Abstract
This chapter focuses on transformative experiences encountered by academics and students in adjusting to, and participating in, networked learning environments. It contains the well-used metaphor of the screen as a framework for evaluating and developing questions raised in an earlier paper. It uses personal reflections from lecturer, student, and educational developer perspectives to illustrate a sense of becoming disconnected from traditional practices while at the same time drawing on the familiar. This approach to effective transition to networked learning invokes a projection toward a screen, adjusting focus to negotiate barriers and optimize enablers. Before academics and students are fully immersed in a virtual world, they still have a stake in the real one, with implications for those operating in both kinds of environment simultaneously. Identity, language, time, and engagement are viewed as both barriers and enablers in the movement toward full participation in networked learning. This exploration of sites of transformation and the process of transition involved in taking the academic online raises potential challenges and opportunities for those stepping out from behind the screen and projecting themselves into networked learning environments.
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Boon, S., Sinclair, C. (2012). Life Behind the Screen: Taking the Academic Online. In: Dirckinck-Holmfeld, L., Hodgson, V., McConnell, D. (eds) Exploring the Theory, Pedagogy and Practice of Networked Learning. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0496-5_16
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