Introduction

Within the framework of the Horizon 2020 European Union projects, the Faculty of Information and Communication (FIC) of the University of the Republic (Universidad de la República) took part in the research project Transmedia Literacy. Exploiting transmedia skills and informal learning strategies to improve formal education (hereinafter: Transliteracy). Its general objective is to understand and analyze how adolescents from eight different countries⁵ put into use and share their transmedia skills, and to identify the informal learning strategies they develop in their transmedia practices.

Transmedia literacy is understood as a set of skills, practices, values, sensitivities and learning and exchange strategies developed and applied in the context of a new collaborative culture (^{Scolari, 2016}). Also, the project seeks to complement its findings with the generation of didactic tools that favor formal education in the integration of said knowledge and methodologies.

The research identified several axes in which transmedia skills could be visualized in action, namely: videogames, social networks and creation practices and content exchange within the framework of that participatory culture. Based on these axes, the proposal for fieldwork that was carried out in four public high schools in Montevideo is presented here.

The present article gathers, on the one hand, a first approximation of descriptive character on the main findings⁶ related to the informal learning strategies developed by adolescents in their transmedia practices; and on the other, some preliminary reflections about their value as an input for teaching practices and teaching strategies in the classroom (^{Winocur, Morales, Barreneche & Gutiérrez, 2017a}; ^{Winocur, Ceretta, Cabrera, Rodríguez & Morales, 2017b}). Those strategies are related to teaching, imitation, problem solving, evaluation, “learning by doing” and playing. These findings share the concern in the specialized literature about “digital dissonance” (^{Black, Castro & Lin, 2015}, ^{Buckingham, 2007}, ^{Clark, Logan, Luckin, Mee & Oliver, 2009}), that is, the existing gap between the teaching-learning proposal offered by schools, and the skills acquired by young people in digital environments and how to promote their complementarity.

Methodology

The research Transliteracy had a methodological design that privileged an ethnographic approach that has proven to be a reliable and wellestablished methodology for education studies (^{LeCompte & Preissle, 1993}; ^{Street, 2014}; ^{Wolcott, 1997}), youth and new digital media (^{Horst, Herr-Stephenson & Robinson, 2010}; ^{Kraidy & Murphy, 2004}; ^{Leander, 2008}, ^{Lange & Ito, 2010}; ^{Valdivia Barrios, Herrera & Guerrero, 2015}; ^{Winocur, 2016}).

In this case, we resorted to approaches that include industrial ethnography, specifically fast ethnography (^{Handwerker, 2001}, ^{Jordan, 2012}), and participatory design methods (^{Crabtree, 1998}, ^{Halse & Boffi, 2014}). These methods are generally characterized by: research activities that take place in a shorter time frame; the multidisciplinary nature of the teams; the use of mixed methods of data collection, and an emphasis on the findings that lead to applied interventions (^{Pink & Morgan, 2013}). Especially inspiring was the notion of “short-term ethnography”, which involves intensive excursions into people’s lives.

Informal learning

The Transliteracy research project widely develops the state of the art in relation to informal learning strategies (^{Scolari, 2017}). The concept of informal learning can be traced in ^{Dewey’s pedagogical work (1938)}, which highlights the value of experience as an element that favors learning, although reflection, continuity and interaction are also required. The same concept was taken then by ^{Knowles (1950)} especially for adult education -andragogy- in which he focuses his research. Classification of formal, non-formal and informal education is strengthened by its appropriation by UNESCO. The publication The World Crisis of Education (^{Coombs, 1968}), highlights the need to develop different educational paths from the formal-school and recognizes, in addition to those educational areas that are planned and systematized, other elements:

Which in any broad view of learning, are educative in nature, often profoundly so. They include things that are often taken as much for granted as the air we breathe -books, newspapers, and magazines; movies, radio, and television broadcasts; and above all the learning that goes on daily in every home. For the present, however, we must confine our view to those activities which are consciously organized for the express purpose of achieving certain prescribed educational and training objectives (p. 9, own translation).

Thus, formal education is understood as one that is highly institutionalized, graduated and structured, of which the educational system takes care, from pre-school to post-graduation. Non-formal education refers to organized, systematic educational activities, with specific educational objectives, but carried out outside the formal educational system. ^{Coombs and Ahmed (1974)} develop one of the definitions of informal education that has become classic, understanding it as “the lifelong process by which every person acquires and accumulates knowledge, skills, attitudes and insights from daily experiences and exposure to the environment” (p. 8, own translation).¹²

^{Marsick and Watkins (1990}, ²⁰⁰¹⁾ point out that informal learning can be “incidental”, when it occurs as a by-product of another activity, including formal learning, but is not planned by a teacher; in this sense it is “generally intentional but not highly structured” (2001, p. 35). In turn, ^{Marsick and Volpe (1999)} argue that informal learning is characterized by being predominantly experimental and not institutional, and can be found in many different situations: it is integrated with daily routines; it is not highly conscious; it is fortuitous and influenced by chance; It is an inductive process of reflection and action and is linked to the learning of others.

On the other hand, there is the definition by ^{Livingstone (2001)} that is mainly oriented towards self-directed learning, where the student himself defines the process.

In the Uruguayan case, the production of ^{Vaz Ferreira (1963)} stands out; he introduces the concepts of staggering and penetrability in education. Staggering typically belongs to formal learning, in which a teacher prepares with intentionality and cares a teaching plan that does not exceed the capacity of the student at each stage of their development. In penetrability, however, the learners can be contacted with material that is partially unintelligible to them, this can happen informally, and results in a greater intellectual and motivational stimulus.

Nowadays, in addition to traditional spaces such as libraries, museums and parks, informal learning finds its place in social networks, websites, online communities and other means of digital interaction; and research on informal learning was expanded to digital collaborative environments and analyzed how adolescents use social networks to learn (^{Sefton-Green, 2006}, ²⁰¹³).

Learning strategies are specific actions used by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable and more transferable to new situations (^{Oxford, 1990}). Wenden and Rubin define them as “any set of operations, steps, plans, routines used by the student to facilitate the collection, storage, retrieval and use of information” (1987, p. 19). In the model of ^{Cseh, Watkins and Marsick (1999)}, learning strategies are subsequent to interpretation, which includes the interpretation of experience and the examination of past and alternative solutions, and prior to the action (new solution).

According to ^{Black, Castro and Lin (2015)}:

Formal learning environments continue to be important, while informal learning environments acquire more and more meaning as they play a key role in the modern education of our young people ... Young people in our digital age are self-taught, forming communities of culture as they immerse themselves in social networks outside our classrooms. (p.2, own translation).

Based on the state of the art of informal learning strategies, the Transliteracy project developed a taxonomy composed of six modalities: learning by doing, problem solving, imitation, play, evaluation and teaching (^{Scolari, 2017}). The modalities are summarized below:

According to the proposed taxonomy, the next section will present the main results in a first descriptive approach. It should be noted that the use of this taxonomy is for theoretical purposes, since, in the field work, the categories can be seen in interaction, amalgamated or intimately linked with each other, so, for the purposes of observation and presentation of results, in some cases, they are merged. Also, in some cases, the modalities of technological use described or experienced by adolescents in the fieldwork led us to give relevance to some other elements connected with informal learning strategies, such as their cooperative nature, which emerges from the collective dimension of being online. The challenge is to be able to relate the results with proposals for the integration of transmedia skills in formal education.

In this sense, it is important to take ^{Sefton-Green’s warning (2006)} about the knowledge we have about traditional learning and how it does not directly apply to how adolescents and children learn informally with information and communication technologies (ICT). Hence the relevance of studies that explore informal learning practices related to technology (^{Sefton-Green, 2013}; ^{Williamson, 2013}). This is how it is challenging to analyze the feasibility of overcoming what ^{Buckingham (2007)}, ^{Clark et al (2009)} and ^{Black, Castro and Lin (2015)} among other authors, have called “digital dissonance” which means overcoming the gap between the ways in which young people use media outside of school, in everyday life, and the ways in which they are used within them.

Main findings

The findings in relation to the informal learning strategies that adolescents develop to learn about video games, participatory culture and social networks,¹³ on the one hand, refer specifically to the strategies themselves (those that were most useful to them), and, on the other, to a process of naturalization in relation to these learning processes in their daily lives.

The research had as one of its main products the construction of transmedia skills and informal learning strategies maps.¹⁴

For illustrative purposes, and in a summarized manner, a mental map of informal transmedia skills and learning strategies is presented with the main analytical categories found in the fieldwork in Uruguay (^{Winocur et al, 2017b}).¹⁵

In all the stages of the fieldwork it was found that adolescents have great difficulty explaining or describing the informal learning processes they go through, or the strategies they put into play to learn to use the different applications, programs or tools they mention, or to become more expert in their use. In general, it was necessary to ask many times and in different ways, and in some cases the interviewees could not verbalize the mechanisms by which they managed to learn, but they returned to general descriptions of what the game, the tool or application they were talking about implies. In some cases, it emerges from the interviews that access to a manual, or the mere fact of understanding which keys are used for each function, does not imply having learned to use the tool.

Informal learning and awareness about it, in order to describe or conceptualize it, are not processes that necessarily occur together. Being able to put into words something that the subjects perceive about themselves and their cognitive activity when facing situations that force them to solve problems or develop new strategies, implies a process of reflection and learning in itself. This makes the depth of activity of the subject who learns more complex, and, in the case of the dialogue with adolescents, makes it more difficult for them to contribute insights into the modes of learning that they display when they interact with the digital world.

Although to a large extent adolescents in their daily lives naturalize informal learning strategies for transmedia skills, it was possible to identify the centrality of some of them in their digital practices. The main findings for each analysis dimension considered in the map in a descriptive manner are summarized below (^{Winocur et al, 2017b}).

Fuente: Elaboración propia

Figura 1 Mapa de estrategias de aprendizaje informal 

Conclusions

Next, some of the main findings are summarized in a descriptive way, and a series of reflections that arise from the analysis of the informal learning strategies of transmedia skills of the adolescents in Uruguay detected in the research are presented.

Among the most frequently detected informal learning strategies are those related to what ^{Dewey (1938)} conceptualizes as the value of experience, these are: “learning by doing”, “trial and error” and “imitation”.

The “trial and error” strategy is fundamentally individual, selftaught and self-directed (^{Livingston, 2001}). Two learning modalities are observed through trial and error: on the one hand, one of a more systematic nature that requires a minimum planning and organization of the tests that will be carried out; on the other hand, a more spontaneous and unstructured modality in which the learner tries things out instinctively and unthinkingly, a priori, what can be related to the incidental learning proposed by ^{Marsick and Watkins (1990)}.

With regard to “imitation”, it requires a model (face-to-face or virtual) and it can be collective. Adolescents have developed “informal didactics”, with a high visual component (what is said has value as long as it can be shown), to show their peers how to solve difficulties or teach a trick to pass a level. The informality of these “didactic” strategies also lies in the fact that adolescents not only show with the intention of teaching, but also in order to exhibit what they know. In this sense, the “show” is not only an informal pedagogical act but also a resource of distinction in a cultural universe, where possessing such skills has a high symbolic value.

The study allows sustaining that there is a collaborative culture that is well entrenched and legitimized in adolescent transmedia practices, particularly evident in the videogame communities, in which strategic skills are highlighted to socialize content and organize online activities. Likewise, cooperation could also be identified as one of the informal learning strategies that young people develop frequently, interacting with their peers based on common interests in games, music, movies or other activities. This observation confirms the point raised by ^{Black, Castro and Lin (2015)} about learning through cooperation and in communities of common interests in digital environments.

As stated in ^{Winocur et al (2017a)} the finding of the centrality and combination of informal strategies of trial and error learning and imitation is very interesting insofar as they are the forms and models of learning that society proposes: learning linked to repetition and copying, it corresponds fundamentally with the dynamics of the traditional school and simultaneously they are central in the possible “learnings” in the digital context.

In this sense, as stated by ^{Winocur et al (2017a}, ^2017b), the centrality of repetition and copying can be related to the difficulty and estrangement of adolescents to recognize and describe informal learning strategies, to the extent that they account for the lack of reflection on their own learning. Although when describing the skills required to manage each of the applications, programs or platforms they use, adolescents were more proficient and confident in the narration, when facing the question about how those skills are learned, many of them found it was puzzling -the answer seemed to be something obvious due to the degree of naturalization of these activities or knowledge.

Adolescents go through their digital experience without developing a self-reflective dimension on the learning they acquire in these scenarios, although it is undeniable that, in the process of exercising their skills, learning occurs.

In this way, we can ask ourselves about how to bring together the informal learning strategies of transmedia skills and the framework of formal education, as is the objective of the Transliteracy project. Is the universality of such dialogue possible?

The challenge of the school is to make a critical relationship with the digital universe possible, which is precisely what in the process of recontextualization of the transmedia must require and offer (^{Winocur et al 2017a}). The domain and expansion of the transmedia is not considered a critical process in itself, without the mediation of its place in social relations and without the sense that this holds for the subjects involved in its appropriation. It is fundamental, then, to promote questioning about the implicit visions through the use and appropriation of the transmedia, and not only the uncritical reproduction of their learning logics (^{Winocur et al 2017a}).

To the extent that skills do not occur in an abstract and generic world, but are exercised within the framework of the local, the possible “universality” of literacies, skills and characteristics and needs of different communities must be put into dialogue.

The educational challenge, then, lies in how to recontextualize without decontextualizing, that is, how to foster pedagogical spaces where students can recontextualize these skills in school, so that they are not totally disconnected from the cultural meanings and values they have in their original contexts (^{Winocur et al 2017a}). The challenge, as for so many other crossroads of education, is to build a pedagogical space that negotiates between the different logics of teacher and adolescent sense production.