-
Learning spaces are often hybrid. Hybridity is closely related to historical
developments within technology, politics and civil society. The paper address this
shortly. Hybrid Educational Spaces (hereafter, HES) denote spaces that are emergent
within a specific institutional setting. They are the structures that enable the field of
Hybrid Education [
16
] and involve educational patterns supporting hybrid pedagogy
[
14
] and new concepts of citizenship [
20
].
Technological developments are fuelling the global integration process [
11
]. In
politics the promotion of free trade and processes of political integration has further
integrated transactions across the globe. This in turn has prompted the emergence of a
global civil society tackling issues such as climate change and economic inequality
[
8
]. Developments are often ambiguous involving both positive and negative
consequences [
21
]. E.g. educational technologies such as Learning Management
Systems are both broadening the scope of potential participation and raising the stakes
for participation by commercialization of education and ed-tech [
3
]. In this, students
build on an hybrid base of experience that shapes their expectations and the
construction of personhood [
12
]. Hybridity emerges as a reality in the classrooms of
the world and underlie the shaping of identity [
5
]. The educational spaces are
perforated by the surrounding society and the world at large. The ubiquitous
combination of the digital and the physical in an increasingly interconnected and
globalized world have become the social norm [
4
]. In other words, traditional
educational spaces are being transformed along multiple dimensions giving rise to
HES.
The paper argues that HES be distinguished from the Hybrid Learning Spaces in at
least two ways which refer to theoretical and practical differences between
‘education’ and ‘learning’. The differences highlight dimensions central to the
understanding of HES. The paper discusses these dimensions and present a
conceptual model of HES that may serve as a tool of reflection and give possible
guidelines for the design.
Two theoretical differences are identified. Firstly, education as opposed to learning
is fixed in time. It has a beginning and a predictable end. Education as such is an
intersection in the process of learning [
1
]. Secondly, education is intentional in that it
strives for some form of goal-attainment, level of competence or degree of knowledge
broadly conceived whereas learning is essentially something that happens or emerges
and it is situated and context-dependent [
17
]. Education can also be understood as
serving specific functions [
6
]. Not distinguishing between learning and education
leads us to confuse a theory of pedagogy (teaching) with a theory of knowing
(epistemology) [
7
]. Practical differences between learning and education refers to the
fact that education is institutionalized and at the basic level mandatory in most
countries. From a legal perspective education is both an important social right and at
the same time an obligation because it is essential to the full membership of a
community and to citizenship [
18
]. The institutional character of education
distinguishes it from learning along certain dimensions or continuums which will be
discussed in the paper. These are formal/informal, constructed/realistic, private/public
and reality/virtuality.
Formal/informal: Education are bound to budget constraints and legal obligations.
It is formalized along a chosen curriculum-mix [
22
] and are framed by historically
emergent disciplinary norms constituting a ‘disciplinary matrix’ [
15
]. Education rely
on formal requirements so creating HES comes with restraints in order to foster a
combination of formal and informal social structures characterizing HES [
9
].
Constructed/Realistic: Educational institutions are bound to specific
geographically fixed places. Here the real or realistic are mimicked to be able to fit
into the pre-existing educational structures e.g. the textbook, constructed models, etc.
HES with its emphasis on social learning prefers realistic settings and real-world
problems [
24
] but ‘realistic’ has a broader connotation. Drawing on insights from
Mathematics Education it means that the students are offered problem situations
which they can actually imagine [
23
].
Private/public: In Arendt’s tripartition between the private realm of the family, the
public realm of the world and the social realm of the school education was understood
as a politically determined temporary interposition from childhood to adulthood [
2
].
In education the children would have to be shielded from the public realm and
viceversa in order to make possible the renewal of our common world. To expose oneself
to the light of the public realm needs careful preparation. Eberly’s ‘protopublic’
classroom activities are presented as an example [
10
]. Reality/Virtuality: HES denote
situations where you are connected to public networks and where the distinction
between the virtual and the real begins to blur in what Milgram & Kishino termed the
‘reality-virtuality-continuum’ [
19, 23
]. Hybrid learning is characterized by the use of
technology, thus HES is positioned in the part of hybrid reality along the dimension
from reality to virtuality [
13
]. The uses of IT and the affordances of the Internet are
very central to HES because they to a large extent makes mobility along the other
dimensions possible e.g. to establish more informal learning spaces, to offer
imaginative support in problem solving or to merge the public and the private sphere.
To conceptualize HES the paper utilizes the dimensions mentioned above. The
model is intended as a means for reflection and discussion of concrete designs. It may
inform design only to the extent that any design of HES must consider these
dimensions.