Emerging, rhizomatic networks and new ways of connectivity

This chapter introduces a framework for analyzing learning networks. It builds on findings from an investigation of students’ experiences from and participation in online teaching during the Covid19-lockdown. The investigation is based on empirical data in the form of 32 interviews with students from a variety of University College Programmes (business-, administration-, construction-, technology-, health-, pedagogy- and teacher education). The interviews were conducted as part of a larger study, where data also consisted of responses to surveys from 84000 students. As part of the interviews, the students were asked to share their experiences regarding learning through online participation. From the body of the empirical data, three cases were singled out for this chapter aiming to maintain a high degree of complexity and maximum variation.
Through the contemporary theories within the field of Networked Learning, we aim to show examples of how the students were networked during the Covid-19 shutdown and the implications that emerging networks had on their participation in online educational activities. Furthermore, we suggest the utilization of the applied framework for analyzing how students are experiencing and expressing their perspectives on being networked. The main findings suggest that online teaching during the lockdown required students to establish new patterns of participation, thus, establishing new structures and ways to collaborate. This led to emerging networks supporting various aspects of their life setting as students and creating opportunities for engaging in new social configurations and learning.
The chapter falls into five parts. Part one introduces the background for our study and the overall contribution of our work to the field of Networked Learning. The second part explains the related work and how theory from the field of Networked Learning provides input into how we studied our research question. This is further elaborated in part three, which also captures our analytical framework and presents our methodological considerations. Part four presents our analysis and finding using extracts from the empirical data to show, how different networks and ways of being networked emerged. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the findings, the developed analytical framework, pointing at some future directions.