Constructing Place: The Relationship between PlaceMaking and Sociability in Networked Environments

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Constructing Place The Relationship between
Place-Making and Sociability in Networked
Environments A Condition for Productive Learning
Environments Thomas Ryberg, Aalborg University,
Denmark Marisa Ponti, Göteborg University,
Sweden Lausanne, October 7, 2004
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A quote

• I feel at home in this forum when a site makes
  you feel this way, it means that it's not just a
  virtual space, but something you live in and you
  make it yours. It feels like being at home!
• (Source Post from eLearningtouch.it)

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Are Virtual Spaces Designed to Support Social
Contexts?

• Pitfalls
• Focus on technical functionalities
• Idea that technology-mediated and face to face
  social interactions follow the same patterns
• Framing behaviour around space and not place

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• What fosters a social context?

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• Two Beliefs
• One A sense of place is necessary for a social
  context
• Two Non-educational environments can tell us
  something about place-making and learning

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Notion of Place

• Not a hollow container, but
• it encodes the cultural and social
  understanding of the behaviour and actions
  appropriate to an environment
• (Lee, Danis, Miller Young, 2001).

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A Typical Classroom
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Elements of the Interior Classroom Space
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Is Network a Non-Place?

• It is not any particular space, but a generic
  space. Its context is no context at all. Its
  difference is indifferenceThe Internet is a
  generic space. It is no particular space. Indeed,
  networks are themselves by definition lifted-out
  spaces
• (Lash, 2001)

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Place-Making Some Theoretical Basis

• We act on things based on what they mean for us
• We create meaning of things by engaging in social
  interactions
• We change meanings over time

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Sharing a Territory Three Forms of Knowledge

• Sensation
• Use
• Articulation

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Setting the scene a small story from my own
life-world

• Before English teaching navigating complex
  strategy games
• Beat me playing Magic the gathering complex
  card game
• Jumped on the net to search for useful cards for
  his deck
• Bored in English class too easy
• Only allowed to look at the cards in the break
  entertainment and not learning
• What do we legitimize as cultural, meaningful
  learning?

Picture of Nephew
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Assumption

• From informal sources we can gain valuable
  knowledge on both learning and place-making
• Game environments researched through the lens of
• Socio-cultural theories of learning Wenger,
  Engeström
• Theories from Urban Planning - Chastian

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The theories

• Learning theory
• engaging in real-world practices and activities
• contributing actively to a community or
  collaboratively creating new systems of activity
• production of knowledge, meaning and identity
• Urban planning
• Builders part of their culture
• Participate in the collective activities that
  characterise a place
• Being familiar with the processes of local
  production and the ways in which people live
  there

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What can we possibly learn from this?
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Well place-making!
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Participation, engagement, production!
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Three concepts important to place-making and
learning

• Co-production
• Expanding the range of activities for the
  community
• Contribute to real world social practices
• Participants in and co-producers of the culture
  and the environment they inhabit
• Sense of mastery
• Strong sense of being in control of oneself
• Gradual improvement of ability
• Being recognized
• Nurturing of identity
• Developing a identity of participation
• Belonging to a community and having ones
  competence as a member recognized
• Developing learning trajectories that spans past,
  present and future

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Concluding remarks

• Ability to create a place resides in knowing how
  the other participants use the place, as well as
  in the process of co-constructing meaning,
  practice and activities
• Not just pointing to a fun factor or that e.g.
  games seem to motivate people but seriously
  asking what are people learning from games or
  other so-called entertainment activities
• What sort of cognitive, cultural skills do
  people learn by engaging in such
  practices/activities.
• How does it contribute to their development of
  identity and learning trajectories
• What does it mean for education if young people
  are increasingly becoming co-producers in their
  self-selected environments?