Abstract
In a time of social precarity and isolation, how can educators put collaborative online learning platforms to work in support of equitable, collective, and innovative pedagogies? Drawing from data provocated by the pandemic, three educators generatively encounter their theory-building with students and Miro classrooms in various educational contexts. We present a practice-based consideration of Miro, an infinite digital whiteboard, that provides a captivating space for conceptualizing place and proximity in the time of COVID. In this study, we offer a compelling window into Miro classrooms that were created to support collective and democratic social imaginaries for and with young children, education professionals, and tertiary students, discussing the pedagogical intentions therein. Across our varied contexts, we discover the whiteboard’s speculative capacity holds the potential to transform learning into a dynamically multidimensional sphere. Our findings imply that using Miro as a way of being together/apart evinces a sense of playfulness, risk-taking, and experimentation among learners across the ages. In a digitally collaborative landscape, a portal to pretend opens, empowering the learner in relation to their unique spacetimematterings. This paper considers how Miro holds the potential to illuminate the formative and interdependent nature of social constructivism, centering equity and curiosity, and confronting the indelibly entwined aspects of teaching and learning. We propose/wonder how designing and learning with digital technologies such as Miro, affords a captivating platform for revealing the expansiveness of the thinking we might imagine about ourselves, each other, and learning.
Presenters
Angela Molloy MurphyEarly Childhood Lecturer, MGSE, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Melissa Van Bergen
Lead Teacher, Helen Gordon Child Development Center, Portland State University, Oregon, United States Sarah Williams
Adjunct Faculty, Early Childhood Education, Portland State University, College of Education, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Speculative middle, Social imaginaries, Pedagogy, Innovative online learning communities, Spacetimemattering
