I was trained as a teacher, and graduated with a major in Social Pedagogy in 1984, University of Oslo. I was a researcher on international issues of education, covering textbook analysis, images of the third world in Norwegian textbooks, academic boycott of South Africa, curriculum development for the free Namibia. SInce 1993 my main efforts has been in the area of distance education, open learning and critcal reviews of educational technology. I have edited a journal, seminar.net, the last 15 years and was for seven years the editor of the Norwegian journal for research into higher education, Uniped. I became a professor in 2004, with a chair in distance education. In my present position I direct the Teaching and Learning programme at the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences Phone: +4741478838
This is a summary of a paper addressing how hegemonic positions are expressed in the editorial of... more This is a summary of a paper addressing how hegemonic positions are expressed in the editorial of a Norwegian academic journal.
Yngve NordkvelleThis issue presents six papers covering a wide range of topics. It demonstrates h... more Yngve NordkvelleThis issue presents six papers covering a wide range of topics. It demonstrates how varied and encompassing the research in these matters are. Our authors this time come from Mexico, Germany, Sweden, Austria, Finland, Norway and the UK. The topics in this issue range from how students use the Internet in such diverse countries as Mexico and Finland, and we also offer an analysis the effect on one computer per students has in Swedish secondary schools. The language used on digital publishing contexts is an important topic covered in a politically inspired article. Three articles have a more methodological interest: two of them are about the ethnographies of communities of learning, and about teachers using videos in their professional development. The last one is about ethical matters, a topic all too seldom covered in publications about new media and Internet. The wider context is the use of digital storytelling with groups of people who need particular protection because they may be more vulnerable, due to a health condition.Pip Hardy is a co-founder of “The Patient Voices Programme” and has since 2003 provided opportunities for new ways of expressing problems related to health through new digital media. Digital Storytelling is a successful method for making people express their ideas and emotions about health matters. Her paper “First do no harm: developing an ethical process of consent and release for digital storytelling in healthcare” explains how the process of caring and protecting participants through the process of producing and sharing their results. The activity of the programme is directed towards health practitioners as well as patients and their families. In her PhD-project at Manchester Metropolitan University, she also elaborates and refines the strategies for the protection of patients rights and ownership to their own stories.The paper describes how that process has been developed and explores the issues that it was designed to address.Catarina Player-Koro and Martin Tallvid both work at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Their paper has the title: “Title One Laptop on Each Desk: Teaching Methods in Technology Rich Classrooms”. Their article takes its point of departure from the main findings from research in four upper secondary schools where one laptop is given each student and reports on a deeper analysis of four classrooms that are part of the empirical study. The theoretical and empirical analysis argues that technology plays a lesser part than the deeper structures of teaching, learning and education, and that change does not happen as easily as those enthusiastic about such initiatives often think.Rune Johan Krumsvik and Lise Øen Jones, both from the University of Bergen, Norway, presents the article called “Digital Learning Aids for Nynorsk Pupils in School: - A Politically Sensitive Area or a Question of a Deeper Scientific Understanding of Learning?“ The paper focuses on the bilingual situation in Norway. The Norwegian language situation is exceptional because the nation has two written standards, Bokmål (majority variety) and Nynorsk (minority variety), and both the Education Act and the Norwegian Directorate of Education require that publishers provide parallel editions of all paper-based and digital learning aids for pupils. In spite of good intentions the reality is that the minority language, is much less provided for on digital platforms. The paper analyses the situation and argues that there is in deed time to think radically and new about the situation.Filitsa Dingyloudi and Jan-Willem Strijbos, both from Ludwig-Maximilians-UniversityMunich, present their paper called “Examining value creation in a community of learning practice: Methodological reflections on story-telling and story-reading”. They claim that despite the abundant research on communities in various shapes and settings, examination of what community members gained from their participation remains an uncertain issue. The paper reports from an experiment where they analyzed stories and the expression of values. They asked two questions: (1) To what extent can the values that the participants originally intended to report be identified as such by the researchers/analysts’ without bias due to the researchers/analysts’ own perspectives? and (2) To what extent does a theoretically-driven pre-defined typology of values confine or enrich the range of possible values that can be identified?Clemens Wieser of the University of Graz, Austria, introduces us to his paper with the title: Technology and ethnography – will it blend? Technological possibilities for fieldwork on transformations of teacher knowledge with videography and video diaries”. Using video to document teachers’ work has been used for decades. This paper describes how teachers may use videos as a sort of «self-technology» to reflect on their own acts in the classroom in order to improve their style and practice of teaching. Videos are…
Seminar.net reached 100 000 unique visitors in October 2010 after nearly six years on the web. Si... more Seminar.net reached 100 000 unique visitors in October 2010 after nearly six years on the web. Since its inception, a total number of 64 articles have been published, and the site has been visited 3000 times each month at its most. A journal needs to publish good articles. Judging by the increasing number of readers, the readers seem to find our articles to be relevant, readable and contributing to the global discourse. The e-journal format offers opportunities to employ the media to its full potential. A unique feature of the e-journal is to communicate in other media than textual. Seminar.net has for a long time been alone on the academic marked in the field of presenting an abstract of the paper in video format. The assumption is that a short introduction presented on a video makes the reader more interested and that he/she reads the paper with more enthusiasm. On the other hand, journal readers are conservative, and often fail to appreciate the value of visual communication other than the textual. It will be a challenge to continue to develop the e-journal genre in light of the need to balance reader conservatism with exploring the opportunities offered by multimedia-publishing.The second feature of dealing with an e-journal is to offer an alternative voice. Critique and reappraisal in social science is highly valued and seen as a vital condition for renewal and progress in the academic community. Paper journals are often seen as conservative and in favour of “normal” science in Thomas Kuhn’s terms. The “gatekeepers” are piled up in their editorial boards. E-journals subscribing to an Open Access Policy have a reputation of the opposite. E-journals have made it easier to express critical ideas and represent marginalised viewpoints in main stream science.Seminar.net has readers in 150 countries, from all continents, and with a majority of readers from USA and India, but has also significant number of readers from England, Australia, The Philippines, Canada, Indonesia and Germany. We believe this demonstrates the necessity of an international journal that raises issues with wide interest.In this issue, we present five articles. The first four has been presented at an annual conference for the Network University of Norway, and then gone through a proper peer-review for publication in this journal. The first article, “Promoting the Good e-Teacher: Didactical choices when developing e-pedagogical Competences”, by Grete Oline Hole, Anne Karin Larsen and Jon Hoem, from the Bergen University College, explains how a blended e-pedagogy course for teachers of Higher Education teachers has been developed. The course evolved from the experiences of teaching international online courses for European BA students. The students plan their own courses in accordance with the stages of becoming an e-learner. Evaluations by students have demonstrated that this hands-on training course can help students attain the necessary competences needed to be skilled e-teachers. This paper demonstrates a concern that many higher education institutions hold for developing teaching skills in on-line or e-learning. Private institutions develop internal training, such as the University of Phoenix, and some actors plan to produce courses for the commercial market[1].Bjørn Klefstad, Geir Maribu, Svend Andreas Horgen and Thorleif Hjeltnes, from the Sør-Trøndelag University College present an article called: “Learning outcomes and a taxonomy as a starting point for creating digital multiple-choice tests”. They make the case for the use of multiple-choice tests for both formative and summative purposes. They regard the making of valid and reliable tests to be challenging, but they find Bloom’s taxonomy being a useful framework for assessment in higher education and fruitful for developing “learning outcomes”. Based on an analysis of several digital tests they examine to what degree learning outcomes and levels are reflected in the questions of each test they have developed and suggest functionalities for a future test tool to support an improved design process.Hugo Nordseth, Sonja Ekker and Robin Munkvold of Nord-Trøndelag University College present their joint article: “Tools for peer assessment in an e-learning environment”. They explore the functionalities of tools for peer assessment within the LMS used for two different topics taught at their college, in combination with a set of rubrics and a tool called “Six Thinking Hats”. They report that using these in combination stimulate students to write better assignments and provide a deeper understanding of the subjects taught.Arvid Staupe of The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, argues in his article “Experiences from Blended Learning, Net-based Learning and Mind Tools” that in spite of a strong increase in the number of students attending classes, it is possible to improve the quality of the course when blended teaching approaches are employed, using net-based learning material…
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Dec 1, 2006
In Seminar.net's first year we published two issues, and we received recognition from fel... more In Seminar.net's first year we published two issues, and we received recognition from fellow electronic publishers for our innovative use of short video clips offering authors the opportunity to introduce their contributions. There are some challenges when entering the world of digital communication, and one of them is certainly to take innovative steps towards multimodal ways of presenting academic knowledge. We would like our readers to forward their ideas and suggestions on how to make this journal’s communication of academic knowledge more inspired, vivid and helpful. We are planning three issues this year, and we are in the favourable position of continually receiving contributions that address the purpose of mediation and communication. The current issue of Seminar.net, the first of Volume 2., is a cross-disciplinary accomplishment gathering together papers written by scholars from different disciplines, and they all contribute in significant ways to frame the field of “Media, technology and lifelong learning”. “Our” field is definitely not mono-cultural. Historically it has attracted the interest of scholars from many areas. Lifelong learning, or rather distance education, has engaged researchers from a wide academic spectrum, specialists in chemistry, history, linguistics, economics…etc. Technology and educational technology has had a close relation to this field, but only occasionally managed to recruit media researchers. The enterprise of our journal is to bring them together and develop a discourse about the relationship between teaching and learning, communication and mediation. The importance of technology in communication and mediation is a core concern in the four articles we proudly present here. A Swedish educationalist asked us why Norwegian teachers normally are so attentive to philosophical discourses. In his opinion they were a lot more patient with philosophical speakers than in the neighbouring countries. They accepted more reasoning, doubt and logical argumentation, than he was used to from his national context. Lars Løvlie, our first contributor, is a key national and international exponent of the philosophical essay and his philosophical style provides an answer to why this might be the case. Løvlie has played a significant role as provider of philosophical thinking in education the last three and a half decades, in articles, books, as well as in his teaching; for twenty years he held permanent tenure at Lillehammer University College, and has been at the University of Oslo for the last fifteen. His essay on “Technocultural education” was published in an anthology in Norwegian and in a much longer version three years ago. The essay takes us through reasoning about the relation between man and technology, with Donna Haraway’s notion of the cyborg introduced at the outset. Løvlie offers us an understanding of how and why the critique of educational technology in the 1960-ies in some way led to a misunderstanding of technology per se, and it took two decades to revive a notion of technology that was not conceived of as anti-human. Løvlie suggests that the interface between man and society, man and computers, man and the virtual network of knowledge can supplement or replace the concept of bildung. His contribution is a very challenging one, and will, hopefully, give rise to significant debate. Wenche M. Rønning and Gunnar Grepperud write about student's actual use of ICT in their studies. They conducted a national survey in Norway on how adult students in flexible education made us of their available technologies. They found that even if the access to Internet is widespread and the potential for using ICT in advanced ways is obvious, this potential has been exploited to a lesser extent than expected. The basic functions used are e-mailing, exchange of files etc. Similarly, the use of ICT for discussions with fellow students and to collaborate in projects are features with flexible learning that are used less than expected. These are important and valuable insights, and based on solid empirical material. The authors provide us with evidence that on-line learning still has a way to go when it comes to surpassing conventional teaching on campus in terms of innovative methods. Jens E. Kjeldsen provides us with fundamental critique of the PowerPoint software. For years this software has supplied the world of education, instruction and business communication with a transparent sort of media, without generating much else than admiration and astonishment, at least when successful users amaze novices. But over the years a growing suspicion has emerged, saying that, in spite of its transparency, it still has a profound effect on the message. Kjeldsen, whose research speciality is the political use of rhetoric, has aired this criticism in a keynote speech to the “Didactics and Technology” conference at Lillehammer University College in 2005. He has developed his address into an…
KIUPs rolle i forbindelse med innforing av felles lov for universiteter og statlige hogskoler ble... more KIUPs rolle i forbindelse med innforing av felles lov for universiteter og statlige hogskoler ble tatt opp pa KIUPs inote pa Lillehammer 10.-11- 10.95.Vedtaket som ble gjort pa motet gikk ut pa at det skulle sendes et notat til Universitets-radet med argumenter, synspunkter og forslag. Dette notatet skulle lages pa bakgrunn av diskusjonen pa motet. Teamet for notatet, som forovrig ble sendt Universitetsradet i november 1995, er forholdet mellom de to sektorene: universitetene/de vitenskapelige bogskolene og de statlige hogskolene (beretter: UVH og SH) nar det gjelder arbeidet med studiekvalitet og universitets- oq hogskolepedagogikk (beretter: u&h- pedagogikk), mao. de oppgaver som KIUPs mandat dekker. Nedenfor vil dere finne utdrag fra dette notatet.
Knowledge is an interesting word, which never goes out of fashion. In the political context, know... more Knowledge is an interesting word, which never goes out of fashion. In the political context, knowledge is something everyone hails and cherishes. An example is that the Socialist Government in Norway renamed its "Ministry of Education and Research" to the "Ministry of Knowledge". It would probably be politically wrong to defy the word "knowledge". The word "knowledge" stirs, however, different sentiments in people. In modern education, the word signifies something notable, discernable, visual or at least possible to distinguish from what it is not. In learning in higher education, knowledge is most often considered as the raw material for learning, with the little extra that distinguishes it from "information". Knowledge is information with a direction, a purpose and meaning, but without the implied cultivation of a teaching and learning process. Given knowledge is used for educational purposes, the processing of knowledge from its basic concepts to embodied and reflected knowledge, properly understood and reconceptualised by the learner, transforms not only the learner, but also the knowledge. In a peripatetic tradition, one likes to think of knowledge as foundation elements for constructions of ethical wisdom as its highest reflective level. Probably we will never see a "Ministry of Wisdom" established, because what is "wisdom" is probably so much more politically charged than "Knowledge". One can only wonder why anyone would degrade a ministry for education to something less. In Europe a rewriting of university curricula is underway all over the continent, because "knowledge" is a key concept in the writing of "learning outcomes". It appears every college is absorbed in sorting out what knowledge is and how knowledge can be classified in categories and levels, and then composed to readable descriptions of syllabi, course descriptions and schemes. Let us hope they are more able than what has been the case. Professor Ronald Barnett of the London University, Institute of education, described, in a book published in 2000, how awkwardly most of this literature was written and claimed that most of the academic community was rather unskilled in prescribing the paths we want learners to follow to achieve wisdom. It is "...grossly under-conceptualised in higher education...." (2000, p. 322) And, he asserts, for the most they miss the point of how we become educated in our age. He comments the following about knowledge in this context, which is inescapably a supercomplex one. He suggests: The key problem of supercomplexity is not one of knowledge; it is one of being. Accordingly, we have to displace knowledge from the core of our pedagogies. The student's being has to take centre stage. Feeling uncertainty, responding to uncertainty, gaining confidence to insert oneself amid the numerous counter-claims to which one is exposed, engaging with the enemy, and developing resilience and courage: these are matters of being. Their acquisition calls for a revolution in the pedagogical relationships within a university. (Barnett 2000, s.170-171). He clearly states that knowledge is pretty useless in itself, and that higher education has a significant way to go in order to put knowledge in its proper place. Writing well about what role and position "knowledge" has in the life of higher education is difficult, and Barnett's comment should remind us that there is more to education than "knowledge". In this issue of Seminar.net, we find three different approaches to handling knowledge and putting it in its proper place. Knut Arne Strand and Tor Arne Hjeltnes focus on the process of helping corporate customers to explicate their needs for turning professional knowledge into teachable material for e-learning. Knowledge is here understood as a complex matter of people managing a professional knowledge base, and transforming it to a platform from which students can learn in practical contexts online. Siv Oltedal's project describes how a particular seminar form, using video and videoconferencing technology allows participants to elicit their knowledge and share their reflection and learning during seminars. Finally, Gunilla Jedeskog and Inger Landstrøm describe how a particular sort of knowledge, materialised in a manifest technological item, alters and disturbs the established ecology of knowledge in an organisation.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Dec 1, 2007
”A remark you made” is the title of a wonderful tune by the famous jazz-rock group “Weather Repor... more ”A remark you made” is the title of a wonderful tune by the famous jazz-rock group “Weather Report”, issued on the influential “Heavy weather” LP some 30 years ago. In an age where planning and rationalizing is the main issue in most contexts, whether it’s a matter of studying, teaching, doing research or using a diet, “A remark you made” is a symbol of attending to the unplanned, unforeseen and often, unwanted. In most accounts on cognitive development one is overtly focused on the manageable, on the predictable and expected, and not so attentive to the opposite. “A remark you made” makes us think again and reconsider what might be of value, in what we otherwise might neglect. A remark made by Terry Anderson at a conference last year (2006) was rather telling. Anderson is the renown distance educator from Athabasca University, Alberta Canada, and editor of our fellow e-journal “The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning”. I recite it here totally from my own memory, and I have never approached him to have it verified, falsified or commented. That doesn’t matter in this context. Standing on the podium, he lowered his voice and asked if any Danes were present in the room. There weren’t! Then he explained that his argument might be presented differently with Danes present: “You see – Danes seem to think that learning alone is no longer possible!” That remark caused quite a good laugh, not the least because any comment – good or bad – about fellow Scandinavians generally is considered to be a good joke. But it was also a comment on how not only distance education, or open and flexible learning, but learning theory in general is driven by the sociocultural learning theory, - and according to Anderson, particularly so in Denmark! Our first contribution in this issue is about the theory of media theory developed by one of our editors: Lars Qvortrup. Lars is now the rector of the Danish “Royal School of Library and Information Science”. His presentation rests on an understanding of learning that makes it totally an individual experience, namely radical constructivism, as presented by Niklas Luhmann. In Denmark it would be fair to say that constructivism and social constructivism are two vital, but different approaches to learning, and in distance education in particular. In most other contexts nowadays, ideas about dialogues, scaffolding, collaboration, and mentoring relies on the theoretical tradition from Lev Vygotsky, via several contemporary interpretations and developments performed by J. Wertsch, J. Lave, R. Scardamalia, E.Wenger etc. Since Timothy Koschmann placed the development of educational psychology to fit with an evolutionary scheme, he unavoidably suggested a normative taxonomy, in which learning in a social context was placed at the top, and behaviourism at the bottom. This has led to a normative regime in higher education and elsewhere in which learning through working in social contexts, such as in seminars, groups and projects has gained a superior position. The paradox is that learning in this way is, for the most part, not very flexible. On the contrary, the more you add assignments that demand contributions and collaboration from more than one person, the less flexible it gets. How do we then come to terms with the paradox? In practice, the average design of a distance education programme allows students to work in flexible manners, which opens for collaborative work for those who prefer to work collaboratively, and a straightforward independent course progression for what usually is the majority: students working for themselves. In a recently published PhD thesis by dr.Ulf Olsson of Karlstad University, he demonstrates that working independently, not relying on social activity in the virtual classroom, pays off in order to survive in the distance education classroom (Olsson 2007). Therefore it seems that holding learning in the social context as a moral predicament has some serious consequences. First, it devalues personal knowledge, and explains how individuals learn poorly. Second, it builds on a sort of normality, or even moralism that dismisses the learning strategies that are based on individual achievement. Since adult education was founded gradually as an academic field, individual and collective learning has been taken seriously as a question of variance, of adapting to different learning styles and contexts. Making the social contexts of learning the superior is out of line with a policy for flexible learning anyhow. Joakim Samuelson's article in this journal reveals a closer look at what happens when classrooms are dominated by computers. Even if computers in the classroom have been expected to promote communication and dialogic exchanges of knowledge, Samuelson demonstrates in the case he reports from that this is hardly the case. Students prefer to work alone, also in primary grades. Stephen Dobson and Rune Sarroma Haustätter tell a fascinating story…
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Nov 1, 2012
Journalists report that the expression from the Italian coast guard officer: “Vada a bordo” to th... more Journalists report that the expression from the Italian coast guard officer: “Vada a bordo” to the captain of the capsized “Costa Concordia”, has taken a new and wider meaning. Initially captured from a radio communication between the coast guard officer overlooking the process and the captain, it now has become a clear message from the people to their leaders about assuming the leadership they are appointed to have. In Italy, the concrete backdrop is the financial crisis, as it is in many countries affected by the same trend: a hyperactive economy based on greed and turbo capitalism. Globally, it also addresses the inabilities demonstrated by the main economic actors to get to grips with topics like the global warming, pollution and poverty. In education there is a call for “getting back in command” in a quite parallel meaning. In the European and Western educational domain, the trend is to ask less and less about moral and ethics in schooling and upbringing, and to ponder “competencies”, “qualifications” and “employability”. The effects of the Bologna process and its subsequent agreements, declarations and policy documents, have been that the ethical and moral aspects of education have diminished. Words alluding to the social and ethical responsibility of higher education institutions are being filtered away from the rhetoric of curricula, programmes and projects. A new language of learning and learning outcomes is replacing the conventional. One of the silly effects is that the taxonomy of learning outcomes for programmes for BA, MA and PhD programmes often contains descriptions that are less academically demanding than for secondary school. The occurrence of terms like “critical thinking” is less prominent in higher education than of secondary schools in some instances. This development is so much in contrast to what the renown philosopher Ronald Barnett claim is the most challenging task for higher education: to develop courage and judgement in students to cope with uncertainness and conflicts in the supercomplex society:The student’s being has to take centre stage. Feeling uncertainty, responding to uncertainty, gaining confidence to insert oneself amid the numerous counter-claims to which one is exposed, engaging with the enemy, and developing resilience and courage: these are matters of being. Their acquisition calls for a revolution in the pedagogical relationships within a university. (Barnett 2000, s.170-171).Please, politicians for higher education, “VADA A BORDO!”The PapersIn this issue we bring five articles – a Russian and German paper, one Austrian, one Danish and Swedish, one Danish and a Norwegian paper. In diverse ways they all address concerns that relate to changes in knowing and how knowledge is acquired.Thommy Eriksson, of Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, and Inge Ejby Sørensen, of Copenhagen University, are both bold pioneers in their diligent work presented in the paper “Reflections on academic video”. Their ambition is to establish an academic journal for visual publications, predominantly videos. They present us for the paradox that a substantial number of academics teach visual subjects, video analysis and video production, and yet rarely disseminate and mediate via audiovisual media. They argue that documentary theory and semiotics are two critical traditions in academia that will provide the conventional credentials for establishing a new academic genre. In the journal “Audiovisual thinking” we can follow an exciting new and path breaking way of academic discourse.In the paper “Storytelling – EDU: Educational – Digital – Unlimited? Theo Hug of the University of Innsbruck, raises the question of “Digital Storytelling” as a genre for educational purposes. He acknowledges that students are often very competent in using media and are well prepared to go beyond “writing” as a monomedial activity. The paper reflects on various understandings of the phenomenon and highlights some conceptual problems and limitations of Digital Storytelling in educational contexts.The third paper in this edition addresses students and their use of information technologies in Russia. Alexander Porshnev, of National Research University, Nogorod, Russia and Hartmut Giest, of Potsdam University, Germany, authors of “University Students’ use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Russia: A Focus on Learning and Everyday Life”” present results derived from a comparative analysis of German and Russian students. They discuss the variance and diversity of ICT use in Russian Higher education and addresses contemporary problems in this context.The Norwegian nursing educators Edda Johansen, Thomas Harding (also Australian) and Tone Marte Ljosaa introduce us to “Norwegian Nurses Experiences with Blended Learning: An evaluation study”. They are affiliated to the Buskerud University College and are concerned with developing fruitful and effective learning environments. In their study they…
Time Magazine argued in 2006 that the person of the year truly was "You". This was in d... more Time Magazine argued in 2006 that the person of the year truly was "You". This was in deed a significant gesture to the fact that digital technologies change the way people interact and live their lives. What made "You" a candidate for "Person of the year", was that the development of the Internet had made it possible for anyone to publish and express your personality on the Web; or rather of "Web 2.0". In 2007, the notion of "Web 2.0" has been on headlines for many conferences and conventions, articles and in the news. While some enthusiasts already prepare for the developments of "Web 3.0", most people face the challenge of trying to grapple with how new technological changes affect their everyday life in the present tense. So, if "You" was the person of the year in 2006, Web 2.0 was the technology of the year in 2007. And then again, the notion of what consequences Web 2.0 might have for teaching and learning in the area of higher education, lifelong learning and adult education will be raised in numerous contexts. Some years ago, the Australian professor of teaching in Higher Education, Craig McInnis, described how most teachers in higher education felt that technological changes were among the most important factors affecting academic life. A report on the status of how Norwegian institutions have adopted ICT in teaching and learning, found that all institutions now use Learning Management Systems for their average teaching and administration tasks. Hence, the report concluded: the LMS has successfully brought the Norwegian academic into the digital age. The LMS is more or less synonymous with ICT. What worried the authors of the said report was that the use of the LMS was not considered sophisticated or innovative. Likewise, the influential report written by Zemsky and Massy (2004), found that much of the use was trivial and not primarily for the benefit of teaching and learning. We can predict that many teachers in higher education will think of Web 2.0 as the latest add-on to the burden of change that [...]
Yngve Nordkvelle, editorThere is a tradition in media history from Plato idealising the communica... more Yngve Nordkvelle, editorThere is a tradition in media history from Plato idealising the communication situation that is person to person. Although several authors have shown that Socrates used many strategies for his communication to his audience, and quite a few of them were far less sincerely other-centred than his followers like to portray. In fact Socrates was using all the tricks of the communication trade: persuading, threatening, ridiculing and joking in addition to the sanctimonious dialogue. However, in the dialogues, we believe we find the true Socrates, or Plato, expressing the potential of self-liberation and self-expansion in the education of the person, in plain talking person to person. Jesus was a practitioner of communicative skills, addressing small groups, as well as larger groups and gatherings. Monty Python showed how difficult it must have been to convey the message to a really large group of followers without using a PA-system, and how creatively listeners compose new meanings from the bits and pieces they do actually hear. Nevertheless, speaking one to many was a necessity for the mass-communication ambitions of the Christians, who boldly went out to baptize the entire world.While Plato nurtured the deepest suspicion of rhetoric as an art of communication, the Christians embraced the knowledge of Rhetoric, and developed it for their purposes in their activities of organizing the Western Mind. Socrates did use drawings and mental visuals: allegories, stories etc. for his purposeful teaching. The Greeks acknowledged that teaching was actually very closely associated with “pointing at”. “Didaskein” was the word they used for the teaching activity of pointing at or highlighting something worth explaining. In the development of mass communication the usefulness of pointing at something apart from what is conceivable here and now has been a significant part of rhetoric and teaching. Metaphors, allegories and stories - and then symbols, signs, icons, drawings, tables and graphs developed over the years and were used in churches, public buildings, lecture halls and schools to assist the preacher, speaker or teacher. Flexible visualizing tools, such as the blackboard, or the more theatrical “laterna magica”, then the “ballopticon”, slidesprojector, overheadprojector etc. arrived and made the tasks of the messenger more and more complex.With the computer even more tools have arrived. Gradually our everyday teaching with media has been overwhelmingly furnished with gadgets that make visualization common - and sometimes grim and confusing, - sometimes enlightening and expanding. In our journal we try to explain, expand on and forward critique on both the media technologies and the way we use them.In this issue we present four articles with different takes on the matter. Professor Theo Hug opens this issue with a deep analysis of what knowing about educational media is all about. From his base at the University of Innsbruck he provides us with a profound insight in the trends and fads that we are surrounded with, and suggest new angels and ways of seeing the problems we encounter of “the visual” in teaching and learning. Professor Halvor Nordby offers a deep exploration of the communication phenomenon related to the use of Internet for teaching and communication. He asks what the essential nature of this communication is and how it differs from ordinary face-to-face communication in a most fundamental sense. He provides us with a conceptual analysis as a philosophical method to explore the intrinsic nature of the concept interactive communication. His aim of this method is to develop a concept definition that matches shared linguistic beliefs about informative examples from Internet based communication and information exchange that is central in e-learning. PhD Ulf Olson, who works at the University of Stockholm offers us insights into the problems of how lecturers from three different universities interpret and apply certain methods in their blended learning/web-based courses. He compares their teaching methods to the lecturers' conceptions of learning. He used questionnaires for the survey and compares responses from lecturers in 10 subjects to each other. Olson’s main aims was to compare chosen teaching forms to conceptions of learning, and to compare subject areas with each other according to the lecturers' conceptions of learning. Not surprisingly, he did find important inconsistencies between the lecturers' conceptions of learning and the teaching methods they used. Finally, associate professor Arvid Staupe from the Norwegian University of Technology and Science, present a paper reporting from an experiment trying out new forms of evaluation at his own institution. The article describe how he went about to solve the particular problems of students’ learning in his classes by offering alternative ways of evaluating the students’ work. The article provides evidence…
”A remark you made” is the title of a wonderful tune by the famous jazz-rock group “Weather Repor... more ”A remark you made” is the title of a wonderful tune by the famous jazz-rock group “Weather Report”, issued on the influential “Heavy weather” LP some 30 years ago. In an age where planning and rationalizing is the main issue in most contexts, whether it’s a matter of studying, teaching, doing research or using a diet, “A remark you made” is a symbol of attending to the unplanned, unforeseen and often, unwanted. In most accounts on cognitive development one is overtly focused on the manageable, on the predictable and expected, and not so attentive to the opposite. “A remark you made” makes us think again and reconsider what might be of value, in what we otherwise might neglect. A remark made by Terry Anderson at a conference last year (2006) was rather telling. Anderson is the renown distance educator from Athabasca University, Alberta Canada, and editor of our fellow e-journal “The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning”. I recite it here totally from my own memory, and I have never approached him to have it verified, falsified or commented. That doesn’t matter in this context. Standing on the podium, he lowered his voice and asked if any Danes were present in the room. There weren’t! Then he explained that his argument might be presented differently with Danes present: “You see – Danes seem to think that learning alone is no longer possible!” That remark caused quite a good laugh, not the least because any comment – good or bad – about fellow Scandinavians generally is considered to be a good joke. But it was also a comment on how not only distance education, or open and flexible learning, but learning theory in general is driven by the sociocultural learning theory, - and according to Anderson, particularly so in Denmark! Our first contribution in this issue is about the theory of media theory developed by one of our editors: Lars Qvortrup. Lars is now the rector of the Danish “Royal School of Library and Information Science”. His presentation rests on an understanding of learning that makes it totally an individual experience, namely radical constructivism, as presented by Niklas Luhmann. In Denmark it would be fair to say that constructivism and social constructivism are two vital, but different approaches to learning, and in distance education in particular. In most other contexts nowadays, ideas about dialogues, scaffolding, collaboration, and mentoring relies on the theoretical tradition from Lev Vygotsky, via several contemporary interpretations and developments performed by J. Wertsch, J. Lave, R. Scardamalia, E.Wenger etc. Since Timothy Koschmann placed the development of educational psychology to fit with an evolutionary scheme, he unavoidably suggested a normative taxonomy, in which learning in a social context was placed at the top, and behaviourism at the bottom. This has led to a normative regime in higher education and elsewhere in which learning through working in social contexts, such as in seminars, groups and projects has gained a superior position. The paradox is that learning in this way is, for the most part, not very flexible. On the contrary, the more you add assignments that demand contributions and collaboration from more than one person, the less flexible it gets. How do we then come to terms with the paradox? In practice, the average design of a distance education programme allows students to work in flexible manners, which opens for collaborative work for those who prefer to work collaboratively, and a straightforward independent course progression for what usually is the majority: students working for themselves. In a recently published PhD thesis by dr.Ulf Olsson of Karlstad University, he demonstrates that working independently, not relying on social activity in the virtual classroom, pays off in order to survive in the distance education classroom (Olsson 2007). Therefore it seems that holding learning in the social context as a moral predicament has some serious consequences. First, it devalues personal knowledge, and explains how individuals learn poorly. Second, it builds on a sort of normality, or even moralism that dismisses the learning strategies that are based on individual achievement. Since adult education was founded gradually as an academic field, individual and collective learning has been taken seriously as a question of variance, of adapting to different learning styles and contexts. Making the social contexts of learning the superior is out of line with a policy for flexible learning anyhow. Joakim Samuelson's article in this journal reveals a closer look at what happens when classrooms are dominated by computers. Even if computers in the classroom have been expected to promote communication and dialogic exchanges of knowledge, Samuelson demonstrates in the case he reports from that this is hardly the case. Students prefer to work alone, also in primary grades. Stephen Dobson and Rune Sarroma Haustätter tell a fascinating story…
This is a summary of a paper addressing how hegemonic positions are expressed in the editorial of... more This is a summary of a paper addressing how hegemonic positions are expressed in the editorial of a Norwegian academic journal.
Yngve NordkvelleThis issue presents six papers covering a wide range of topics. It demonstrates h... more Yngve NordkvelleThis issue presents six papers covering a wide range of topics. It demonstrates how varied and encompassing the research in these matters are. Our authors this time come from Mexico, Germany, Sweden, Austria, Finland, Norway and the UK. The topics in this issue range from how students use the Internet in such diverse countries as Mexico and Finland, and we also offer an analysis the effect on one computer per students has in Swedish secondary schools. The language used on digital publishing contexts is an important topic covered in a politically inspired article. Three articles have a more methodological interest: two of them are about the ethnographies of communities of learning, and about teachers using videos in their professional development. The last one is about ethical matters, a topic all too seldom covered in publications about new media and Internet. The wider context is the use of digital storytelling with groups of people who need particular protection because they may be more vulnerable, due to a health condition.Pip Hardy is a co-founder of “The Patient Voices Programme” and has since 2003 provided opportunities for new ways of expressing problems related to health through new digital media. Digital Storytelling is a successful method for making people express their ideas and emotions about health matters. Her paper “First do no harm: developing an ethical process of consent and release for digital storytelling in healthcare” explains how the process of caring and protecting participants through the process of producing and sharing their results. The activity of the programme is directed towards health practitioners as well as patients and their families. In her PhD-project at Manchester Metropolitan University, she also elaborates and refines the strategies for the protection of patients rights and ownership to their own stories.The paper describes how that process has been developed and explores the issues that it was designed to address.Catarina Player-Koro and Martin Tallvid both work at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Their paper has the title: “Title One Laptop on Each Desk: Teaching Methods in Technology Rich Classrooms”. Their article takes its point of departure from the main findings from research in four upper secondary schools where one laptop is given each student and reports on a deeper analysis of four classrooms that are part of the empirical study. The theoretical and empirical analysis argues that technology plays a lesser part than the deeper structures of teaching, learning and education, and that change does not happen as easily as those enthusiastic about such initiatives often think.Rune Johan Krumsvik and Lise Øen Jones, both from the University of Bergen, Norway, presents the article called “Digital Learning Aids for Nynorsk Pupils in School: - A Politically Sensitive Area or a Question of a Deeper Scientific Understanding of Learning?“ The paper focuses on the bilingual situation in Norway. The Norwegian language situation is exceptional because the nation has two written standards, Bokmål (majority variety) and Nynorsk (minority variety), and both the Education Act and the Norwegian Directorate of Education require that publishers provide parallel editions of all paper-based and digital learning aids for pupils. In spite of good intentions the reality is that the minority language, is much less provided for on digital platforms. The paper analyses the situation and argues that there is in deed time to think radically and new about the situation.Filitsa Dingyloudi and Jan-Willem Strijbos, both from Ludwig-Maximilians-UniversityMunich, present their paper called “Examining value creation in a community of learning practice: Methodological reflections on story-telling and story-reading”. They claim that despite the abundant research on communities in various shapes and settings, examination of what community members gained from their participation remains an uncertain issue. The paper reports from an experiment where they analyzed stories and the expression of values. They asked two questions: (1) To what extent can the values that the participants originally intended to report be identified as such by the researchers/analysts’ without bias due to the researchers/analysts’ own perspectives? and (2) To what extent does a theoretically-driven pre-defined typology of values confine or enrich the range of possible values that can be identified?Clemens Wieser of the University of Graz, Austria, introduces us to his paper with the title: Technology and ethnography – will it blend? Technological possibilities for fieldwork on transformations of teacher knowledge with videography and video diaries”. Using video to document teachers’ work has been used for decades. This paper describes how teachers may use videos as a sort of «self-technology» to reflect on their own acts in the classroom in order to improve their style and practice of teaching. Videos are…
Seminar.net reached 100 000 unique visitors in October 2010 after nearly six years on the web. Si... more Seminar.net reached 100 000 unique visitors in October 2010 after nearly six years on the web. Since its inception, a total number of 64 articles have been published, and the site has been visited 3000 times each month at its most. A journal needs to publish good articles. Judging by the increasing number of readers, the readers seem to find our articles to be relevant, readable and contributing to the global discourse. The e-journal format offers opportunities to employ the media to its full potential. A unique feature of the e-journal is to communicate in other media than textual. Seminar.net has for a long time been alone on the academic marked in the field of presenting an abstract of the paper in video format. The assumption is that a short introduction presented on a video makes the reader more interested and that he/she reads the paper with more enthusiasm. On the other hand, journal readers are conservative, and often fail to appreciate the value of visual communication other than the textual. It will be a challenge to continue to develop the e-journal genre in light of the need to balance reader conservatism with exploring the opportunities offered by multimedia-publishing.The second feature of dealing with an e-journal is to offer an alternative voice. Critique and reappraisal in social science is highly valued and seen as a vital condition for renewal and progress in the academic community. Paper journals are often seen as conservative and in favour of “normal” science in Thomas Kuhn’s terms. The “gatekeepers” are piled up in their editorial boards. E-journals subscribing to an Open Access Policy have a reputation of the opposite. E-journals have made it easier to express critical ideas and represent marginalised viewpoints in main stream science.Seminar.net has readers in 150 countries, from all continents, and with a majority of readers from USA and India, but has also significant number of readers from England, Australia, The Philippines, Canada, Indonesia and Germany. We believe this demonstrates the necessity of an international journal that raises issues with wide interest.In this issue, we present five articles. The first four has been presented at an annual conference for the Network University of Norway, and then gone through a proper peer-review for publication in this journal. The first article, “Promoting the Good e-Teacher: Didactical choices when developing e-pedagogical Competences”, by Grete Oline Hole, Anne Karin Larsen and Jon Hoem, from the Bergen University College, explains how a blended e-pedagogy course for teachers of Higher Education teachers has been developed. The course evolved from the experiences of teaching international online courses for European BA students. The students plan their own courses in accordance with the stages of becoming an e-learner. Evaluations by students have demonstrated that this hands-on training course can help students attain the necessary competences needed to be skilled e-teachers. This paper demonstrates a concern that many higher education institutions hold for developing teaching skills in on-line or e-learning. Private institutions develop internal training, such as the University of Phoenix, and some actors plan to produce courses for the commercial market[1].Bjørn Klefstad, Geir Maribu, Svend Andreas Horgen and Thorleif Hjeltnes, from the Sør-Trøndelag University College present an article called: “Learning outcomes and a taxonomy as a starting point for creating digital multiple-choice tests”. They make the case for the use of multiple-choice tests for both formative and summative purposes. They regard the making of valid and reliable tests to be challenging, but they find Bloom’s taxonomy being a useful framework for assessment in higher education and fruitful for developing “learning outcomes”. Based on an analysis of several digital tests they examine to what degree learning outcomes and levels are reflected in the questions of each test they have developed and suggest functionalities for a future test tool to support an improved design process.Hugo Nordseth, Sonja Ekker and Robin Munkvold of Nord-Trøndelag University College present their joint article: “Tools for peer assessment in an e-learning environment”. They explore the functionalities of tools for peer assessment within the LMS used for two different topics taught at their college, in combination with a set of rubrics and a tool called “Six Thinking Hats”. They report that using these in combination stimulate students to write better assignments and provide a deeper understanding of the subjects taught.Arvid Staupe of The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, argues in his article “Experiences from Blended Learning, Net-based Learning and Mind Tools” that in spite of a strong increase in the number of students attending classes, it is possible to improve the quality of the course when blended teaching approaches are employed, using net-based learning material…
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Dec 1, 2006
In Seminar.net's first year we published two issues, and we received recognition from fel... more In Seminar.net's first year we published two issues, and we received recognition from fellow electronic publishers for our innovative use of short video clips offering authors the opportunity to introduce their contributions. There are some challenges when entering the world of digital communication, and one of them is certainly to take innovative steps towards multimodal ways of presenting academic knowledge. We would like our readers to forward their ideas and suggestions on how to make this journal’s communication of academic knowledge more inspired, vivid and helpful. We are planning three issues this year, and we are in the favourable position of continually receiving contributions that address the purpose of mediation and communication. The current issue of Seminar.net, the first of Volume 2., is a cross-disciplinary accomplishment gathering together papers written by scholars from different disciplines, and they all contribute in significant ways to frame the field of “Media, technology and lifelong learning”. “Our” field is definitely not mono-cultural. Historically it has attracted the interest of scholars from many areas. Lifelong learning, or rather distance education, has engaged researchers from a wide academic spectrum, specialists in chemistry, history, linguistics, economics…etc. Technology and educational technology has had a close relation to this field, but only occasionally managed to recruit media researchers. The enterprise of our journal is to bring them together and develop a discourse about the relationship between teaching and learning, communication and mediation. The importance of technology in communication and mediation is a core concern in the four articles we proudly present here. A Swedish educationalist asked us why Norwegian teachers normally are so attentive to philosophical discourses. In his opinion they were a lot more patient with philosophical speakers than in the neighbouring countries. They accepted more reasoning, doubt and logical argumentation, than he was used to from his national context. Lars Løvlie, our first contributor, is a key national and international exponent of the philosophical essay and his philosophical style provides an answer to why this might be the case. Løvlie has played a significant role as provider of philosophical thinking in education the last three and a half decades, in articles, books, as well as in his teaching; for twenty years he held permanent tenure at Lillehammer University College, and has been at the University of Oslo for the last fifteen. His essay on “Technocultural education” was published in an anthology in Norwegian and in a much longer version three years ago. The essay takes us through reasoning about the relation between man and technology, with Donna Haraway’s notion of the cyborg introduced at the outset. Løvlie offers us an understanding of how and why the critique of educational technology in the 1960-ies in some way led to a misunderstanding of technology per se, and it took two decades to revive a notion of technology that was not conceived of as anti-human. Løvlie suggests that the interface between man and society, man and computers, man and the virtual network of knowledge can supplement or replace the concept of bildung. His contribution is a very challenging one, and will, hopefully, give rise to significant debate. Wenche M. Rønning and Gunnar Grepperud write about student's actual use of ICT in their studies. They conducted a national survey in Norway on how adult students in flexible education made us of their available technologies. They found that even if the access to Internet is widespread and the potential for using ICT in advanced ways is obvious, this potential has been exploited to a lesser extent than expected. The basic functions used are e-mailing, exchange of files etc. Similarly, the use of ICT for discussions with fellow students and to collaborate in projects are features with flexible learning that are used less than expected. These are important and valuable insights, and based on solid empirical material. The authors provide us with evidence that on-line learning still has a way to go when it comes to surpassing conventional teaching on campus in terms of innovative methods. Jens E. Kjeldsen provides us with fundamental critique of the PowerPoint software. For years this software has supplied the world of education, instruction and business communication with a transparent sort of media, without generating much else than admiration and astonishment, at least when successful users amaze novices. But over the years a growing suspicion has emerged, saying that, in spite of its transparency, it still has a profound effect on the message. Kjeldsen, whose research speciality is the political use of rhetoric, has aired this criticism in a keynote speech to the “Didactics and Technology” conference at Lillehammer University College in 2005. He has developed his address into an…
KIUPs rolle i forbindelse med innforing av felles lov for universiteter og statlige hogskoler ble... more KIUPs rolle i forbindelse med innforing av felles lov for universiteter og statlige hogskoler ble tatt opp pa KIUPs inote pa Lillehammer 10.-11- 10.95.Vedtaket som ble gjort pa motet gikk ut pa at det skulle sendes et notat til Universitets-radet med argumenter, synspunkter og forslag. Dette notatet skulle lages pa bakgrunn av diskusjonen pa motet. Teamet for notatet, som forovrig ble sendt Universitetsradet i november 1995, er forholdet mellom de to sektorene: universitetene/de vitenskapelige bogskolene og de statlige hogskolene (beretter: UVH og SH) nar det gjelder arbeidet med studiekvalitet og universitets- oq hogskolepedagogikk (beretter: u&h- pedagogikk), mao. de oppgaver som KIUPs mandat dekker. Nedenfor vil dere finne utdrag fra dette notatet.
Knowledge is an interesting word, which never goes out of fashion. In the political context, know... more Knowledge is an interesting word, which never goes out of fashion. In the political context, knowledge is something everyone hails and cherishes. An example is that the Socialist Government in Norway renamed its "Ministry of Education and Research" to the "Ministry of Knowledge". It would probably be politically wrong to defy the word "knowledge". The word "knowledge" stirs, however, different sentiments in people. In modern education, the word signifies something notable, discernable, visual or at least possible to distinguish from what it is not. In learning in higher education, knowledge is most often considered as the raw material for learning, with the little extra that distinguishes it from "information". Knowledge is information with a direction, a purpose and meaning, but without the implied cultivation of a teaching and learning process. Given knowledge is used for educational purposes, the processing of knowledge from its basic concepts to embodied and reflected knowledge, properly understood and reconceptualised by the learner, transforms not only the learner, but also the knowledge. In a peripatetic tradition, one likes to think of knowledge as foundation elements for constructions of ethical wisdom as its highest reflective level. Probably we will never see a "Ministry of Wisdom" established, because what is "wisdom" is probably so much more politically charged than "Knowledge". One can only wonder why anyone would degrade a ministry for education to something less. In Europe a rewriting of university curricula is underway all over the continent, because "knowledge" is a key concept in the writing of "learning outcomes". It appears every college is absorbed in sorting out what knowledge is and how knowledge can be classified in categories and levels, and then composed to readable descriptions of syllabi, course descriptions and schemes. Let us hope they are more able than what has been the case. Professor Ronald Barnett of the London University, Institute of education, described, in a book published in 2000, how awkwardly most of this literature was written and claimed that most of the academic community was rather unskilled in prescribing the paths we want learners to follow to achieve wisdom. It is "...grossly under-conceptualised in higher education...." (2000, p. 322) And, he asserts, for the most they miss the point of how we become educated in our age. He comments the following about knowledge in this context, which is inescapably a supercomplex one. He suggests: The key problem of supercomplexity is not one of knowledge; it is one of being. Accordingly, we have to displace knowledge from the core of our pedagogies. The student's being has to take centre stage. Feeling uncertainty, responding to uncertainty, gaining confidence to insert oneself amid the numerous counter-claims to which one is exposed, engaging with the enemy, and developing resilience and courage: these are matters of being. Their acquisition calls for a revolution in the pedagogical relationships within a university. (Barnett 2000, s.170-171). He clearly states that knowledge is pretty useless in itself, and that higher education has a significant way to go in order to put knowledge in its proper place. Writing well about what role and position "knowledge" has in the life of higher education is difficult, and Barnett's comment should remind us that there is more to education than "knowledge". In this issue of Seminar.net, we find three different approaches to handling knowledge and putting it in its proper place. Knut Arne Strand and Tor Arne Hjeltnes focus on the process of helping corporate customers to explicate their needs for turning professional knowledge into teachable material for e-learning. Knowledge is here understood as a complex matter of people managing a professional knowledge base, and transforming it to a platform from which students can learn in practical contexts online. Siv Oltedal's project describes how a particular seminar form, using video and videoconferencing technology allows participants to elicit their knowledge and share their reflection and learning during seminars. Finally, Gunilla Jedeskog and Inger Landstrøm describe how a particular sort of knowledge, materialised in a manifest technological item, alters and disturbs the established ecology of knowledge in an organisation.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Dec 1, 2007
”A remark you made” is the title of a wonderful tune by the famous jazz-rock group “Weather Repor... more ”A remark you made” is the title of a wonderful tune by the famous jazz-rock group “Weather Report”, issued on the influential “Heavy weather” LP some 30 years ago. In an age where planning and rationalizing is the main issue in most contexts, whether it’s a matter of studying, teaching, doing research or using a diet, “A remark you made” is a symbol of attending to the unplanned, unforeseen and often, unwanted. In most accounts on cognitive development one is overtly focused on the manageable, on the predictable and expected, and not so attentive to the opposite. “A remark you made” makes us think again and reconsider what might be of value, in what we otherwise might neglect. A remark made by Terry Anderson at a conference last year (2006) was rather telling. Anderson is the renown distance educator from Athabasca University, Alberta Canada, and editor of our fellow e-journal “The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning”. I recite it here totally from my own memory, and I have never approached him to have it verified, falsified or commented. That doesn’t matter in this context. Standing on the podium, he lowered his voice and asked if any Danes were present in the room. There weren’t! Then he explained that his argument might be presented differently with Danes present: “You see – Danes seem to think that learning alone is no longer possible!” That remark caused quite a good laugh, not the least because any comment – good or bad – about fellow Scandinavians generally is considered to be a good joke. But it was also a comment on how not only distance education, or open and flexible learning, but learning theory in general is driven by the sociocultural learning theory, - and according to Anderson, particularly so in Denmark! Our first contribution in this issue is about the theory of media theory developed by one of our editors: Lars Qvortrup. Lars is now the rector of the Danish “Royal School of Library and Information Science”. His presentation rests on an understanding of learning that makes it totally an individual experience, namely radical constructivism, as presented by Niklas Luhmann. In Denmark it would be fair to say that constructivism and social constructivism are two vital, but different approaches to learning, and in distance education in particular. In most other contexts nowadays, ideas about dialogues, scaffolding, collaboration, and mentoring relies on the theoretical tradition from Lev Vygotsky, via several contemporary interpretations and developments performed by J. Wertsch, J. Lave, R. Scardamalia, E.Wenger etc. Since Timothy Koschmann placed the development of educational psychology to fit with an evolutionary scheme, he unavoidably suggested a normative taxonomy, in which learning in a social context was placed at the top, and behaviourism at the bottom. This has led to a normative regime in higher education and elsewhere in which learning through working in social contexts, such as in seminars, groups and projects has gained a superior position. The paradox is that learning in this way is, for the most part, not very flexible. On the contrary, the more you add assignments that demand contributions and collaboration from more than one person, the less flexible it gets. How do we then come to terms with the paradox? In practice, the average design of a distance education programme allows students to work in flexible manners, which opens for collaborative work for those who prefer to work collaboratively, and a straightforward independent course progression for what usually is the majority: students working for themselves. In a recently published PhD thesis by dr.Ulf Olsson of Karlstad University, he demonstrates that working independently, not relying on social activity in the virtual classroom, pays off in order to survive in the distance education classroom (Olsson 2007). Therefore it seems that holding learning in the social context as a moral predicament has some serious consequences. First, it devalues personal knowledge, and explains how individuals learn poorly. Second, it builds on a sort of normality, or even moralism that dismisses the learning strategies that are based on individual achievement. Since adult education was founded gradually as an academic field, individual and collective learning has been taken seriously as a question of variance, of adapting to different learning styles and contexts. Making the social contexts of learning the superior is out of line with a policy for flexible learning anyhow. Joakim Samuelson's article in this journal reveals a closer look at what happens when classrooms are dominated by computers. Even if computers in the classroom have been expected to promote communication and dialogic exchanges of knowledge, Samuelson demonstrates in the case he reports from that this is hardly the case. Students prefer to work alone, also in primary grades. Stephen Dobson and Rune Sarroma Haustätter tell a fascinating story…
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Nov 1, 2012
Journalists report that the expression from the Italian coast guard officer: “Vada a bordo” to th... more Journalists report that the expression from the Italian coast guard officer: “Vada a bordo” to the captain of the capsized “Costa Concordia”, has taken a new and wider meaning. Initially captured from a radio communication between the coast guard officer overlooking the process and the captain, it now has become a clear message from the people to their leaders about assuming the leadership they are appointed to have. In Italy, the concrete backdrop is the financial crisis, as it is in many countries affected by the same trend: a hyperactive economy based on greed and turbo capitalism. Globally, it also addresses the inabilities demonstrated by the main economic actors to get to grips with topics like the global warming, pollution and poverty. In education there is a call for “getting back in command” in a quite parallel meaning. In the European and Western educational domain, the trend is to ask less and less about moral and ethics in schooling and upbringing, and to ponder “competencies”, “qualifications” and “employability”. The effects of the Bologna process and its subsequent agreements, declarations and policy documents, have been that the ethical and moral aspects of education have diminished. Words alluding to the social and ethical responsibility of higher education institutions are being filtered away from the rhetoric of curricula, programmes and projects. A new language of learning and learning outcomes is replacing the conventional. One of the silly effects is that the taxonomy of learning outcomes for programmes for BA, MA and PhD programmes often contains descriptions that are less academically demanding than for secondary school. The occurrence of terms like “critical thinking” is less prominent in higher education than of secondary schools in some instances. This development is so much in contrast to what the renown philosopher Ronald Barnett claim is the most challenging task for higher education: to develop courage and judgement in students to cope with uncertainness and conflicts in the supercomplex society:The student’s being has to take centre stage. Feeling uncertainty, responding to uncertainty, gaining confidence to insert oneself amid the numerous counter-claims to which one is exposed, engaging with the enemy, and developing resilience and courage: these are matters of being. Their acquisition calls for a revolution in the pedagogical relationships within a university. (Barnett 2000, s.170-171).Please, politicians for higher education, “VADA A BORDO!”The PapersIn this issue we bring five articles – a Russian and German paper, one Austrian, one Danish and Swedish, one Danish and a Norwegian paper. In diverse ways they all address concerns that relate to changes in knowing and how knowledge is acquired.Thommy Eriksson, of Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, and Inge Ejby Sørensen, of Copenhagen University, are both bold pioneers in their diligent work presented in the paper “Reflections on academic video”. Their ambition is to establish an academic journal for visual publications, predominantly videos. They present us for the paradox that a substantial number of academics teach visual subjects, video analysis and video production, and yet rarely disseminate and mediate via audiovisual media. They argue that documentary theory and semiotics are two critical traditions in academia that will provide the conventional credentials for establishing a new academic genre. In the journal “Audiovisual thinking” we can follow an exciting new and path breaking way of academic discourse.In the paper “Storytelling – EDU: Educational – Digital – Unlimited? Theo Hug of the University of Innsbruck, raises the question of “Digital Storytelling” as a genre for educational purposes. He acknowledges that students are often very competent in using media and are well prepared to go beyond “writing” as a monomedial activity. The paper reflects on various understandings of the phenomenon and highlights some conceptual problems and limitations of Digital Storytelling in educational contexts.The third paper in this edition addresses students and their use of information technologies in Russia. Alexander Porshnev, of National Research University, Nogorod, Russia and Hartmut Giest, of Potsdam University, Germany, authors of “University Students’ use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Russia: A Focus on Learning and Everyday Life”” present results derived from a comparative analysis of German and Russian students. They discuss the variance and diversity of ICT use in Russian Higher education and addresses contemporary problems in this context.The Norwegian nursing educators Edda Johansen, Thomas Harding (also Australian) and Tone Marte Ljosaa introduce us to “Norwegian Nurses Experiences with Blended Learning: An evaluation study”. They are affiliated to the Buskerud University College and are concerned with developing fruitful and effective learning environments. In their study they…
Time Magazine argued in 2006 that the person of the year truly was "You". This was in d... more Time Magazine argued in 2006 that the person of the year truly was "You". This was in deed a significant gesture to the fact that digital technologies change the way people interact and live their lives. What made "You" a candidate for "Person of the year", was that the development of the Internet had made it possible for anyone to publish and express your personality on the Web; or rather of "Web 2.0". In 2007, the notion of "Web 2.0" has been on headlines for many conferences and conventions, articles and in the news. While some enthusiasts already prepare for the developments of "Web 3.0", most people face the challenge of trying to grapple with how new technological changes affect their everyday life in the present tense. So, if "You" was the person of the year in 2006, Web 2.0 was the technology of the year in 2007. And then again, the notion of what consequences Web 2.0 might have for teaching and learning in the area of higher education, lifelong learning and adult education will be raised in numerous contexts. Some years ago, the Australian professor of teaching in Higher Education, Craig McInnis, described how most teachers in higher education felt that technological changes were among the most important factors affecting academic life. A report on the status of how Norwegian institutions have adopted ICT in teaching and learning, found that all institutions now use Learning Management Systems for their average teaching and administration tasks. Hence, the report concluded: the LMS has successfully brought the Norwegian academic into the digital age. The LMS is more or less synonymous with ICT. What worried the authors of the said report was that the use of the LMS was not considered sophisticated or innovative. Likewise, the influential report written by Zemsky and Massy (2004), found that much of the use was trivial and not primarily for the benefit of teaching and learning. We can predict that many teachers in higher education will think of Web 2.0 as the latest add-on to the burden of change that [...]
Yngve Nordkvelle, editorThere is a tradition in media history from Plato idealising the communica... more Yngve Nordkvelle, editorThere is a tradition in media history from Plato idealising the communication situation that is person to person. Although several authors have shown that Socrates used many strategies for his communication to his audience, and quite a few of them were far less sincerely other-centred than his followers like to portray. In fact Socrates was using all the tricks of the communication trade: persuading, threatening, ridiculing and joking in addition to the sanctimonious dialogue. However, in the dialogues, we believe we find the true Socrates, or Plato, expressing the potential of self-liberation and self-expansion in the education of the person, in plain talking person to person. Jesus was a practitioner of communicative skills, addressing small groups, as well as larger groups and gatherings. Monty Python showed how difficult it must have been to convey the message to a really large group of followers without using a PA-system, and how creatively listeners compose new meanings from the bits and pieces they do actually hear. Nevertheless, speaking one to many was a necessity for the mass-communication ambitions of the Christians, who boldly went out to baptize the entire world.While Plato nurtured the deepest suspicion of rhetoric as an art of communication, the Christians embraced the knowledge of Rhetoric, and developed it for their purposes in their activities of organizing the Western Mind. Socrates did use drawings and mental visuals: allegories, stories etc. for his purposeful teaching. The Greeks acknowledged that teaching was actually very closely associated with “pointing at”. “Didaskein” was the word they used for the teaching activity of pointing at or highlighting something worth explaining. In the development of mass communication the usefulness of pointing at something apart from what is conceivable here and now has been a significant part of rhetoric and teaching. Metaphors, allegories and stories - and then symbols, signs, icons, drawings, tables and graphs developed over the years and were used in churches, public buildings, lecture halls and schools to assist the preacher, speaker or teacher. Flexible visualizing tools, such as the blackboard, or the more theatrical “laterna magica”, then the “ballopticon”, slidesprojector, overheadprojector etc. arrived and made the tasks of the messenger more and more complex.With the computer even more tools have arrived. Gradually our everyday teaching with media has been overwhelmingly furnished with gadgets that make visualization common - and sometimes grim and confusing, - sometimes enlightening and expanding. In our journal we try to explain, expand on and forward critique on both the media technologies and the way we use them.In this issue we present four articles with different takes on the matter. Professor Theo Hug opens this issue with a deep analysis of what knowing about educational media is all about. From his base at the University of Innsbruck he provides us with a profound insight in the trends and fads that we are surrounded with, and suggest new angels and ways of seeing the problems we encounter of “the visual” in teaching and learning. Professor Halvor Nordby offers a deep exploration of the communication phenomenon related to the use of Internet for teaching and communication. He asks what the essential nature of this communication is and how it differs from ordinary face-to-face communication in a most fundamental sense. He provides us with a conceptual analysis as a philosophical method to explore the intrinsic nature of the concept interactive communication. His aim of this method is to develop a concept definition that matches shared linguistic beliefs about informative examples from Internet based communication and information exchange that is central in e-learning. PhD Ulf Olson, who works at the University of Stockholm offers us insights into the problems of how lecturers from three different universities interpret and apply certain methods in their blended learning/web-based courses. He compares their teaching methods to the lecturers' conceptions of learning. He used questionnaires for the survey and compares responses from lecturers in 10 subjects to each other. Olson’s main aims was to compare chosen teaching forms to conceptions of learning, and to compare subject areas with each other according to the lecturers' conceptions of learning. Not surprisingly, he did find important inconsistencies between the lecturers' conceptions of learning and the teaching methods they used. Finally, associate professor Arvid Staupe from the Norwegian University of Technology and Science, present a paper reporting from an experiment trying out new forms of evaluation at his own institution. The article describe how he went about to solve the particular problems of students’ learning in his classes by offering alternative ways of evaluating the students’ work. The article provides evidence…
”A remark you made” is the title of a wonderful tune by the famous jazz-rock group “Weather Repor... more ”A remark you made” is the title of a wonderful tune by the famous jazz-rock group “Weather Report”, issued on the influential “Heavy weather” LP some 30 years ago. In an age where planning and rationalizing is the main issue in most contexts, whether it’s a matter of studying, teaching, doing research or using a diet, “A remark you made” is a symbol of attending to the unplanned, unforeseen and often, unwanted. In most accounts on cognitive development one is overtly focused on the manageable, on the predictable and expected, and not so attentive to the opposite. “A remark you made” makes us think again and reconsider what might be of value, in what we otherwise might neglect. A remark made by Terry Anderson at a conference last year (2006) was rather telling. Anderson is the renown distance educator from Athabasca University, Alberta Canada, and editor of our fellow e-journal “The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning”. I recite it here totally from my own memory, and I have never approached him to have it verified, falsified or commented. That doesn’t matter in this context. Standing on the podium, he lowered his voice and asked if any Danes were present in the room. There weren’t! Then he explained that his argument might be presented differently with Danes present: “You see – Danes seem to think that learning alone is no longer possible!” That remark caused quite a good laugh, not the least because any comment – good or bad – about fellow Scandinavians generally is considered to be a good joke. But it was also a comment on how not only distance education, or open and flexible learning, but learning theory in general is driven by the sociocultural learning theory, - and according to Anderson, particularly so in Denmark! Our first contribution in this issue is about the theory of media theory developed by one of our editors: Lars Qvortrup. Lars is now the rector of the Danish “Royal School of Library and Information Science”. His presentation rests on an understanding of learning that makes it totally an individual experience, namely radical constructivism, as presented by Niklas Luhmann. In Denmark it would be fair to say that constructivism and social constructivism are two vital, but different approaches to learning, and in distance education in particular. In most other contexts nowadays, ideas about dialogues, scaffolding, collaboration, and mentoring relies on the theoretical tradition from Lev Vygotsky, via several contemporary interpretations and developments performed by J. Wertsch, J. Lave, R. Scardamalia, E.Wenger etc. Since Timothy Koschmann placed the development of educational psychology to fit with an evolutionary scheme, he unavoidably suggested a normative taxonomy, in which learning in a social context was placed at the top, and behaviourism at the bottom. This has led to a normative regime in higher education and elsewhere in which learning through working in social contexts, such as in seminars, groups and projects has gained a superior position. The paradox is that learning in this way is, for the most part, not very flexible. On the contrary, the more you add assignments that demand contributions and collaboration from more than one person, the less flexible it gets. How do we then come to terms with the paradox? In practice, the average design of a distance education programme allows students to work in flexible manners, which opens for collaborative work for those who prefer to work collaboratively, and a straightforward independent course progression for what usually is the majority: students working for themselves. In a recently published PhD thesis by dr.Ulf Olsson of Karlstad University, he demonstrates that working independently, not relying on social activity in the virtual classroom, pays off in order to survive in the distance education classroom (Olsson 2007). Therefore it seems that holding learning in the social context as a moral predicament has some serious consequences. First, it devalues personal knowledge, and explains how individuals learn poorly. Second, it builds on a sort of normality, or even moralism that dismisses the learning strategies that are based on individual achievement. Since adult education was founded gradually as an academic field, individual and collective learning has been taken seriously as a question of variance, of adapting to different learning styles and contexts. Making the social contexts of learning the superior is out of line with a policy for flexible learning anyhow. Joakim Samuelson's article in this journal reveals a closer look at what happens when classrooms are dominated by computers. Even if computers in the classroom have been expected to promote communication and dialogic exchanges of knowledge, Samuelson demonstrates in the case he reports from that this is hardly the case. Students prefer to work alone, also in primary grades. Stephen Dobson and Rune Sarroma Haustätter tell a fascinating story…
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