Vol. 8 - Issue 1 2012 - ISSN 1504-4831

Volume 3 - issue 1 - 2007

Editorial volume 3 - issue 1: Wishes and hopes for the digital university.

A recent analysis of the “digital condition” of Norwegian higher education finds that a considerable number of teachers are willing to implement the use of technology in the classroom, but only to a limited degree. The study, which was carried out by the “Norway Opening University” (2006), found that there are no incentives for teachers in higher education to pursue and develop their use of technology. Research is still conceived of as far more rewarding than teaching. Another finding was that teachers and administrators lack knowledge about, and therefore have little belief in, the benefits of using technology. Younger teachers tend to use technology more than their older colleagues and the report suggests that they use technology more because they know more about the potentials of the technology. The report suggests that higher education institutions need to simplify the technology used and support academics more consistently. The report also suggests that such peer support will improve the chances of other academics finding the pedagogical use of ICT more legitimate and interesting. However, in the larger picture the report finds that academics have implemented technology to a significant degree. From being a marginal activity a decade and a half ago, it now influences the whole educational field in higher education.

In this article, Erika Löfström and Anne Nevgi contribute to the underresearched field of educational thinking about, and pedagogical knowledge of, web-based teaching among university teachers. Building on theories of meaningful learning and an assumption that good teaching embraces an ability to adopt the learner role, the authors studied a group of teachers that participated in a web-based course. The findings show that the student experience turned out to be a powerful tool for the teachers, resulting in increased comprehension of course design and the learner role. More focus was also put into content contextualizing and facilitating collaboration. Erika Löfström is Associate Professor at Tallinn University, and Post-Doc Researcher at the Centre for Research and Development of Higher Education at the University of Helsinki. Anne Nevgi is Senior Researcher at the same centre.

Kristen Snyder explores the growing complexity of technology in human communication and its impact on learning and sense making. Snyder presents a theoretical model called the Digital Culture that emerged from five years of empirical study about online social development and communication practices in a professional development program. Combining elements of communication and cultural theory with a social constructivist view of knowledge, Snyder suggest that the integration of technology in our human communication is altering the ways in which we make sense out of situations and information, which impacts learning. Snyder is a senior researcher at Mid Sweden University in Härnösand Sweden.

- A social semiotic perspective on gender, multimodality and learning

Based on a case study of pupils in a fifth grade class and their creation of multimodal narratives, Håvard Skaar found notable gender differences. Asking how girls’ and boys’ story-telling differ and the implications for learning, Skaar observed the pupils when they were creating narratives by use of computers and also made a comparison with the pupils’ hand-written diaries. He found, among other things, that the boys typically preferred to use ready-made resources while the girls’ choices of signs in their stories were more related to own feelings and experiences. Using social semiotic theory as underpinning, Skaar concludes that the girls, through their personal involvement, seemed to learn more than the boys. Håvard Skaar is a research fellow at Oslo University College.

What has happened to ICT in schools over time is the question Gunilla Jedeskog addresses in this paper, and gives a qualitative analysis based on evaluation reports from four national campaigns in Sweden. By means of theories of levels and stages of innovation, Jedeskog emphasizes teacher involvement, time, technology and culture as important success factors in implementing ICT in schools. The schools’ role is changing, as the schoolwork, and Jedeskog sees a shift during the last two decades towards a more bottom-up approach, where human aspects, including teacher and student participation, have become more important. Gunilla Jedeskog is a senior lecturer at Linköping University.

Article list vol 8. - issue 1

1. Thommy Eriksson & Inge Ejbye Sørensen - Reflections on academic video

2. Theo Hug - Storytelling – EDU: Educational - Digital – Unlimited?

3. Alexander Porshnev & Hartmut Giest - University Students’ Use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Russia: A Focus on Learning and Everyday Life *

4. Edda Johansen, Thomas Harding & Tone Marte Ljosaa - Norwegian Nurses’ Experiences with Blended Learning: An Evaluation Study

5. Heidi Philipsen - Scaffolded filmmaking in PlayOFF: A playground for worldwide film experiments

Call for papers

Seminar.net welcomes papers and reviews for upcoming issues, and you find guidelines for authors here. Our scope is to publish refereed articles dealing with research into theoretical or practical aspects related to the learning of adolescents, adults and elderly. A vital field of interest for seminar.net is the use of media technology in lifelong learning.

Digital Storytelling, Mediatized Stories: Self-Representations in New Media

Knut Lundby (red.)

Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing, New York, 2008.

Reviewed by
Jill Walker Rettberg
Associate Professor of Digital Culture
University of Bergen
http://jilltxt.net

We live in an age in which more and more of us are creating our own "digital stories". In 2008, 18% of Norwegian 16-24 year olds were recorded as being active bloggers over the previous three months (Statistics Norway, "ICT in households", 2^nd quarter 2008) while more than 2/3 of American teenagers have uploaded self-produced material to the Internet, in the form of YouTube videos, photographs, blogs, stories, remixes etc. (Pew Internet). The numbers of these "user-made" cultural productions are growing year by year and spreading from the younger generation to us adults, who are now the group most increasingly represented on Facebook. In blogs and on Facebook the distinction between amateur and professional is largely meaningless.

John Hartley and Kelly McWilliam (eds.)

Publisher: Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009

Reviewed by
Birte Hatlehol
PhD student in Media Education
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Email: birthe.hatlehol@svt.ntnu.no

The anthology Story Circle is an international study of digital storytelling that discusses the phenomenon in a global context. The book contains 20 articles with contributions from a number of key specialists with wide-ranging experience in the field of DST.

Edited by Heidi Philipsen and Lars Qvortrup

Publisher: Samfundslitteratur Press: Frederiksberg Press, 2007.

Reviewed by
Stephen Dobson
Professor
Lillehammer University College
Email: stephen.dobson@hil.no

Introduction
Two questions can be asked: firstly, not do we need another book on remediation, but why? And secondly, if this is the case, what kind of book should it be? This review spirals around these questions.

Global perspectives on E-learning.

Rhetoric and reality by A. A. Carr-Chellman (Ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2005

Reviewed by

Dr. J. Ola Lindberg

Department of Education, Mid Sweden University
Email: Ola.Lindberg@miun.se

Dr. Anders D. Olofsson
Department of Education, Umeå University
Email: Anders.D.Olofsson@educ.umu.se

It seems suitable to begin this review by giving a brief description of the context in which the texts of this book are produced. If it fails to be regarded as a description, then we hope at least it can be regarded as one possible understanding of the context. When contextualizing a book, a good idea seems to be to start with a few words about the editor, Alison A. Carr-Chellman.

by George Lakoff, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006

Reviewed by
Geir Haugsbakk
Ph.D.-candidate in Education
Lillehammer University College

Email: Geir.Haugsbakk@hil.no

“To lose freedom is awful; to lose the idea of freedom is even worse.” This statement by George Lakoff is at the core of his attention in his last book. And his opinion is that the loss of the concept of freedom is a tragic incident that has struck a large part of the American people, not least since September 11, 2001.

Reviewed by Stephen Dobson, professor, Lillehammer University College.

7 years have passed since the publication of Jay Bolter and Richard Grusin’s Remediation. Understanding New Media (1999). It has already in the space of this short time attained the status of a classic.

Adult Learning in the Digital Age

Information Technology and the Learning Society by Selwyn, N., Gorard, S. and Furlong, J. London: Routledge, 2006.

Reviewed by Stephen Dobson, Senior lecturer in Education, Lillehammer University College, Norway.

Published by Routledge (London), 2003, p196.

Reviewed by Stephen Dobson, Senior lecturer in education, Lillehammer University College.