Consulta a trámite 489/2010

As part of their coursework media students had to evaluate the special effects used in movies, and other film making techniques. Resultantly, as indicated in the introduction to this chapter, it could be even more difficult to identify if students were doing their coursework by watching a film, or if they were just casually watching one. Using the Internet, students could access a range of websites where they could choose from a range of films to watch for these tasks, they could even search for film clips on websites, such as YouTube. For some students, even if they were doing their work they could still drift away from their schedule, as an interview with Debbie illustrates.

Debbie: I just sit on YouTube and like, cos for my FMP I’m doing short films, I have to

watch them. So I’m like, I’m watching films or programmes and then you’re watching it and then I’m thinking, “Oh, I’ve got like four hours until four o’clock, oh I can watch something else…I can watch something else”. It’s like three o’clock and like, “Okay, I’ve got an hour and haven’t done anything”.

For the FMP, which lasted for at least two terms clearly the students ideally needed some self discipline in regulating how they engaged with their online research. There was some awareness of this that surfaced during interviews.

Ash: I think with the FMP…..like I’m doing, like an online portfolio…..It’s like you can sit

on MySpace going through, like cos you could use that almost like…an online portfolio, like for uploading pictures and stuff and it can end up being an excuse for looking at YouTube as well.

Seth: …cos I’m doing a short film as well, like an advert. The thing is…if you choose

something you enjoy to do, like your FMP, or something like that, really makes the whole subject more fun for…cos like you think, “Oh yeah, just going to research like say biking” and I can look at the new bikes, but I could review them while I’m doing it.

From Seth’s comment, he was aware through his choice of subject that he was able to combine coursework evidencing with a personal interest and therefore gain personal knowledge and

coursework evidencing, and retain his interest. Ash realised the distractions that he could incur, by being on the Internet and all of its alternate resources unrelated to his immediate task.

What these comments from students identify is that there was the potential for them to become distracted while engaging with these types of activities. Some like Seth used a personal interest as the topic for a creative task and then the research and the following work could become more engaging.

What students’ comments on their non-academic use of computers serve to illustrate is how much they were aware of this. Even with Seth’s more considered use of the Internet, it was noticeable that at times he could spend a disproportionate amount of time on the Internet, relative to what he needed to do. Therefore, even in the most considered of circumstances the multimodality of what he was watching for his project could engage him for significantly longer than needed. For example, if he was watching a film to assess how they were achieving a particular effect in it, he could end up watching the whole film, rather than repeating the part with the effect in.

Some students were reflective on how their intentions to use social, or leisure media briefly could end up being longer than intended depending on the circumstances.

Scott: I used to be really bad, I mean some days I used to spend full days watching Family

Guy. Then I realised, ye know, I can’t do this anymore –

Sean: It all depends, cos sometimes you can go on it and you’ve got like no messages or

comments, other times you’ll be havin’ like ten people on to talk to always and you just get like into the zone of that, and it’s like “Oh, I’ve got work to so, see ye”, you’ve got to get back to the work.

During one group interview with female media students I asked them if they could police the time spent on non-academic activities.

Emily: I usually just go on to check my messages, reply and then go off again.

Liz: Unless you’re in conversation [and laughs].

Emily: Yeah, then…[all laugh together].

Liz: If someone [tutor] doesn’t notice it then I go on just to like check and then I think, ‘Oh

no one’s noticed’ so I stay on a bit longer [laughing], and then I stay on a bit longer, that’s it.

It was apparent that both Emily and Liz where mindful of their tutor’s presence and how he might have responded to their social activities. Through technology they escaped the confines of the classroom and maintained their contact with friends that they socialised with when not in college. It was clearly the need to maintain this socialisation that appeared to drive these actions and many of the messages that were exchanged, were quite trivial and could easily have been completed during a break, or at the end of a session. Emily and Liz seemed good friends and caught up on social events at the start of a session but this appeared to not satisfy a need for social contact over the duration of a session. When checking through fieldnotes, these were not isolated occurrences in all the

classrooms, but a regular activity in each and every session that I observed. Therefore, for students it becomes a norm, rather than an intermittent activity of displacing their attention from the

coursework and in some instances the space of the classroom.

During the same interview with Liz and Emily, they were asked if this break from their coursework helped them cope with the coursework.

Liz: NO, it just distracts me [laughing]. If I’m like sat thinking about something [not course relevant] I just type it into Google [and laughs].

All of these students were enthusiastic about their course, they were very pleasant and polite and not disruptive in the conventional sense of disruptive and challenging behaviour, which could occur with some FE students (Vizard, 2012). Despite this, they could still get distracted and thus not progress with their coursework at the pace that the tutors had allowed for. What was noticeable from observation with all the cohorts was that if one student was watching an online video, or film, and found something amusing other students stopped their work and either turned around, or moved over to watch. So, what was a distraction for one could escalate and eventually a tutor intervened and the students then returned to their work. This could be repeated several times during a session, with the tutor becoming increasingly frustrated at times.

This chapter has so far identified a range of ways that students used their computers and other technologies for social and leisure uses; this is especially germane to the overall focus of how these technologies are shaping the learning environment. The data does identify a divide between the classroom learning space, the classroom space for non-academic activities and a division where technologies enable a division between the classroom space and the social world outside. Therefore due to the technologies having that capacity many students will take advantage. Outside of the college, they use computers for the same purpose and it is the distinction between the formal and informal situation that appears to be fluid, together with technology’s capacity to border cross depending on the user’s command. This complex situation, so far works towards the focus of several of the research questions, including the main and the subsidiary questions, and how technologies are used academically, which will be the focus of Chapter 7.

As commented, many of the music students listened to music while they worked, and this was with the tutor’s permission as it did at least reduce the social chitchat and there was a general consensus of opinion that it did afford the students to focus more on their work. It did seem to partially fulfil this purpose but I did wonder if this was at the cost of them attaining a deeper engagement with their coursework. Laughey (2006: 125), suggests that music ‘consumers can become unconscious, or only semi-conscious of its presence’ when it is used as background noise. In this context, this proposition is questionable due to attention capacity and its potential distracting factors under some conditions. When focusing on students’ use of background music during the sessions I noticed that at times the music was never continuously acting in the background and during part of the music where there was possibly a favourite section, students stopped their work and listened more

intently. If students were sharing earphones, then this could develop into a point of discussion and any work was temporarily suspended. Roda (2011: 119) posits that selective, but divided attention ‘can induce errors’. As a person’s efficiency of processing information is limited (Styles, 2006), then self-selected background noise must be considered as something that contributes to the amount of attention given to an activity. That is aside from other variables, such as cognitive ability, the internal dynamics of the classroom, any direct physical noise (Schmeichel and Baumeister, 2010) and so on. This is not discounting the affordances of more emotional and communal elements of learning, which due to their presence, or absence can be gained, or lost; these can be internal learning cultures and atmosphere within the classroom, plus other more individual factors such as tiredness. These are just some of the range of influencing factors that contribute, or detract from a focused social learning context.

To add to this, I noticed that those students who worked in isolation by wearing their headphones had a tendency to academically engage less with the students around them and therefore any potential gain from peer interaction and support, not discounting potential critical discussions, was not being exploited. An argument could be that as the students were focused on their work, at these times they needed the isolation from others. Countering this was that this practice was the norm (see Section 5.4) and for a social place of education, the level of peer discussion and learning I witnessed was quite minimal. Hence, due to this, at times and as previously commented there was an unexpected quietness to the rooms. The implication from this illustrates that, ‘stillness and quiet are not in themselves signs of educational ‘productivity’’ (Noble and Watkins, 2009: 4).

So far this chapter has focused on the students and as the practices of students were so prevalent, it is valuable to draw in the views of the teaching and LSA staff who had contact with the students. This allows for a broader view of these activities beyond observation and the voice of the students.