ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses how used a combination of aural, textual and visual data to gain insights into the learning spaces of online distance students. It suggests that the construction of student study space often has to be negotiated from within domestic space, and doing so involves the deliberate use of manufactured silence or sound in order to establish territories for personal learning. The chapter draws on research undertaken with students from the M. Sc. in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh. Fluegge's description of territorialism and sonic trespass to consider the ways that students were seen to carve out, in an aural and material way, a personal learning space within a wider social environment. The nature of the space captured within Elise's postcard also challenges our use of territoriality and sonic trespass as a way of thinking about learning spaces.