Space as a tool for analysis: Examining digital learning spaces

Over the past decade we have seen a rise in the adoption and proliferation of social technologies, and along with these a move to build on the capacity to embrace new pedagogies and practices that can open our boundaries for both teaching and learning. How do we determine what we mean by space specifically in online environments and how can we examine whether our intentions for learning in them are effective? How can these spaces be enacted as learning spaces and how do we design for them? We will need to develop new methods and frameworks for analysis which takes into consideration how we conceive, perceive and enact our digital spaces and how this impacts on our practices and approaches to teaching and learning within these spaces. This paper will explore how we envision space, how a spatial perspective might be used to help assess and design these spaces, and will provide an analytical framework to examine the tensions we encounter when teaching and learning in open digital spaces.