The second issue of Seminar.net contains four articles and a book review – which all address the main interest of this journal. It has taken time to stabilize and make reliable the technology that drives this journal, because we do attempt to make images and texts co-operate to some extent. Our next step, technology-wise, is to make articles containing references to video hyperlinked. We hope that prospective authors will look forward to the option of using live images to support the conventional textual message. Our other feature – introducing each paper with a brief video – requires that authors that have papers accepted turn in a two-three minutes long video. Some readers have given us strong acclaim for this particular feature. We hope you find this useful for introducing the topic, to tempt you to read the full paper, and to read the paper with an image of the person who wrote it. We believe that giving a face to an otherwise quite anonymous academic, from a university or college somewhere in the world, is of additional value to the reader.
Educators today are working hard to develop capacities to integrate technology and learning, which emphasize areas including technology, pedagogy, human communication, and teaching strategies. In this article, Kristen Snyder explores how such efforts are now opening doors beyond the classroom to create virtual communities for life long learning and professional development. Kristen Snyder is Ph.D. at the Department of Education Science at Mid Sweden University.
Alison Carr-Chellman offers in this article a critique of expertism and specialism in academe. Through an examination of indigenous knowledge as a phenomenon, also thought of as folk knowledge, this paper asserts that we need to move to more of a user-design approach to on-line learning design and development. Dr. Carr-Chellman is Professor in Charge of Instructional Systems at Penn State University.
In this article, Stephen Dobson makes an argument for a research programme on "narrative competence". He outlines a frame to understand the concept, and claims that narrative competency is connected to both literacy and educational practice in fundamental ways. Stephen Dobson is a senior lecturer dr. at Lillehammer University College.
One of the things that make some tools hazardous is that when you plug them in you have considerable power in your hands. False moves and you may lose a body party. ICT, John Olson argues in this paper, is such a tool, and yes it should be marked hazardous. He asks: How powerful? Why hazardous? John Olson is Professor Emeritus at Queen's University.
There is a need to develop a broader view of knowledge for dealing with the way in which new digital trends influence the underlying conditions for schools, pedagogy and subjects. This short commentary article, based on my paper at the NVU-conference 2008, will therefore highlight whether a broader view of knowledge - situated learning, digital literacy and the digital revolution can generate new ways of how we perceive pedagogy within the new educational reform in Norway in particular and the digitized school in general. The focus is particularly angled towards the implications this may have for developing new practises for teachers and students.
The 37th Annual Congress of the Nordic Educational Research Association will be held in Trondheim, Norway, 5 - 7 March 2009. Keynote speakers are Ruth Kagia (World Bank), irene Rizzini (University of Rio de janeiro), Roger Hart (University of New York), Jon Smidt (Sør-Trøndelag University College) and Anna-Lena Østern (Norwegian University of Science and Technology). Deadline for submission of abstracts is 15 November 2008, and deadline for registration 31 Januar 2009.
The Dream conference is titled Digital
Content Creation: Creativity, Competence, Critique and takes place in Odense, Denmark, 18-20 September 2008. Keynote speakers include professor David Buckingham, John Hartley, Angela McFarlane and Roger Säljö.
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.
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.
Volume 1 - issue 2 - 2005 
four articles and a book review – which all address the main interest of this journal. It has taken time to stabilize and make reliable the technology that drives this journal, because we do attempt to make images and texts co-operate to some extent. Our next step, technology-wise, is to make articles containing references to video hyperlinked. We hope that prospective authors will look forward to the option of using live images to support the conventional textual message. Our other feature – introducing each paper with a brief video – requires that authors that have papers accepted turn in a two-three minutes long video. Some readers have given us strong acclaim for this particular feature. We hope you find this useful for introducing the topic, to tempt you to read the full paper, and to read the paper with an image of the person who wrote it. We believe that giving a face to an otherwise quite anonymous academic, from a university or college somewhere in the world, is of additional value to the reader.