For the state of the art report
John Cook

I have been working in the area of informal learning for some years now, e.g. see http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/ltri/research/informal.htm

Working with colleague Norbert Pachler form the Institute of Education, we have taken the provisional view of formal and informal learning as being part of a continuum of a multi-dimensional clustering of informal and formal learning activities rather than positioned in an either-or relationship. Below is an extract that explains our position in more detail; this is taken from the following article which is due for publishing online at the end of April, comments welcome:

Cook, J., Pachler, N. and Bradley, C. (2008) Bridging the gap? Mobile phones at the interface between informal and formal learning. Journal of the Research Centre for Educational Technology. Special Issue on Learning While Mobile. Spring. Available at: http://www.rcetj.org/?type=ci&id

Some Thoughts about Informal Learning
The aim of the study reported in this paper was to investigate how mobile devices are being integrated by learners in their informal/private ‘space’ and what use they make of mobile devices in formal learning contexts. Specifically, we report on a study of the innovative use of high-end mobile phones for off-site and on-campus mobile learning. Very little rigorous work has been reported to date on the potential affordance that mobile devices can provide as a bridge between formal and informal learning situations (Cook, 2007; Vahey, Tatar & Roschelle, 2007). We are particularly interested in the bases of the appropriation (Bakardjieva, 2005) of new mobile communications systems. Bakardjieva (2005) characterises her approach to appropriation as “technology-in-use-in-social-situations” (p. 34), or technology extended to include the acts of use in social situations. This is where users mobilise available cultural tools, in our case smart phones, to respond to a social situation. Consequently, we expected to find early users of the Nokia N91 smart phones demonstrating agency, i.e. appropriation, in relation to discovering the relevance of mobile learning to their own contexts.

We take a broad definition of formal and informal learning and caution that our working definitions are intended only as work in progress. We view learning as a process of cognitive and social development (Vygotsky, 1978) in which social interaction is mediated by cultural tools, such as language and technology. Formality in learning we see related to external recognition and accreditation, typically in the form of a qualification or an award and the infrastructure attendant to it, such as a curriculum or direct or indirect pedagogical intervention. Informality in learning is a complex field. Smith (1997, 2007) stresses that we should refer to informal ‘education’; this is because ‘informal learning’ has been used of late as an en vogue term by various governments who have specific agendas and because the term education brings in a broader range of factors and social issues. He also points out that informal education “has been around as long as people have grouped together. One way of thinking about it is as the education of daily living”. A similar view is put forward by Rogers (2006) who likens informal learning to breathing:

Informal learning is ... seen as a natural activity which continues at all times; it is highly individualised, contextualised ... . It is almost always concrete, limited to the immediate need; it is always embedded within some other activity. It is associated with our identities – either with confirming and fulfilling our identities in a changing world, or with changing our identities. It is our own individual way of making sense (meaning) of life’s experiences and using that for dealing with new experiences. ... like breathing, it is the (mental) process of drawing into ourselves the natural and human environment in which we live ... and using it to build up (develop) ourselves. (p. 4)

A key defining aspect of informal learning for us is who determines the learning goals, i.e. agency. Thus we are viewing informal learning as a natural activity by a self-motivated learner ‘under the radar’ of a tutor, individually or in a group, intentionally or tacitly, in response to an immediate or recent situation or perceived need, or serendipitously with the learner mostly being (meta-cognitively) unaware of what is being learnt. In so doing, and guided by Eraut (2000), we want to focus our attention on the learning processes involved rather than on administrative matters surrounding them. Rogers (2006) distinguishes between ‘task-conscious learning’, “where learning is not conscious but takes place while engaged in some activity and when achievements are measured not in terms of learning but of task completion”, and ‘learning-conscious learning’, “where learning is intended and conscious and achievements are measured in terms of learning” (p. 7). We find this distinction helpful and see informal learning towards the former end of the spectrum. Indeed, ‘Bridging the gap?’ in the title of our paper implies that informal learning can involve some links to formal learning. Thus we view formal and informal learning as being part of a continuum or a multi-dimensional clustering of informal and formal learning activities rather than positioned in an either-or relationship.

References

Cook, J. (2007). Generating new learning contexts: Novel forms of reuse and learning on the move. Invited talk at ED-MEDIA 2007 – World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications, June 25-29, Vancouver, Canada.

Bakardjieva, M. (2005). Internet society. The Internet in everyday life. London: Sage Publications.

Eraut, M. (2000). Non-formal learning, implicit learning and tacit knowledge in professional work. In F. Coffield (Ed.) The necessity of informal learning (pp. 12-31). Bristol: The Policy Press.

Rogers, A. (2006, September 21-23). Informal learning in lifelong learning. Paper presented at Informal Learning and Digital Media: Constructions, Contexts and Consequences. University of Southern Denmark, Odense. Danish Research Centre on Education and Advanced Media Materials (Dream). Retrieved February 12, 2008 from: http://www.dream.sdu.dk/uploads/files/Alan%20Rogers.pdf

Smith, M. (1997, 2007). A brief history of thinking about informal education. Infed. Retrieved February 12, 2008, from http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-hist.htm

Vahey, P., Tatar, D., & Roschelle, J. (2007). Using handheld technology to move between private and public interactions in the classroom. In M. van 't Hooft & K. Swan (Eds.), Ubiquitous computing in education: Invisible technology, visible impact (pp. 187-210). Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.