The chronotopes of technology-mediated creative learning practices in an elementary school community

Abstract

This socioculturally informed study examines space–time configurations of students' technology-mediated creative learning practices in a Finnish elementary school over a school musical project. This study focuses on the social practices of 21 students who worked with personal laptops, wireless internet access, and a collaborative writing service, at school and outside, to collaborate on creating a school musical script. The findings provide evidence of a novel chronotope in which the students engaged in ubiquitous, multimodal, and multidimensional, technology-mediated creative learning practices. These blended practices appeared to break away from traditional learning practices, allowing students to navigate in different time zones, spaces, and places with diverse tools situated in their formal and informal lives.

Keywords:

• technology-mediated creative learning practices
• chronotopes
• collaborative learning
• pedagogical issues
• cross-curricular projects

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Academy of Finland, Virtual Intelligent Space for Collaborative Innovation project (No: 129265). We thank Taneli Vähäkangas, Antti Rajala, the VISCI-research team, and the anonymous reviewers of this paper for their contributions.

Notes on contributors

Kristiina Kumpulainen is a professor of education at the Department of Teacher Education, University of Helsinki. Her research interests focus on socioculturally informed educational research, formal and informal learning, learning environments and new technologies, innovative schools and their pedagogies, teacher professional development, video research methodologies, as well as on interdisciplinary research for the promotion of learning in the 21st century. Currently, she is in charge of two ongoing research projects funded by the Academy of Finland, AGENTS – Towards children's efficacious agency in formal and formal contexts and VISCI – Virtual intelligent space for collaborative innovation.

Anna Mikkola is a researcher at the Faculty of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki. She currently works in Virtual intelligent space for collaborative innovation research project. Her research interests focus on formal and informal learning, development of 21st century learning environments and innovative technologies and visual methodologies.

Anna-Mari Jaatinen is a headmaster of a Finnish elementary school. She is interested in pedagogical leadership issues, educational transformation, collaborative learning communities, 21st century pedagogies and social media.