to show their parents their self-produced books with photos of discovered language markers and their verbalization. Furthermore, the pupils were encouraged to photograph words of their family's language with the family smartphone or school tablet to bring into school and upload to a digital photo frame. This indicates a recognition that collecting cultural resources based on family communication requires a greater level of input from the school's side.
Figure 3: Photos with language markers sent to the school by Dropbox. The majority of photos were free of language, showing objects like a switch and plug, clothing, vegetables, even still life
Figure 4: Photos from the family context without language markers
JJ
4
Semiotic work and learning development: girls explore grammar
Taking photos of the written language in everyday life, the language markers, offers the option to connect oral and written language. An example of this connection was seen in the playing of two girls, a native German speaker and a migrant, with the transcription of a photo of a traffic sign with the word "Feuerwehrzufahrt" (fire brigade access). The girls dealt actively and creatively with the rather complicated German grammar issue of composite nouns. In an early version of their word treasure book on the Book Creator app, the girls split the photographed composite noun "Feuerwehrzufahrt" (fire brigade access) into two nouns "Feuerwehr" fire brigade) and "Einfahrt" (driveway).
Figure 5: Page of an early version of a word treasure book of a "learning tandem" of two girls in which they split the photographed composite noun "Feuerwehrzufahrt"
This is a semantically correct breakdown into the relevant units of meaning "Feuerwehr" (fire brigade) and "Einfahrt" (driveway). If the children had split the composite noun in "Feuer" (fire) and "Wehrzufahrt" (brigade access) then this decomposition would not meet the predefined units of meaning. The children stick to the predefined meaning units, but approach the decomposition according to their own rationale and change the wording from "Zufahrt" (access) to "Einfahrt" (driveway). The original unit, composed of three words, now appears in their written interpretation as two separate nouns. The second noun, "Einfahrt" (driveway), is an invention of the girls, but with a correct meaning and spelling. Grammatically, this kind of decomposition is wrong, but it is clear in respect of the logic of the original composite noun. This semiotic work by the girls is part of their development in language and creativity.
The personal development of two boys during peer-to-peer learning with their tablet
Figure 6: Pages of the word treasure book by boys I and T, aged 9 and 8, second grade of
elementary school
<J
The two boys, I and T, are aged 8 and 9
years, are in the second grade and have their own school tablet. I, the migrant student in the learning tandem, is a rather active boy who likes to play the clown to get attention. He uses the design of situated learning with the tablet and working in pairs to change his learning attitude.
The boys react to the following feature elements of the design:
Peer-to peer learning
Boy I, who is already doing well in German, taps on the tablet "bleib wie du bist" (stay as you are), as boy T dictates the characters for writing this statement. They then look together for other photos on their tablet. A little later, boy T has the tablet. Boy I asks: "Can I get the tablet now?"Boy T passes the tablet to him as a normal activity. They now finish the book page with a photo and the statement "Das ist der Rettungsweg"(This is the rescue way) (see figure 6).
- Developing learning
Boy T spells out loudly; boy I writes what T is spelling. Parallel to his peer, boy I speaks the letters aloud. They discuss how to reduce the font size of "Blumen am Kirchplatz" (Flowers at Church Square), which is the name of a flower shop. Shortly thereafter, boy I takes the tablet from boy T, on which T has scaled down the photo of a hotel, and next to it writes the text "Das ist ein Hotel" (This is a hotel). At the letter H in hotel, both boys repeat the pronunciation of the H, then continue immediately.
- Student-centre learning
Boy I is getting tired and balances carefully on the bench where both boys are sitting in the hall. After a short time, boy I gets back to work on the tablet, taking the tablet from boy T. Boy T now balances on the bench, also reserved. Both boys then look for a new photo. Later, both boys become tired and begin to play around, again reserved and carefully. After a minute or two, they continue to work on their book, concentratedly, cooperatively, and routinely.
On the tablet, the two boys work on their photo of a shop window, which they have taken during an excursion from the school to a square nearby. Boy T wants to write "Dekoration" (decoration) next to this shop window and asks the teacher to spell out the word "Dekoration" (decoration). He asks: "How to write decoration?" The teacher dictates and boy T writes on the tablet. Boy I also enters this writing process.
- Writing by integrating multimodal forms such as pictures, sounds, videos
Boy I finds a lost photo on the tablet and is looking for a statement that he can write next to it. Both boys find it together and write: "Hier kann man parken" (Here you can park). They now look for a colour for this short text. In this way, they search for photos and a suitable colour on their tablet. Both share the tablet, both are talking and writing. Both comment on their work as: "Egal, dann nehmen wir eben rot" (Anyway, then we'll take red) (Boy T.). Boy I says:"Ich habe eine Idee" (I have an idea). Both look together for the photo with the word "Heißmangel" (rotary iron) for colours which they can paste on this book page.
Results: Qualitative approach to learning outcomes
A conversational access to learning asks for an equivalent evaluation procedure of the learning process and its outcomes. The objectified learning results are the word treasure books written by the pupils. The main task of the 18 pupils at the elementary school was to write their own digital book on their tablet in pairs ("learning tandems"). Writing was embedded in a set of learning activities, including to select relevant photos from a collection of photos, to develop ideas for the digital book, to write drafts and revise them, to present interim results to the class and to the teacher several times, and to present their final book in front of the class and at a school summer party. In addition, the interim and final results were displayed on a digital picture frame in the school hall over many weeks. Generally speaking, the design offered and required quite a wide range of appropriation activities. The following section gives a short overview over the digital book as objectified learning outcome.
Overview of the vocabulary of digital books 182
The focus of the vocabulary search was on the photographed word markers and objects, which led the pupils to work mainly with nouns. In the eight digital books produced, the children wrote, altogether,114 nouns during six hours of teaching, in which the pupils produced their own books in pairs. With regard to the learning design, the aim was to get from the photos, representing the image mode of an expression, to the writing mode with characters. In their digital books, however, the children did not write wordlists in the sense of vocabulary books, but rather simple statements such as "Das ist eine Brotzeitbox" (This is a breadbox), and also more complex statements such as "Das Hallenbad ist dort drüben. Dort wo der Pfeil hin zeigt!"(The indoor pool is over there. Where the arrow points to!).Articles, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, numerals and verbs are used beyond the nouns themselves. Therefore, the digital books contain not only articles and pronouns, but also 17 adverbs and prepositions, seven adjectives and 22 auxiliary verbs. This indicates that the pupils integrated the nouns into a basic language context. In total, the children use 53 different words, as well as 30 verbs, to classify 114 nouns.
Learning outcomes of the pupils The project deliberately did not include any form of assessment or examination, which corresponds with the idea of the situational and conversational learning, although the learning results can be estimated by the way in which the students integrated vocabulary and photos into their digital books. When reviewing the digital books, the following forms of learning in the process of writing and appropriating language became visible. Copying
Repeating and naming as a type of writing: This is a ... (Example in Book 2, p. 2: "Das ist die Feuerwehrzufahrt" (This is the fire brigade access). The pupils' own work is a simple, repeating statement like "Das ist" ... (This is ...).
Integration into the pupils' own statement (Example of Book 4, p. 3)"Das ist ein Vehrkesschild"(This is a traffic sign). One word, traffic sign, has a spelling mistake. Children go through their own stages of verbalization, from the object of the traffic sign without language marking, to a distinctive word that they find themselves. Thus, they independently name the object they photographed as "traffic sign".
Approaching meaning and explaining Pupils approach the meaning of a photographed object: "Das ist von jemand das Grab" (This is the tomb of someone) (Book 4, p. 6). An active access is necessary because the abbreviation R.I.P is unknown to the children, but they recognize the context of tombs.
Figure 7: Photo by a learning tandem taken on an excursion to a refugee memorial dating to the
1950s
DENTON
SUDE^imV
Searching for or discovering own vocabulary for the object at a photo (Book 4, p. 3)"Das ist ein Vehrkesschild"(This is a traffic sign [with spelling mistake]).Children do not just copy a word, but find the word which fits the photo. The risk of this way of working is to produce a mistake in the rather difficult German spelling.
Evaluation of photos and their displayed object Evaluation of an object with speech bubble
Figure 8a: Speech bubble as multimodal invention of a "learning tandem"
o
o
Integration of colloquial and standard language Colloquial language: "Das ist von jemand das Grab"(Buch 4, S. 6).
Integration into simple narrative or descriptive writing contexts (Book 9, p. 1)"Wilkommen
Zum Buch der Wörter und Sätze" (Welcome to the book of words and sentences).
Non-verbal symbols and drawings, selfie photos
(Book 3, p. 1)"Feuerwehrzufahrt", "Ausgang", "Eingang", "Eingang" (fire service entrance / exit /entrance / entrance). Speech Bubble with the content "Feuer AAAAAA" (Fire AAAAAA).
Figure 8b: Speech bubble as multimodal invention of a "learning tandem"
Orthography
For spelling, the default settings of the tablets and the Book Creator app lead to deviations from the standard language. Thus, the text fields produce incorrect word separations or the automatic correction improves supposed typing errors (see book 2, pages 2 and 3).
Spelling and typing errors
(Book 4, p. 3)"Das ist ein Vehrkesschild"(This is a traffic sign [traffic sign with spelling mistake]). Pupils are not yet familiar with this complicated compound noun and where to put the h and the r.
To explore and write composite nouns
Pupils explore how to split the noun "Feuerwehrzufahrt" (fire brigade access). (See photo and explanation above). Correctly in terms of the speech logic but not the grammar, they separate this into "Feuerwehr" fire brigade) and the invented word "Einfahrt" (driveway).
Punctuation
(Book 4, p. 1) "Wir gehen zum Hallenbad" (We go to the indoor pool) ends as a statement correctly with a point, although the photo of the shield with the word "Hallenbad" is without a full stop. However, punctuation is not usually an issue in the children's digital books.
Formative learning control
Learning outcomes in the form of a respectful revision to raise awareness and stabilize the learner's success is a highly relevant task for the teacher. In this sense, it was important that the pupils presented their digital texts to the class almost every day on the screen via a video projector. There was no time pressure.
Conclusions
Mobile, conversational access to appropriate a second language in the examples of the secondary and the elementary school lead to complex forms of dealing actively with the new
184
second language. Such forms include, among others, copying language markers, writing own statements, approaching the meaning of vocabulary actively in life contexts, and explaining and dealing actively with orthography. In addition, the number and complexity of vocabulary is no smaller than those encountered during the school's usual learning procedures; usualmeans, teacher-driven and book-based language courses. Peer-to-peer learning incorporates multimodal access to vocabulary in the contexts of activities in which pupils find the vocabulary, identify it as relevant to them or not, and decide on its relevance in further dealing with it, e.g. writing statements. In summary, these are elements of making meaning of vocabulary which is integrated in life contexts. Exercising and repetitive periods of applying the vocabulary are parts of the process of meaning-making. Self-responsibility for learning is obvious, which is complemented by the learners' testing of appropriated aspects of meaning-making, and embedded in the social activities of the peer group. Individual, digital mobile devices -smartphones and tablets - as cultural resources for learning in the sense of making meaning in contexts are key tools for success here. Of course, case studies and student-driven projects as basis for the validity of successful learning are restricted in terms of being able to generalize these results, as they represent just a small segment of the school's teaching and learning routines. However, they make overt successful alternatives to these routines as a result of their inherent conversational openness in learning and teaching.
References
Bachmair, B. (2015). Spracherkundung im Einkaufszentrum Einwöchiges Projekt einer Übergangsklasse einer Mittelschulschule Schüler/innen unterstützen ihre neuen Mitschüler/innen als Lernpaten. Available at: http://ben-bachmair.de/Kontext-
bewusstes_Lernen_files/Bericht%20Lernpaten%20Kerschensteiner%20Mittelschule%20Bachmair%2027Okt15. pdf (accessed 19 April 2017). Bachmair, B., Hierdeis, U. (2016). Zweitspracherwerb und soziales Lernen im Prozess der Migration. Grundschulprojekt Wortschatzsuche. Available at: http://ben-bachmair.de/Kontext-
bewusstes_Lernen_files/Bericht%20Gersthofen%20Wortschatzsuche%20Bachmair+Hierdeis%209Dez16.pdf (accessed 19 April 2017).
Bachmair, B., Pachler, N. (2014). A cultural ecological frame for mobility and learning. In: Meister, D. Theo Hug, Friesen, N. (eds). Educational Media Ecologies: International Perspectives. MedienPädagogik 24: 53-74.Available at: http://www.medienpaed.com/article/view/168 (accessed 19 April 2017). Beck, U., Lau, C. (eds) (2004). Entgrenzung und Entscheidung: Was ist neu an der Theorie reflexiver
Modernisierung? Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Berge, Z. L., Muilenburg, L. Y. (eds). (2013). Handbook of Mobile Learning. New York: Routledge. Bernstein, B. (1987): Elaborated and Restricted Codes: An overview, 1958-1986. Occasional papers No. 2.
Amsterdam: Amsterdam University, Centre for Race & Ethnic Studies. Bourdieu, P. (1983). Ökonomisches Kapital, kulturelles Kapital, soziales Kapital. In: Reinhard Kreckel (ed). Soziale
Ungleichheiten. In: Soziale Welt. Sonderband 2, Göttingen 1983: 183-198. Bourdieu, P. (1997). The forms of capital. In: Halsey, A.H., Brown, P., Lauder, H., Wells, A.S. (eds).Education,
Culture, Economy and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 46-58. Cook, J., Pachler, N., Bachmair, B. (2011): Ubiquitous Mobility with Mobile Phones: a cultural ecology for mobile learning. E-Learning and Digital Media, Special Issue - Media: digital, ecological, epistemological, 8 (3): 181196.
Dourish, P. (2004). What we talk about when we talk about context. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 8(1): 1930. Available at: http://www.dourish.com/publications/2004/PUC2004-context.pdf (accessed 19 April 2017). Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press. Glaser, B. G., Strauss, A. L. (1967). The Discovery of Grounded Theory - Strategies for Qualitative Research. New York: Aldine Publ.
Hall, S. (1980). 'Encoding/Decoding'. In: Hall, Stuart et al. (eds.). Culture, Media, Language. London: Hutchinson: 128-139.
Humboldt, W. v. (2002 / 1792). Theorie der Bildung des Menschen. Bruchstücke. In: Flitner, A., Giel, K. (2002) (eds.): Wilhelm von Humboldt. Werke in fünf Bänden. Band I: Schriften zur Anthropologie und Geschichte. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 4. ed.: 234-240.
Humboldt, W. von (2002 /1792). Ideen zu einem Versuch, die Gränzen der Wirksamkeit des Staates zu bestimmen. In: Flitner, A., Giel, K. (2002) (eds): Wilhelm von Humboldt. Werke in fünf Bänden. Band I: Schriften zur Anthropologie und Geschichte. 4. ed.. Stuttgart: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft: 56-233.
Kress, G. (2010). Multimodality. A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication. Milton Park, Abingdon; New York: Routledge.
Kress, G. (2010a). Learning and environments of learning in conditions of provisionality. In: Bachmair, B. (ed.). Medienbildung in neuen Kulturräumen. Die deutschsprachige und britische Diskussion. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag: 171-18.
Kress, G., Bezemer, J. (2015). A Social Semiotic Multimodal Approach to Learning. London: Sage.
Krotz, F. (2005). Neue Theorien entwickeln. Köln: Herbert von Halem Verlag.
Laurillard, D. (2002). Rethinking University Teaching: Conversational Framework for the Effective Use of Learning Technologies. London: Routledge.
Laurillard, D. (2007). Pedagogical forms of mobile learning: framing research questions. In: Pachler, N. (ed). Mobile Learning: Towards a Research Agenda. WLE Centre, Institute of Education, London: 153-176. Available at:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259405349 Mobile learning towards a research agenda (accessed 19 April 2017).
Lave, J., Wenger, E. (1991): Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pachler, N. (2010). The socio-cultural ecological approach to mobile learning: An overview. In: Bachmair, B. (ed). Medienbildung in neuen Kulturräumen. Die deutschsprachige und britische Diskussion. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften: 153-167.
Pachler, N., Cook, J., Bachmair, B. (2010).Appropriation of mobile cultural resources for learning. International Journal for Mobile and Blended Learning, 2(1):1-21.
Panjwani, F. (2008). Religion, citizenship and hope: Civic virtues and education about Muslim traditions. In: Arthur, J., Davies, I., Hahn, C. (eds). The SAGE Handbook of Education for Citizenship and Democracy. Los Angeles, London: SAGE: 292-304.
Panjwani, F., Bachmair, B. (2017). Education and Migration. Pupils as learning buddies: A proposal for peer-to-peer learning to support integration through education. Unpublished paper. London: UCL Institute of Education.
Pask, G. (1976). Conversation Theory: Applications in Education and Epistemology. Amsterdam, Oxford New York: Elsevier.
Sen, A. (1999). Development of Freedom. Oxford / New York: Oxford University Press.
Sharples, M., Taylor, J., Vavoula, G. (2007). A theory of learning for the mobile age. In: Andrews, R. and Haythornthwaite, C. (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of E-learning Research. London: SAGE: 221-247.
Sheller, M. (2014). The new mobilities paradigm for a live sociology. Current Sociology Review, 62(6):789-811.
Vygotsky, L. (1978 / 1930). Mind in Society. The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Ed. Cole, M., et al. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press.
