Auralspacesonlinelearnersgall

The sonic spaces of online, distance learners Michael Sean Gallagher*, James Lamb**, Sian Bayne** *Hankuk University of Foreign Studies **The University of Edinburgh Introduction The growing influence of the digital within higher education prompts us to rethink conventional understandings of how and where learning takes place. Conventional understandings of the university, with its lecture theatres, seminar rooms and social areas, are problematised by the varied and fluid learning spaces of online students who may never cross the threshold of the physical campus. Much has been written about the digital environments where online learning takes place, however up to this point relatively little attention has been paid to the material spaces that online distance students occupy while learning. There are some notable exceptions to this. Kirkwood (2000), for example, explores the complexity and diversity of the domestic context for online students – a complexity which in turn impacts the use of technology and the educational process itself – while Kahu, Stephens, Zepke & Leach (2014) interrogate the role of space and time in shaping the study practices of mature online students. Of particular interest to the research presented in this chapter is Kahu et al’s presentation of student engagement in online education as a complex aggregation of factors, of which access to and control over domestic space is one. Additionally, Moss’s (2004) concepts of time and space as qualitative entities and their role in creating space for learning has resonances for the work described here. In this chapter we describe and discuss how we used a combination of aural, textual and visual data to gain insights into the learning spaces of online distance students. In particular, we were interested in the sonic and material components of student study spaces. Our focus on ‘space’ is influenced by the Mol and Law’s (1994, 2001) work on social topology, and on the ‘spatial turn’ in social science research identified by Fenwick et al (2011), which draws into question the assumption that space functions as a ‘static container’ (129) within which individuals act. Rather, space is seen as a dynamic entity which is produced by the social and material interactions which take place ‘within’ it. Our work here builds on earlier research where we explored the social topologies of distance students (Bayne et al, 2013) and the construction of ‘nearness’ for distance students to their affiliated university (Ross et al, 2013). Using data generated from our earlier research, this chapter suggests that the construction of student study space often has to be negotiated from within domestic space, and doing so involves the deliberate use of manufactured silence or sound in order to establish territories for personal learning. Our research found that for every considered and composed construction of visual study space (neatly arranged laptop, notebook, and pens), we saw contested aural space (streets, cars, and horns; children and TV playing cartoons in the background). It also suggests that the practices that these distance students developed to create study space all involved varying degrees of territorialism (Fluegge, 2011). From a methodological perspective, therefore, we highlight the value of a multimodal approach, arguing in particular for greater attention to the use of aural data in helping us to understand the construction of space, including its interaction with the visual. Aurality is currently neglected within the educational literature, an absence that we have started to address here. Methods and context: listening to data The chapter draws on research undertaken with students from the MSc in Digital Education (formerly the MSc in E-Learning) at the University of Edinburgh. This is a taught postgraduate programme that has been delivered entirely online since 2006. The programme has a strong global reach with a cohort typically comprising students from around 40 countries at any one time, many of whom will never venture onto the physical campus of their university. This is a class that works within the uncertain boundaries of a highly technologised educational space with a complex, shifting relation to its material, institutional ‘base’. We set out to investigate what it meant to be a student at Edinburgh, but not in Edinburgh, and what insights this gave us into learning design for online distance programmes. Over the period of a year we generated data with 28 students and recent graduates of the programme. Our earlier published research (Bayne et al, 2013; Ross et al, 2013) drew on 20 in- depth, online, narrative interviews that elicited stories about students’ experiences of place, space and institution. A further stage of data collection invited these and other students from the same programme to capture and submit a ‘digital postcard’ depicting a place from where they commonly conducted their studies. We requested that each postcard should comprise a photograph, a short audio 'field recording' and an explanatory messagei. Using the data from the 21 digital postcards that were submitted, we created short videos, viewable at http://edinspace.weebly.com/postcards.html. For the purposes of this chapter, we have merged the images and text provided into a composite image, and attempted to convey something of the soundscape submitted by describing it below each image, with a link to the audio recording. In what follows we attend primarily to the visual and aural data generated by these digital postcards. In doing this we have worked to avoid the tendency among Internet scholars to privilege image over sound (Sterne, 2006), favouring a multimodal approach where aural, visual and (to an extent) textual data were considered as interdependent. A helpful explanation of modes and multimodality can be found in the work of Kress and van Leeuwen (2001), and of Jewitt (2009). These authors propose that meaning is conveyed through a wide range of semiotic material. Within this range it is the particular configuration of different modes – for instance sound, image and text – and how they interact, that influences the creation of meaning. We thus developed a model that allowed us to analyse image, audio and text interdependently, by discussing, whenever possible, the coherence between them. Our transcription model borrowed from methodologies concerned with visual data (Rose, 2012, Kress 1996), sound (Fluegge 2011) and also methods of coherence (Monaco 2009, van Leeuwen 2004). From Fluegge’s work on personal sound space (2011), we adapted the notions of territorialism, sonic trespass and spatial-acoustic self-determination in order to suit the specific context of spatial construction for students, as well as our interest in the combined aural, visual and text data of each digital postcard. We used what Fluegge describes as the ‘individual’s auditory experience’ as a way of thinking more broadly about the different components of the participant’s learning space. Using Fluegge’s description of territoriality, we looked for evidence within the sound, image and text that participants had attempted to create a place for learning within a wider social space. This included searching within the sound, image and text of each postcard submission for the use of sound reproduction or repression devices (speakers or headphones, for instance) that reflected attempts at spatial-acoustic self-determination. We were interested to see whether participants set out to use sound or silence as a way of accompanying or enhancing their scholarly activity. This approach was augmented by specific attention to what was seen in the submitted images. The visual data was transcribed using an adaptation of Rose (2012), particularly making reference to sites of the image and audiencing. An additional attribute – coherence – was drawn from Monaco (2009) and the positioning of sound as parallel or contrapuntal to the visual and textual data. We similarly borrowed from van Leeuwen’s (2004) concepts of information linking, or how temporal or causal links are established between elements in multimodal texts. This approach provided a mechanism for considering how the semiotic resources presented in the audio, visual and text data were integrated, or ‘spoke’ to one another. It should be noted again at this point that the postcards seen below represent our attempt to share the data as clearly as possible: participants submitted image, audio and text within a single submission form, but not as a combined artefact as they are represented in this chapter. From our transcription of 15 postcards we noted the following emergent and often inter- related themes: – the prevalence of informal, homely and domestic spaces from which online students participated in learning activity – apparent attempts to mark out a material and/or aural territory, with the purpose of establishing a corner or haven for personal study: a space that would be free from disruption – creation of a learning space within a wider shared space (in contrast to attempts to carve out a distinct personal territory) – sonic trespass, where the participant’s learning space was penetrated from outside by by the intrusion of sound and its material agents – a contrast between manufactured silence and sound (including the use of music in apparent attempts at spatial acoustic self-determination) In what follows we use the above themes to discuss specific examples of student study spaces, with a particular focus on the aural dimensions of these. First, however,

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