CHAPTER 5: COMPUTER-RESOURCED CLASSROOMS AS LEARNING
5.7 PRAGMATISM AND EDUCATIONAL MATURITY
Max, a year 2 music student had a consistent approach to his work and rarely interacted with other students during sessions, although he did actively socialise during breaks. I asked him about the duration of the sessions.
Max: Erhm…I’m one of those people that just kind of gets on with the work and tries to get
it done all in one go. But, erhm…yeah, it’s nice to have a change of subject every now and then, so you don’t get bored of what you’re doing.
AB: Do you ever find that you do get bored in a session at all?
Max: Err, no [laughing] I’m a workaholic really [and laughs again]….yeah.
One distinction with Max was that he had been home schooled. He mentioned that from this he had learned to focus on a task until it was completed, as then he was allowed to relax and play for the rest of the day.
William was another year 2 music student who had a degree in Sport but decided to pursue a career in music and he was actively involved in music production.
William: I don’t think really our lessons last long enough for that to happen, I’ve not been
aware of that anyway. No, not really.
AB: So, are the length of the sessions okay?
William: They’re fine to be honest. I think anything over two hours is a bit much,
maybe….but when you’re getting on with work and things then it’s fine.
For the majority of the students it appeared to be a challenge to remain engaged for the duration of a session. But these two students were noticeably more focused on their work than the majority, although Max did indicate that at times he got bored but from observation this did not appear to detract from his focus on his work.
When the research started I had not considered if the working environment of the classrooms was affecting students’ approaches to their work. As mentioned above, the only classrooms that I had
any detailed knowledge of appeared to be appropriate for the students. Consequently, what has emerged was quite a surprise and indicated a more complex situation than previously imagined.
From the data are several factors from the learning environment and the extensive use of computers that affected how students engaged with their coursework, and perceived the course. The students did, at times, find the environment of the classroom challenging to be in for the duration of the sessions. Adverse temperatures, even if uncomfortable and not extreme, can be a factor in reducing attention span and motivation. There was also the fish smell that permeated one classroom from nearby fish processing factories when the windows were open on warm days, which was quite unpleasant. Whereas a comfortable climate can increase productivity, regardless of whether it is a classroom or office environment (Jago and Tanner, 1999; Mendell and Heath, 2005; Wargocki, 2008), these adverse elements accumulate when taken as an overall impression of the working conditions. For some students there was more to consider as the time spent looking at the computer’s monitor resulted in headaches and eyestrain. Seating position may also have
contributed to this without the students being aware. Adding to this, was the bland fabric of the rooms and despite the computers containing all the resources the students needed for their coursework they could not form any identification with the rooms, or in the case of the music students, both the rooms and the building itself.
These working conditions for the students can be seen to emerge as a multifaceted and significant contributory factor in how they engaged with the activities and concomitantly their approach to the academic work. Even though the conditions of the room were not at an extreme level of discomfort the students did experience this for hours at a time; therefore they must be considered as one
contributory element in how students behaved in that environment.
Returning to Section 5.3 and the decor of the classrooms, my impression over the academic year was that the students did accept the blandness of the environment, despite the disappointment. For the music students, being within a multi-purpose building with no clear identity of music culture was a particular disappointment especially as the building was quite small. The media students, despite being on the main campus also expressed that the building they were in had a lack of
identity. By not being able to identify with the space, either by decorating it with artefacts, or other means, could this be a partial factor towards how students viewed their college experience and therefore identified with being a student? The closest I saw any students actualise any identification in the rooms was by the first act that they performed when sitting at their computer, which was to
place either their mobile phone, or digital audio player near their keyboard. In this way they
territorialized and shaped their immediate space, together with what they accessed digitally through social, or entertainment media. These objects are portals to other spaces, experiences, even
memories and through these a temporary territorialization can be formed (Macgregor Wise, 2000).
The pertinence of this analysis is that cultures are enacted and reinforced as an iterative process, not only by what the students surrounded themselves with, it can even be embodied through their clothes (Entwistle and Wilson, 2001), as many music students would noticeably dress similarly to their favourite bands. Social actors can express themselves through signs and their meanings: the semiotic mechanisms that are at work in social and cultural practices. As noted in Section 2.3.4, Deleuze and Guattari (1987) and Buchanan (2004), suggest that there is comfort attained from establishing a refrain and through this act a milieu is formed and consequently a personal space is shaped when it is needed.
5.8 CONCLUSION
To conclude, this chapter has reviewed the students’ perceptions of the conditions of the computer- resourced classrooms, and the extensive periods of time that they spent working with computers. What emerged were students becoming bored and distracted, with some experiencing physical effects, such as headaches and eyestrain from the time spent looking at a computer monitor. Resultantly, this impacted on their approach to the coursework. For example, media students Emma and Emily commented that as a consequence of the conditions they were unable to become motivated to even start working, or they were unable to complete any work they had already started. Debbie suffered from eyestrain and migraines from working on the computers and these at times lasted for days, despite her starting to wear prescription glasses more in the sessions. She added that after she got home from a day at college she often sat and read a book for a short time, rather than immediately using her computer for her normal leisure purposes. Debbie likened this to detoxing and it was one of her coping strategies for spending so much time on computers while at college. Other students relaxed when they were at home by spending even more time on
computers, or other technologies. The distinction was that at home they could use these devices for their own needs, when they wanted to, for as long as they wanted and have as many breaks as they needed.
What is evident is that there is a clear relationship between the conditions that students experienced in the computer-resourced classrooms and how they engaged with their coursework. Time spent working independently on computers was certainly one factor in how students considered their educational experience, as being less than ideal. The lack of course identity to the classrooms and even the anonymity of the music centre itself is open to conjecture towards how much this could adversely affect their educational experience; but these certainly did not enhance it. Therefore what the students only had to identify with the course was through the units they studied and the
evidencing on the computers. In this case the media students did have some advantage over the music students due to their continual use of industry standard specialist software. Although, outside of the classrooms the music students had sessions in the music studios, where playing their
instruments and using the recording and production software could underpin their identity as performing musicians.
The educational conundrum that emerges is that the students needed to spend time working on computers for their evidencing, but there were adverse physical and motivational consequences from this. Students then sought other distractions as a relief, which then added to the time they needed to complete their coursework.
The classrooms themselves and their anonymity reflect the difficulty that a small college has with resource management and using these limited assets to their potential. If a non-media course needed to regularly timetable a room for the computers those students would not want have wanted to feel that they were intruding into another department. While the students did tolerate the
classroom conditions and the amount of time they used computers for during their sessions, in that there were no formal complaints, clearly, to some degree these had an effect on their perceptions of the course and how they engaged with their coursework. As some students indicated, if they wanted a break from the amount of time spent using computers for coursework, they frequently used the same computer for social and leisure activities.
This leads to the second subsidiary question, which the next chapter, Chapter 6 will direct its focus to: How is students’ use of these resources in the classroom affected by their potential for use as a social and leisure resource?