Look! Listen! Learn!

In the last couple of weeks Michael Sean Gallagher and I have been adding the final touches to a book chapter which explores The Sonic Spaces of Online Distance Students. Working with our mentor Professor Siân Bayne from the University of Edinburgh, we have proposed a methodology which uses aural and visual data as a way of understanding how online distance students construct space for studying. The chapter will feature in a wider text concerned with place-based learning that will be published later this year, however this is a subject that Michael and I have been researching and thinking about since 2010.

Our chapter revisits data that Michael and I collected as part of the New Geographies of Learning project that we worked on together in 2011. Along with our colleagues from the MSc in Digital Education at Edinburgh University, we prepared two published papers from this work (references below). We also generated a series of 'digital postcards', where we invited online distance students to 'capture' a space from where they typically engaged with their programme of study. The postcards were digital in the sense that they each combined a photograph, short text description and an audio field recording of the same space. It was this audio and visual data that Michael, Siân and I returned to look at in more detail within our book chapter.

Although the ink is still drying on the print and photographs that make up our chapter, earlier this week Dr Louise Connelly from the Institute of Education at The University of Edinburgh gave us the opportunity to talk about our work as part of her online tutoring course for staff. You can look at my slides from the session, however what you'll learn from a series of images that depict soft furnishings, I'm not sure.

The central thrust of our webinar was a discussion of the methodology we devised. Key to our thinking was to avoid the tendency amongst Internet scholars to privilege image over sound (Sterne 2006), and to instead think about the interdependency, cohesion and conflict between different semiotic material. In the absence of an existing approach to transcription or analysis that suited our needs, we developed our own approach by drawing on a range of methodologies concerned with aural and visual data, and the relationship between different semiotic modes. In brief summary we:

• drew on sonic methodologies with a particular attention to personal sound space and sonic territory (for instance Fluegge 2011) 
• drew on visual methodologies with particular attention to image sites and audiencing (for instance Rose 2012) 
• then took a multimodal approach, with its interest in how the selection and orchestration of different semiotic resources – modes – constructs meaning. Or to put it another way, we looked at how the interplay between image and sounds offered insights into the different learning spaces captured in the postcards (Kress and van Leeuwen 2001, Jewitt 2009) 
• and following on from this, we looked for coherence and information linking between different modes (Monaco 2009, van Leeuwen 2004) 

To demonstrate our methodology during Monday's webinar, we invited participants to look at examples of data gathered within the New Georgraphies of Learning project. This included thinking about the digital postcard submitted by Aggie, an online distance student based in Mexico, but completing a programme at Edinburgh University. We invited participants in the webinar to reflect on whether there was anything interesting, surprising or seemingly significant about the study space captured in this postcard image:

Using the Chat function in Collaborate we then asked the group to share their ideas about the study space in the photograph. There were more thought-provoking observations than I have room to include here, however it was interesting to note that a number of themes that Michael and I found to be present in the wider data set (i.e. across many of the 15 submitted postcards) arose during the webinar discussion. This included:

• the apparently comfortable and homely feel of the study space 
  
• the way in which study space is carved out of an existing domestic space
  
• the presence of conventional learning materials (pens, printed-out journal articles) in juxtaposition with a digital device (the laptop)
  
• the suggested significance of the wider environment in shaping the student's learning space, reflected in the way that the photo is taken from a position where we are encouraged to look beyond her study materials and out onto the green, bright space of her conservatory

In the second part of the exercise, we invited the group to look at the image once again, but this time whilst listening to the audio clip that Aggie submitted to accompany her image:

As we listened to the orchestration of birdsong, distant brass music, children-at-play and the chopping-of-vegetables that feature in Aggie's field recording, fascinating strands of conversation developed within the Chat box. This included differing positions on what represents 'noise', and whether music can be used to usefully construct spaces that are conducive to studying. Both of these themes are discussed within our forthcoming chapter. What was also interesting was the way that conversation moved onto discuss whether the insights gained from our methodology might practically inform course design and teaching of online distance courses. I have reproduced some of the comments below in order to give a feel for the nature of the discussion.

HR said: But surely just because a picture shows one domestic scene does not demonstrate they study more in one environment than another. Or importantly that they study better
FF said: the images show preferences for study space - but indeed any indication of how they impact on quality learning / study engagement/ what learning has actually taken place and of what level
RR said: This is a fascinating discussion but how will it influence me as a tutor? Is there evidence that looking into study spaces with our students can help them to improve their experience?
WA said: Will have to have a think about what / how this could inform course design / tutor activities and support work....
SM said: even if there is evidence on how study spaces affect learning as online tutors the student's learning space is not something that we can influence
AW said: It makes it even more interesting to think about the diversity of our student body - life/work/study/preferences etc.
JR said: perhaps it's less about affecting what students do, as being attuned to what they do?
FF said: we can ask learners to consider what impacts for them, their context. Raising awareness may assist in consideration of where and how they prep for engagement
RR said : Perhaps we could suggest ways to improve study spaces based on evidence of what works best. But as you mention in the end it's a personal choice.
MH said: we can't influence the space but possibly the format of materials etc? 

Within our chapter, Michael, Siân and I have been clear to avoid suggesting that the themes to emerge from our transcription and analysis of the digital postcards necessarily sets hard-and-fast rules about the ways that online students use sound and physical material to construct spaces for studying. What we did propose though was that this type of data - and our methodology - offers new ways of thinking about the nature of these spaces. I think that the conversation reproduced above helps to support this.

If we were to deliver this session again - and I really hope we get the chance to do so as it was great fun and opened up new lines of investigation - I would leave more time for participants to reflect on whether and how the introduction of the aural data altered original impressions of the study space captured in the image. It's clear that listening to Aggie's sound clip enabled the group to see beyond the edges of the photograph, however I think we missed an opportunity to really discuss how the interplay between the aural and the visual data potentially generated meaning over and above the impressions we might have taken from these individual modes. As I mentioned in my introduction, Michael and I have been discussing the nature of online study spaces for close to 5 years: I think this week's webinar suggests there's value in continuing the conversation.

References

• Bayne, S.; Gallagher, M.S. & Lamb, J. (2013). Being ‘at’ university: the social topologies of distance students. Higher Education, 67(5), 569-583. 
  
• Fluegge, E. (2011).  The consideration of personal sound space. Journal of Sonic Studies, 1(1).
  
• Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (1996, 2006). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge.
  
• Kress, G. and Van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication. Arnold: London. 
  
• Jewitt, C. (Ed.). (2009). The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis (pp. 28-39). London: Routledge.
  
• Monaco, J. (2009) How to Read a Film: Movies, Media, Multimedia, 30th anniversary edition. London: Oxford University Press.  
  
• Rose, G. (2012). Visual methodologies: An introduction to researching with visual materials. London: Sage.
  
• Ross, J.; Gallagher, M.; Macleod, H. (2013).  Making distance visible: assembling nearness in an online distance learning programme. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Education (IRRODL), 14(4).
  
• Sterne, J. (2006). The historiography of cyberculture. Critical cyberculture studies, 17-28. 
  
• van Leeuwen, T. (2004). Introducing Social Semiotics: An Introductory Textbook. London: Routledge.