Dear Sheryl, have a look at these papers.  I find them interesting.  Do get in touch with the authors as they are on RG.  Good luck.

Article Heutagogy and Lifelong Learning: A Review of Heutagogical Pr...

Chapter Heutagogy, technology, and lifelong learning: Curriculum gea...

Thank you

As we know many adult students are internally, or intrinsically motivated, believing that education has a specific purpose, hence motivation them to perform and be willing to sacrifice both time and energy to do well (a key plank of Heutagogy). From the psychological side of the fence this is all tied up with Self Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000), or SDT, and Social Capitol Theory (Kickett, 2012), or SCT. 

What we have found with our research with Indigenous Australians is that we need to be looking at and practices associated with identity forming and relatedness, as they apply to learning and teaching. Particularly in our context where students need to also experience this in the formal online environment, but are not necessarily comfortable in these environments that can sometimes be quite depersonalising.

Not surprisingly, we also found that relatedness is understood in various ways across cultures: for example, in relation to kinship and country in Indigenous contexts (Martin, 2003), through social capital theory (Coleman, 1988), and in online environments through networked learning (Goodyear, Jones, Asensio, Hodgson, & Steeples, 2005) and connectivism (Siemens, 2004).

However, relatedness in this context refers to the trust and reciprocity that is developed in bonding, binding and linking relationships (Woolcock & Narayan, 2000) between people, mediated inside and outside of virtual learning environments, and designed to affirm cultural and racial identity and practices. The conceptual location where these ideas and practices are negotiated and reframed is what Nakata calls the “cultural interface” (Nakata, 2007). 

Our experience Australian indigenous students indicates that online learning spaces are not generally conducive to the sorts of relatedness upon which their lives depend. Also, representation of identity within the online environment is an essential prerequisite for establishing connections. However, opportunities to develop an online identity within our units/courses are at best ‘ad hoc’ and the extent to which students are prepared to reveal their identities depends on a range of factors including the extent to which others in the environment are ‘known’.

The yearning for connection in online learning environments contrasts with the sense some students have of this environment is a ‘formal’ environment, rather than a ‘social’ one, and where the mechanisms for making connections (such as online discussion forums) are not designed in ways that can draw Indigenous students into the learning environment, or seen to be connected with other parts of their lives.

Importantly, from a design perspective, many learning design models that guide the development of online learning spaces and learning interactions have very little focus on ‘relationship’ focusing more on ‘connectedness’ around a concept, and where this does exist, it is mainly in the context of teacher-student processes and interactions around a learning scenario, rather than around identity.

The points presented below highlight the social aspects of learning and the need for an institutional level approach to support holistic learning environments.  It can be as simple as incorporating some concepts by which relatedness is achieved, particularly for Indigenous students, or it could be extended to incorporate other systems within the VLE that are aligned with the LMS such as an ePortfolio, an internal social networking tool, or/and allowing for the syndication of information from certain social media sites. Regardless of how it is conceived the following recommendations came out of our research:

At an Institutional level:

• Engagement with a suite of technologies to facilitate the development of comprehensive student and staff profiles (identity), along with a openness to receive external social networking feeds.
• Train staff in the notion of digital and social networking literacy and on how to facilitate student engagement, based on a centralized profile (identity). 
• Establish and support specific online spaces for Indigenous students (and other defined groups), within the institutional community site, to facilitate the networking across the institution.

At a Unit level:

• Ensure the design of unit environments can facilitate the use of, and align with, student profiles. 
• Train and support students, early in their engagement with the institution, on how to represent themselves in their university based profile (identity). This requires a level of sophistication and may, for example, address ways to encode Indigeneity that may not be visible to non-Indigenous students or staff, if this is desired.

These recommendations provide a means to integrate concepts and practices aligned with ‘relatedness’ into HE institutions, to create friendlier and safer online spaces for Indigenous, and indeed for all students, in order to enhance the experience of online learning.

I'm happy to supply the references separately, to save space here. However, the pear this research is based on will be published next week and i can forward you the link, once live.

Cheers

Michael

Associate Professor Michael Sankey

Learning Environments and Media

University of Southern Queensland, Australia

[email protected] 

Alison Reedy (First Author)

Office of Learning and Teaching

Charles Darwin University, Australia

Kia ora Michael, a link to the research would be most appreciated, many thanks.

Hi Sheryl i just uploaded it to RG at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael_Sankey/contributions

But in case that link doesn't work i have also attached it.Cheers

Michael 

Great, many thanks