Immersive Complexity, Motivation, Learning, and Identity: Lived Experiences of Connectedness in Students' Personal Learning Networks

• In Event: 14.045 - Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: 14.045-21 - Community of Practice, Attitudinal Learning, Personal Learning Networks, and Community

Abstract

In this post-intentional phenomenological study, I explored connectedness in lived experiences of six doctoral students’ personal learning networks (Author, 2016). Connected learning uses multimedia technologies across formal and informal spaces to build an equity agenda that fosters learning opportunities for everyone. I analyzed data from lived experience descriptions, think-aloud observations, and in-depth interviews using a whole-part-whole process that included chasing lines of flight. The tentative manifestations of the phenomenon were connectedness in context as immersive complexity, connectedness as motivation, connectedness as learning, and connectedness as identity. This work filled a gap in research on connected learning, provided a foundational understanding of experiences of connectedness, and advanced poststructural thought, qualitative research, and phenomenological philosophy in the field.

Author

• Jolie Kennedy, Lenoir Rhyne University