Cross-cultural adaptation and user-experience validation of the ACAD Toolkit

Design for learning involves the delicate interweaving of knowledge about learning and knowledge about design. This work is often carried out by heterogenous design teams in which members speak of and value different aspects of design, and different methods for evaluating these designs in use. The challenge of reconciling these often-competing demands is critical to the success of these teams. This short paper outlines work breaking new ground translating an educational design method, developed in English speaking contexts, for use in Spanish speaking contexts. Steeped in socio-cultural and socio[1]material awareness this project explores how the ACAD Toolkit—a set of tangible design related resources embodying networked learning ideals—shapes and is (re)shaped in and through the process of translation. Guided by two questions: (i) How can we explore the process of translating not only language but values and forms of practice? and (ii) How can the ACAD Toolkit be validated in new contexts? This qualitative study involves the thematic analysis of multimodal data including video and audio recordings, and artefacts produced during workshops. Our method builds on traditional cross[1]cultural processes of adaptation that involve adapting, expanding and splitting ideas and concepts in two stages: language translation and user-experience testing. Our analysis is, therefore, reported in two stages. In the first we explore the process of reaching agreement on a test set of translated resources, and in the second we explore how these resources are being enrolled in educational design work in new contexts. The newly translated resources have been tested in three workshops in two Spanish speaking educational settings (Spain and Argentina). After analysing the data from these workshops, the initial translation will be corrected, and instructions will be developed—in both languages—to improve future translations of the ACAD Toolkit and in its ongoing use in English contexts. These instructions and the processes through which they will be developed will produce potential research objects for future educational design research. This method, initially developed with educators in Australia and New Zealand, embodies the very heart of networked learning—the movement of people, objects, and ideas across contexts and time.