A digital learning environment mediating students' funds of knowledge and knowledge creation

Abstract

Despite the growing importance and popularity of new digitally enhanced making and design environments, students' knowledge creation is still a fairly unexplored issue within these contexts. To address this research gap, we have drawn on empirical case study data from a public school that is implementing a novel making and design environment called the FUSE Studio. Our data comprise 111 hours of video records of 9-12-year-old students' (N = 94) making and design activities collected during one semester. Drawing from sociocultural and cultural-historical theorizing with a specific focus on the concepts of funds of knowledge and knowledge creation, we ask: 1) How are students' funds of knowledge manifested in the FUSE Studio? 2) How do students' funds of knowledge mediate their knowledge creation activity? "Funds of knowledge" refers to a student's multiple cultural resources that stem from their life worlds in and out of school. Our findings indicate that students' knowledge creation includes vertical knowledge maintenance, horizontal knowledge breaking, and knowledge expansion. The latter involves a tension-laden socio-materially mediated process that opens up opportunities for the creation of innovative solutions and expansion of a student's existing funds of knowledge.

Construction of a 5G Wireless Semantic Web-Assisted English Digital Learning Resource Query System

“…ongkoo K et al proposed a method of querying English digital learning resources using contextawareness, in which learners log in to the query system through learning terminals, and the system will automatically obtain contextual information and process and interpret it, and according to learners' contextual information, the query system will provide learners with relevant English digital learning resources at the right time and the right location [10]. Kajamaa A et al first establish the index between knowledge from building ontology, and when querying English digital learning resources, they not only match the query content but also query the course knowledge and English digital learning resources related to the query content, thus providing learners with a complete knowledge structure [11]. Based on 5G wireless semantic web technology, Ng B et al combined and encapsulated English digital learning resources in a certain way and standardized English digital learning resources into a unified description, so that only the query content and the unified standard description of English digital learning resources need to be matched to query the required resources [12].…”

Funds of Knowledge in STEM Education: A Scoping Review

“…Four studies examined how students used their funds of knowledge when actively participating in learning activities, such as projects, games, or assigned problems (Bose, 2017;Fox-Turnbull, 2015;Kajamaa et al, 2018;Razfar, 2012). In Kajamaa et al (2018), Finnish students extended makerspace project tasks based on their funds of knowledge, such as creation of a felt shirt for a cat during an LED circuits activity. Students also collaborated and debated with each other during projects, using their collective knowledge to design faucets and create a working definition of what counts as a big house.…”

Students’ multimodal knowledge practices in a makerspace learning environment

“…By emphasizing students' own choice and interest and connecting the educational learning activities to their everyday lives and communities outside the school, technology-and materially-rich learning environments can also create local or online "hybrid spaces" for teaching and learning in which the formal and everyday creatively intersect (see Gutiérrez et al 1999;Ludvigsen 2012;Kajamaa et al 2018). The novel technological infrastructures and learning arrangements also allow students to relate to materiality and to transform it in new ways, as the students are typically invited to act creatively to modify and develop material objects as part of the learning process (Kumpulainen et al 2019a, b).…”