Education not only takes place in schools but also in diverse locations such as museums or maker spaces whose interconnectedness characterises them as educational ecosystems. The Deutsche Telekom Stiftung is funding several projects across Germany that aim to establish or further develop such ecosystems. One example is the GEI project ‘Educational Ecosystems. Patterns, Practices and Services’ (EEPPS), which researches educational eco systems in three different cities in Germany. The project’s central questions are:
Which templates, practices and products or services are evident in educational eco systems?
The EEPPS team is conducting interviews and participant observations within the framework of a qualitative research design in order to answer this and three subordinate questions:
- Which aims are prioritised by the providers of the educational eco systems and which media constellations are they creating in order to achieve them?
- What barriers do the providers and participating young people envisage they will encounter in relation to the interplay between the different components of the eco system and what are the facilitating factors?
- Who will benefit from the educational eco systems in the different locations and who will be disadvantaged?
Methodology
The project aims to deliver an insight into the different media constellations that constitute an educational eco system, which factors help them thrive and which cause them to founder, and what factors stabilise or destabilise them. By identifying new themes and central media constellations within the different educational eco systems the project team will be able to ascertain where there is continuity/compatibility or friction/tension within the individual eco systems. The formulation of user stories based on young people’s experiences with the eco systems will illustrate the ‘journeys’ of those young people through the different media constellations and the effect of this ‘journey’ on their narratives about themselves, their community, connections, learning and about technology. The findings will contribute to the academic debate about eco systems in education. The user stories will provide a rich seam of narratives that will appeal to readers and which can inspire future practice. The findings will also highlight the implications for building and managing educational ecosystems in the context of the education system in today's digitally networked world.
