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This article is based on a 2007 conference presentation that used Research-Based Theater (RbT) to identify and articulate the ethical questions facing playmakers and audiences, not to provide answers, but to challenge the participants to address them. The authors pose issues of purpose, power, ownership, permission, and audience participation, addressing ethical problems of RbT for performers, audiences, and informants. In the second part of the article, the authors refer readers to the literature to further explore how these issues have been addressed in a range of contexts worldwide . . . and the further questions they raise.

This paper is a summary of philosophy, theory, and practice arising from collective writing experiments conducted between 2016 and 2022 in the community associated with the Editors’ Collective and more than 20 scholarly journals. The main body of the paper summarises the community’s insights into the many faces of collective writing. Appendix 1 presents the workflow of the article’s development. Appendix 2 lists approximately 100 collectively written scholarly articles published between 2016 and 2022. Collective writing is a continuous struggle for meaning-making, and our research insights merely represent one milestone in this struggle. Collective writing can be designed in many different ways, and our workflow merely shows one possible design that we found useful. There are many more collectively written scholarly articles than we could gather, and our reading list merely offers sources that the co-authors could think of. While our research insights and our attempts at synthesis are inevitably incomplete, ‘Collective Writing: The Continuous Struggle for Meaning-Making’ is a tiny theoretical steppingstone and a useful overview of sources for those interested in theory and practice of collective writing.

Refereed/Peer-reviewed

When undertaking teaching as an embodied pedagogy, the teacher understands the body as a site of risk and possibility as well as a site of knowing - of self, of others (empathy) and of the world. This article focuses on research undertaken by the authors in the International Centre for Classroom Research at the University of Melbourne into the pedagogical and creative learning practices associated with an embodied approach to teaching, and draws on a growing body of research undertaken by cognitive scientists investigating the role of the body in thinking, learning and problem-solving (Glenberg 2008), and by drama education researchers into the ways that embodiment can substantially enhance learning (Ewing 2010). The authors contend that researchers have focused principally on the processes and characteristics of embodied learning and have given less attention to the pedagogical practices employed by drama educators as facilitators of embodied learning. This article addresses this gap in the research by examining the role of the drama educator in facilitating the conditions for aesthetic embodied learning experiences in a classroom environment. The authors propose a set of principles of embodied pedagogies for implementation in and beyond the drama classroom.

Understanding forms of imitation and their purposes is an important aspect of postdigital media literacy. Parody is important because it is used not only to generate fake news but also as an antidote to it. For parody to work, it needs to be distinguishable from fake news, and for the author and the audience both to be in on the joke. Using illustrative examples, the paper considers the importance of context, the role of the Bakhtinian notion of double-voiced discourse in understanding parody, and the potential of generating parody as a resource for media literacy education. The concluding section considers parody in relation to the themes of the special issue, using parody relating to Brexit to draw out some final messages, which are disturbing but inconclusive. Parody has a significant shaping presence in our cultures; however, it will not necessarily be easy to harness this for our own ends, even though we should be aware of it.

There have always been people willing to reveal the secrets of deception, with both dupery and revelations about it amplified by the technology of the day. This chapter explores what we can learn from exposure in a range of contexts: satire, magic, fake science, classroom deception, subversion, hoaxes, con tricks and hacking. In each, deception is used to different effects. The inquiry considers not only the tricks but also our responses to them, which turn out to be more important. We should pay attention to the stories where deception may occur, recognising intentions and what leads to success or failure of the associated practices and how they are framed. We should also be aware of the methods dupers use to manipulate our perception particularly through distractions and misdirection. Dupers use emotional responses to gain access to important information about us, so we need to beware of heightened emotional states. This has implications for those who teach about and, especially, through deception. Finally, there is a question about whether we should teach how to deceive.

An update to a provocative manifesto intended to serve as a platform for debate and as a resource and inspiration for those teaching in online environments. In 2011, a group of scholars associated with the Centre for Research in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh released “The Manifesto for Teaching Online,” a series of provocative statements intended to articulate their pedagogical philosophy. In the original manifesto and a 2016 update, the authors counter both the “impoverished” vision of education being advanced by corporate and governmental edtech and higher education's traditional view of online students and teachers as second-class citizens. The two versions of the manifesto were much discussed, shared, and debated. In this book, Siân Bayne, Peter Evans, Rory Ewins, Jeremy Knox, James Lamb, Hamish Macleod, Clara O'Shea, Jen Ross, Philippa Sheail and Christine Sinclair have expanded the text of the 2016 manifesto, revealing the sources and larger arguments behind the abbreviated provocations. The book groups the twenty-one statements (“Openness is neither neutral nor natural: it creates and depends on closures”; “Don't succumb to campus envy: we are the campus”) into five thematic sections examining place and identity, politics and instrumentality, the primacy of text and the ethics of remixing, the way algorithms and analytics “recode” educational intent, and how surveillance culture can be resisted. Much like the original manifestos, this book is intended as a platform for debate, as a resource and inspiration for those teaching in online environments, and as a challenge to the techno-instrumentalism of current edtech approaches. In a teaching environment shaped by COVID-19, individuals and institutions will need to do some bold thinking in relation to resilience, access, teaching quality, and inclusion.

Water deficit, exacerbated by global population increases and climate change, necessitates the investigation of alternative non-traditional water sources to augment existing supplies. Indirect potable reuse (IPR) represents a promising alternative water source in water-stressed regions. Of high concern is the presence of pathogenic microorganisms in wastewater, such as enteric viruses, protozoa and bacteria. Therefore, a greater understanding of the potential impact to human health is required. The aim of this research was to use a quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) approach to calculate the probability of potential pathogen infection risk to the public in surface waters used for a range of recreational activities under scenarios: 1) existing de facto wastewater reuse conditions; 2) after augmentation with conventionally treated wastewater; and 3) after augmentation with reclaimed wastewater from proposed IPR schemes. Forty-four 31 l samples were collected from river sites and a coastal wastewater treatment works from July 2016-May 2017. Concentrations of faecal indicator organisms (enterococci, faecal coliforms, somatic coliphages and Bacteroides phages) determined using culture-based approaches and selected pathogens (adenovirus, Salmonella and Cryptosporidium) determined using molecular approaches (qPCR) were used to inform QMRA. The mean probability of infection from adenovirus under de facto conditions was high (0.90) for all recreational activities, per single event. The risk of adenovirus and Cryptosporidium infection increased under augmentation scenario (2) (mean probability 0.95-1.00 and 0.01-0.06 per single event, respectively). Adenovirus and Cryptosporidium infection risk decreased under reclaimed water augmentation scenario (3) (mean probability0.79, excluding swimming, which remained 1.00 and0.01 per single event, respectively). Pathogen reduction after reclaimed water augmentation in surface waters impacted by de facto reuse, provides important evidence for alternative water supply option selection. As such, this evidence may inform water managers and the public of the potential benefits of IPR and improve acceptance of such practices in the future.

At the 2018 Networked Learning Conference, a paper attempting to parody conventions of networked learning papers provoked some discussion. Christine Sinclair asks why there is little or no parody of networked learning: perhaps the field is not sufficiently distinct from other social science writing. Although there is some use of parody in networked learning practice, its academic writing tends not to go beyond parodic allusion. And yet networked learning as a phenomenon uses intertextuality, double voicing, challenges to authority, multimodality and exploration of boundaries which all resonate with the aims of parody. This chapter promotes the value of laughter in encouraging dialogue and renewal, based on Bakhtin’s understanding of parody. This leads to an analogy with the novel in its literary sense as well as in the sense of ‘the new’. Like the novel, perhaps networked learning is itself too unbounded to be imitated, satirised or belittled. The questions raised are left unanswered and open to further dialogue; it seems parody may have something to offer but could feel too risky for contemporary busy academics. Yet networked learning could be in the forefront of new forms of dissemination.

In examining the work of the prefix ‘post’, we aim to contribute to the current postdigital dialogue. Our paper does not provide a rationale for the use of ‘postdigital’ in the title of this journal: that has been thoroughly explored elsewhere. We want instead to consider the work the prefix might do. We look at ‘post’, as it appears to ‘act’ in the terms of ‘postmodernism’ and ‘posthumanism’, suggesting that modernism and humanism are in need of questioning and reworking. We also examine what gets ‘post-ed’, or sometimes ‘com-posted’. (Com- is another interesting prefix, meaning ‘with’.) We then consider how these inquiries inform our understanding of a ‘postdigital reality’ that humans now inhabit. We understand this as a space of learning, struggle, and hope, where ‘old’ and ‘new’ media are now ‘cohabiting artefacts’ that enmesh with the economy, politics and culture. In entering this postdigital age, there really is no turning back from a convergence of the traditional and the digital. However, this is not simply a debate about technological and non-technological media. The postdigital throws up new challenges and possibilities across all aspects of social life. We believe this opens up new avenues too, for considering ways that discourse (language-in-use) shapes how we experience the postdigital.

Conversations between academics and students play a central part in teaching and learning at university level and effective dialogues are key to academic success. An essential feature of these dialogues is the question which triggers the interaction. However, we note that students are often reluctant to ask questions and that teachers and students sometimes talk at cross-purposes. The aim of this project was to explore, through semi-structured interviews, what happens in dialogues between teachers and students in learning contexts. Our initial results give insights into the barriers to effective dialogue, the conditions that promote dialogues as well as the strategies that can be employed by teachers and students to encourage good dialogues.

In this paper we develop knowledge of the discourse that takes place between teacher and students in two large undergraduate classes which use a flipped, active learning approach. In flipped classes students encounter the content through pre-class resources, freeing up class time for more active engagement with the material. This results in increased opportunities for teacher-student interactions which may be beneficial for learning. Our aim here is to explore the nature and purposes of these dialogues. Two case studies from introductory physics classes at the University of Edinburgh are analysed through a sociocultural perspective. Three main purposes of dialogues are observed: (1) Involving students in sense-making, (2) Guided expert modelling and (3) Wonderment questions. We found that the dialogues predominantly use a triadic Initiation, Response, Feedback (IRF) format and are authoritative in nature, but work together to create an interactive learning environment that can be described as ‘ideologically dialogic’

This Editorial describes the main challenges at the intersections between algorithmic cultures and human learning. It briefly analyses papers in this Special Issue of E-learning and Digital Media ‘Learning in the age of algorithmic cultures’ and shows that researchers in the field are still struggling with grand ideas and questions. It suggests that studies of algorithms and learning are in their infancy and emphasizes that they carry potentials to confirm our existing ideas and surprise us with fresh insights.

This article is a multi-authored response to an editorial ‵Postdigital Science and Education′ published in 2018 by Petar Jandrić, Jeremy Knox, Tina Besley, Thomas Ryberg, Juha Suoranta and Sarah Hayes in Educational Philosophy and Theory as a mission statement for the journal Postdigital Science and Education. Nineteen authors were invited to produce their sections, followed by two author-reviewers who examined the article as a whole. Authors’ responses signal the sense of urgency for developing the concept of the postdigital and caution about attempts at simplifying complex relationships between human beings and technology. Whilst the digital indeed seems to become invisible, we simultaneously need to beware of its apparent absence and to avoid over-emphasizing its effects. In this attempt, authors offer a wide range of signposts for future research such as ‘the critical postdigital’ and ‘postdigital reflexivity’; they also warn about the group’s own shortcomings such as the lack of ‘real’ sense of collectivity. They emphasize that postdigital education must remain a common good, discuss its various negative aspects such as smartphone addiction and nomophobia, and exhibit some positive examples of postdigital educational praxis. They discuss various aspects of postdigital identities and point towards the need for a postdigital identity theory. With these varied and nuanced responses, the article opens a wide spectrum of opportunity for the development of postdigital approaches to science and education for the future.

This chapter examines an exploration of the intersection between theatrical performance and theatrical experience by Arena Theatre Company, one of Australia’s longest-running producers of theatre for young people. A case study sits at the centre of this chapter. It focuses on Marlin, a project where young people (ages 8–12) were invited to be both audience and active participants in two thematically linked experiences – a mainstage theatre production and an interactive theatrical event.

In the initially published version of this article, the ethical considerations statement was omitted. Ethical considerations Approval for this study was obtained from the Steve Biko Academic Hospital, the MMed Protocol Committee and the University of Pretoria Faculty of Health Sciences Research Ethics Committee (protocol number 443/2015). The omission has not altered the study’s findings of significance or overall interpretation of the study results. The authors apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Email has become a pervasive feature of academic life. Its impact on academic time will be immediately familiar to contemporary readers; simultaneously, however, academic work associated with email may be hidden from official recognition. Awareness of this contradiction stimulated a proposal to investigate email use over a year of an academic’s life to explore tensions among administrative, research and teaching tasks, using third-generation activity theory to frame the findings. The proposed investigation proved to be too ambitious and unworkable. However, earlier and contemporary forms of Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) may still illuminate both the reasons for failure of the study and how email has contributed to the expansion and transformation of the activity system of higher education. A revised study and a comparison with an alternative account of “overload” – files and other artefacts in an attic – suggest that counting and categorizing emails would miss the crucial issues of the object of higher education and internalization of responses to neoliberal and other imperatives. The study concludes with a need to detach from a personal response to email and recognize its contribution to collective practices and their implications, including resistance and solidarity in the face of excessive and hidden workloads.

While online students may wish to see their teacher on video, there may be practical, pedagogical, affective or political reasons for hesitating. Drawing on my own experiences of online teaching both on a Masters programme and a MOOC (EDCMOOC), the paper raises questions about approaches to teaching, misrepresentation, surveillance and teacher agency. I conclude that though there are problems in these areas, they exist apart from the use of video technology and should not be conflated with it. Moreover, video use does not need to entail a monologic pedagogic stance but can be used to renew and create dialogic opportunities for teachers and students. The paper situates its questions within Bakhtinian ideas about the monologic and the dialogic, parody and addressivity.

The biennial Networked Learning Conference is an established locus for work on practice, research and epistemology in the field of networked learning. That work continues between the conferences through the researchers’ own networks, ‘hot seat’ debates, and through publications, especially the books that include a selection of reworked and peer-reviewed papers from the conference. The 2014 Networked Learning Conference which was held in Edinburgh was characterised by animated dialogue on emergent influences affecting networked teaching and learning building on work established in earlier conferences, such as the inclusion of sociomaterial perspectives and recognition of informal networked learning. The chapters here each bring a particular perspective to the themes of Policy, Boundaries and Research in Networked Learning which we have chosen as the focus of the book. The selection of the papers has been a combined editorial and collaborative process based on our own initial review of the conference papers and notes from the conference, as well as an informal survey where we asked conference participants to recommend three papers they found particularly interesting. The papers for the Networked Learning Conference are all peer-reviewed, and as they have turned into chapters for this book, each has been re-reviewed by the editors and other authors. The result is a genuinely collegial distillation of themes from a stimulating conference; a snapshot of a time when national and international policies and boundaries have been changing.

This book presents cutting-edge, peer reviewed research on networked learning organized by three themes: policy in networked learning, researching networked learning, and boundaries in networked learning. The "policy in networked learning" section explores networked learning in relation to policy networks, spaces of algorithmic governance and more. The "boundaries in networked learning" section investigates frameworks of students' digital literacy practices, among other important frameworks in digital learning. Lastly, the "research in networked learning" section delves into new research methods in the field.

Background: Uterine artery embolisation for the treatment of symptomatic uterine fibroids is a relatively new but internationally recognised procedure. The present study seeks to report the results of the largest South African series of uterine artery embolisations for symptomatic fibroids to date. It is the fourth article to be published in South Africa on the outcomes of this procedure, and the largest South African series to date. Objective: To evaluate the long-term efficacy of uterine artery embolisation in women with symptomatic fibroids in a tertiary hospital in South Africa. Methods: Eighty-two women who presented for uterine artery embolisation at a single site in South Africa for symptomatic fibroids were retrospectively studied. Outcomes included recurrence and re-intervention rates, patient satisfaction and complication rate. Results: Two patients required repeat embolisation, and one patient experienced fibroid recurrence without further intervention. No repeat myomectomies were performed. Eighty percent of patients reported being satisfied, 12% partially satisfied and 7% not satisfied. No major complications were reported. Conclusion: Uterine artery embolisation was shown to be a good choice in the treatment of symptomatic fibroids and presents favourable long-term outcomes in the South African population.

University teachers are faced with a problem of ‘knowing’ their learners when teaching on a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). This paper explores and analyses what the University of Edinburgh has come to know about its recent MOOC participants, highlighting one particular course. We draw attention to barriers and enablers from co-existent understandings and expectations of course design, and from an abundance of highly qualified participants. We compare characteristics of participants who report a positive experience with those who do not. Mixed messages about teacher presence may have implications that go beyond MOOCs. We contemplate whether the participant group should be seen as a single massive multivocal entity. The paper concludes with a discussion of the potential opportunity for MOOCs to challenge standardization, homogenization and commodification of education. Shifting attention from the achievements of an individual to what can be done with a multitude, MOOCs may open up new educationa...

This article is an overview of the literature informing the four year Australian Research Council linkage project, TheatreSpace: Accessing the Cultural Conversation, a large-scale longitudinal study into young people's attendance at mainstream theatre1. The article provides a brief overview of the research project and an examination of a range of the key principles which have allowed the researchers access to understanding a complex web of data. The article explores the link between the education sector and young people as theatre-goers, considering the place of theatre and theatre-going in the curriculum, the role of teachers as mediators and facilitators of the theatre experience. The question of how young people ‘read’ the theatre experience both within and beyond the curriculum is a point of particular focus.

The authors use their own experiences with social software to argue for the need for caution in its uses in education. They particularly draw attention to difficulties in engagement, the effects on identity, an emphasis on superficial issues, lack of coherence, and problems with authenticity and trust. While Facebook and Second Life appear to have potential for educational applications, the disquiet associated with them may need to be taken into account: and this can affect both students and their teachers. One of the authors is a student on an online course and extracts from her blogs and journal capture the emotional and psychological effects of engaging in these new worlds at the time it happened. Both authors have noticed changes in their responses over time and point to the need for integration and coherence for “virtual identities” to play an appropriate part in higher education. The paper raises more questions than it answers and suggests that there is an urgent need to theorise online identity, th...

Drawing on research supported within the Scottish ‘Applied Educational Research Scheme’ this paper explores the use of the Virtual Research Environment (VRE) in developing ‘communities of enquiry’ in Scottish education and research. It focuses on the role of VREs in influencing collaborative working and educational research. The paper uses three vignettes to illustrate the ways in which VREs have the potential to transform the processes of collaborative enquiry and research in education, by offering new ways of conducting research and engaging various stakeholders (the policy, practice and research communities). The paper argues that, while initially the work conceptualised VREs essentially as tools to support communities of enquiry, it has become clearer during the analysis of emerging data from the project that VREs are developing as new environments in which participants engage and generate new forms of knowledge. They pose ethical dilemmas and challenge the status and analysis of data. The authors con...

Too often, online learning is positioned as an inferior alternative to working in the real classroom. To explore why, we review some of the ways people refer to the real and the virtual both in practice and in the relevant literature. In order to reach fundamental issues pertaining to networked learning, our approach is based on a broad critique of interpersonal relationships that reaches beyond questions of power and meaning characteristic of traditional critical theory. In the process, we draw on our own dialogues within a tutor–student dyad, and other dialogues with students now that we are colleagues on the same M.Sc. programme. We find explanations for the view that the virtual is inferior, but also alternative perspectives supporting our challenges to this notion especially in the context of networked learning where the terms real and virtual are no longer so distinct from each other. We explore the potential offered by a dialogical perspective on the concept of networked learning to both bring out the problems and offer suggestions for better forms of engagement for teachers as well as learners. We argue that the advent of the virtual has usefully exposed complexities in the role of teachers that have always been there. Networked teachers as well as students may well require exemplars, models and heuristics for how to exist online, but these are augmentations of teaching practices rather than indications of totally new roles. Our method and findings highlight the dialogical nature of the teacher–student relationship, with the teacher having a role in how their students’ experience is managed and how understanding is co-created. We conclude that students should come to be regarded as junior colleagues, whether online or off, and should be encouraged to espouse this role.

This paper explores the social dimensions of online learning – the ways in which learners interact and communicate with other learners and their tutors using electronic communication networks. The context for this exploration is a module provided by a networked, and geographically dispersed, higher education institution. An evaluation of the module draws on the experiences of students and tutors participating in their first online course. Based on these experiences and the research literature, the paper discusses the extent to which face-to-face models of communication should be recreated in online contexts and the extent to which tutors should structure online interaction patterns and modes of discourse. Also examined is the way in which online learning leads to new ‘hybrid’ and ‘converging’ styles of communication and to the intermixing of academic and personal discourses. Overall, it is argued that the social context of online learning is qualitatively different from face-to-face learning and that this...