1. Learning and the use of ICT in higher education. Expectations and results. Prof. Sten Ludvigsen, CET UCT, October 2010

2. Structure for the talk  Some assumptions' about the relationship between learning and ICT  Theoretical foundation –  Socio-cultural perspective  Empirical section  Summary

3. Higher education and the use of ICT.  The questions are:  Which expectations are connected to the use of ICT in higher education?  What do “review studies” and case studies show about what is actually happening?  How can the difference between expectations and reality be understood?  Which theories can provide a better understanding of the development within higher education?

4. Socio-cultural perspectives on learning and knowledge construction  An institutional perspective  Interaction with artifacts – mediated action  Actions, activities and resources  Open ups to understand how knowledge is inscribed in artifacts and are used in the activities, related to goals, meaning potential, tasks, and different orientations  Talk and actions – opens the use of technology up – black box

5. RulesCommunity Division of labor Output Object Subject Artefacts Cultural historical activity theory

6. Higher education and the use of ICT.  Evidence and justification – state-of-the-art....  Reforms and significant expectations to higher education  Main factor in the “knowledge economy”  Legitimizing the sector has become a continual process but….

7. Higher education and the use of ICT.  The use of ICT has become a central theme in these legitimization processes  Dotcom in education  Platforms  Learning technologies  The number of students using ICTs’ – increases…

8. Higher education and the use of ICT.  Enormous expectations as to what information and communication technology (ICT) can achieve in terms of increased efficiency and quality enhancement.  Acceleration  At the first Kaleidoscope (NoE in the 6th framework program) symposium a representative from the EU claimed that within the field of ICT and learning a lot have been promised, but raised the question about where is the actual results  Acceleration versus change – meaning making

9. Higher education and the use of ICT.  The main characteristics of development in many fields are associated with;  increasing diversity, competition, and globalization,  selection of ICT strategies will be decisive for the position of higher education institutions in the market.  Improve position in the higher ed. marked:  invest in a technological infrastructure, and ICT must be used in learning and teaching.

10. Higher education and the use of ICT.  Higher education systems as loosely coupled multiple activity systems  Collective dimensions ”weak”  Tensions between policy, management levels, and empirical objects  Core – teaching and learning  Autonomy as norm

11. Higher education and the use of ICT.  When the scenario “The New Economy” is chosen to set the guidelines for development within higher education, there is a danger of choosing a set of premises that provide little analytic understanding of how higher education actually develops.  It lacks an institutional understanding of how higher institutions work as practical place of learning and research and how development occurs.  Such assumptions can, in the worst case, give policy and decision makers an entirely incorrect picture of which factors are influencing development of higher educational institutions.

12. Higher education and the use of ICT.  A policy study – one example  Collis and Van der Wende  Metaphors  A - “back-to-basics”  Strong control – lectures and f2f  B - The Global Campus  Web environments  C- Stretching the mould  F2f and virtual environments  D – The Knowledge Economy  Individualization and globalization

13. Higher education and the use of ICT.  Problems  Collis and van der Wende’s study (2002) is problematic:  First, their interpretation of the data is built on a set of normative assumptions about what would be the best course of development for institutions within the sector. Here, they use the scenarios as the criteria for a goal.  Second, they have ICT as the independent variable when trying to explain the development of universities or other institutions of higher learning. Given the results of both the case studies and review studies, this premise is not valid.  The third point is connected to what is being studied. Conclusions are drawn from the organizational level to the level of individuals without analyzing the pedagogic and content based dimensions of the activities.

14. Higher education and the use of ICT.  Results  Change happening in higher education, but at slow rate.  What's slow?  The global competition that is being emphasized in the field of policy only seems to have a small effect on the choice of the form of teaching and the use of ICT  ICT increase flexibility for the students  Professor/teachers work more –unpaid  Change in communication patterns and presentation formats

15. Higher education and the use of ICT. Productive use of ICTs –Such factors can include a teacher’s understanding of ICT as used in academic situations –The students’ motivation and prior knowledge –The quality of the learning resources that are developed –The quality of the interaction between the teacher and the students, and between the students Institutional or collective dimension –norms and rules, the learning environment to which the students belong, the resources to which they have access, and what kinds of distribution of work that can be identified between teachers and students

16. Higher education and the use of ICT.  Computer Supported Collaborative Learning studies:  In experimental studies and in design experiments within specific fields of knowledge, it has been possible to show positive results in favor of CSCL environments (mathematics, science, and writing).  BUT – scaling seems difficult – what does this mean?  Norms, values, what counts as knowledge?

17. CHAT  Objects as historical artifacts – re- contextualized in activities  Historical perception  Canons of representations  Objects and actions as double change – through activity

18. CHAT  What kind of theory is CHAT?  History  Division of labor  Objects (symbolic - materiality)  Change – radical transformation

19. CHAT  CHAT (Engeström)  Two or more activity system  Network of activity systems  Boundaries  Boundary object  Boundary crossing  Boundary zones

20. CHAT  Expansive learning  Question and critical analysis of existing practices  Historical analysis  Modeling of new solutions  Critical views on the model  Testing and implementation of a new model  Reflection and adjustment  Conformation and consolidating the new practices

21. CHAT

22. CHAT and socio-cultural perspectives on learning and knowledge construction  Multiplicity as ”starting point”  Institutional development  Individual development  Social development  Technological development – new form of representations  Not a unidirectional process or development

23. Higher education and the use of ICT.  PLUTO – teacher education – national program 10 institutions over four years  Develop new pedagogic and organizational models for adapting and performing studies and learning activities where ICT has a substantial roll  Develop, adapt, or make available digital learning materials (software, contents, and services) that support these models  Establish new forms of collaboration with schools where students carry out their student teaching  Establish new forms of assessment and evaluation

24. Artefacts and objects  The empirical basis for the PLUTO reform  Report local  National evaluation  Survey  PhD work

25. CHAT  Collective aspect of human activity  Tensions  Break downs  Contradiction – on different levels in and between activity systems

26. Higher education and the use of ICT.  Which object?  Impact and why?  Relationship between the individual and collective  Norms and division and labor, boundary zones

27. Higher education and the use of ICT.  Digital portfolios – creates conditions for new learning trajectories  What about ICT  As infrastructure  Reorganizing the information  Tasks  Change communication pattern  The students above average users of ICT

28. Higher education and the use of ICT  Back to the starting point  The assumptions – ICT works on different levels – evidence on one level is not enough  Infrastructure, individual and collective level  Description and theory is needed – not just ….

29. Higher education and the use of ICT.  Productive use of ICT  ICT may be used to develop new activities where writing is intensified and improved.  Knowledge can be presented in new ways. This can be done with the help of a number of various presentational tools. Simulations, animation, and so forth may be used to emphasize specific issues.  All teachers in higher education can influence this type of change themselves, as long as the institution has prepared for the use of virtual environments and presentational tools.  The testing and implementation of other objects such as assessment and evaluation systems, however, affects the entire institution and leads to more systemic changes.  This represents changes on a collective level and depends on extensive institutional negotiations. If one chooses to try this type of change, then the department or section must work on a collective level.

30. Higher education and the use of ICT.  Conclusions  The goals and expectation is misleading  Evaluation based on goal and policy gives certain problems  Normative models give not valid accounts  Clear descriptive premises is needed  And of course ICT in relation with social factors works – the questions is how and what do people learn?  Incremental change leads to....

31. Higher education and the use of ICT.  Are the expectations or the results the main problem  the expectations as to how ICT could revolutionize higher education – social practices are changing…..  ……“rhetorical suggestion.”  We need to study the actual development

32. Higher education and the use of ICT.  Thank you for the attention!