Anders D. Olofsson

Informed Design of Educational Technologies in Higher Education: Enhanced Learning and Teaching

Internationally, virtual world environments such as Second Life® (SL) have become accepted as platforms for innovative educational activities at many universities in recent years. One such activity ...This chapter discusses the application of a transactional approach to educational design. Its purpose is to describe how such an approach could be applied to a thesis course. To fulfill this purpose the chapter unfolds by indicating that the practice of supervision faces challenges from changes in society. Technology-enhanced participation in supervision is one answer to these challenges. Inspired by scholars such as Bakhtin, Dewey, and Vygotsky the applied transactional approach expands on ideas such as dialogues and educational settings. The implementation of these ideas into the educational design intersects within two principles, group-work, and open and public exchanges of information. The transactional approach is then illustrated with the help of a first-year undergraduate thesis course in the discipline of Education.Informed Design of Educational Technologies in Higher Education: Enhanced Learning and Teaching presents recent and important theoretical and practical advances in educational technology design in higher education, examining their possibilities for enhancing teaching and learning. This volume includes discussions of technologies and applications grounded in legitimate learning theories and from an ethical perspective that emphasizes mutual understanding.

Online Learning Communities and Teacher Professional Development: Methods for Improved Education Delivery

In todays society, the professional development of teachers is urgent due to the constant change in working conditions and the impact that information and communication technologies have in teaching practices. Online Learning Communities and Teacher Professional Development: Methods for Improved Education Delivery features innovative applications and solutions useful for teachers in developing knowledge and skills for the integration of technology into everyday teaching practices. This defining collection of field research discusses how technology itself can serve as an important resource in terms of providing arenas for professional development.

Teaching with technology in higher education: understanding conceptual change and development in practice

ABSTRACT Research indicates that teachers’ conceptions of and approaches to teaching with technology are central for the successful imple-mentation of educational technologies in higher education. This study advances this premise. We present a 10-year longitudinal study examining teachers’ conceptions of and approaches to teaching and learning with technology. Nine teachers on an online Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy and a Master of Pharmacy programme at a Swedish university were studied using a phenomenographic approach. Results showed clear differences between novice and experienced teachers. Although novice teachers initially held more teacher-focused conceptions, they demonstrated greater and more rapid change than experienced colleagues. Experienced teachers tended to exhibit little to no change in conceptions. Supporting conceptual change should, therefore, be a central component of professional development activities if a more effective use of educational technology is to be achieved.

Blogs and the Design of Reflective Peer-to-Peer Technology-Enhanced Learning and Formative Assessment.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the use of blogs as part of a formative assessment practice, to report how reflective peer-to-peer learning can be designed and provided in online h ...

Shared video media and blogging online: Educational technologies for enhancing formative e‐assessment?

Purpose - This paper provide an understanding of the students’ meaning-making processes, as they are part of an e-assessment practice via written blog posting upon their own and their co-students ...

Same but different? An examination of Swedish upper secondary school teachers’ and students’ views and use of ICT in education

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine Swedish upper secondary school teachers’ and students’views and use of ICT in education.Design/methodology/approach – In total, 25 individual teach ...

Implementing distance teaching at a large scale in medical education: A struggle between dominant and non-dominant teaching activities

This paper examines possibilities and challenges when implementing distance teaching of theoretical content in a regionalized medical program (RMP). It will be argued that Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and the concepts of dominant and non-dominant activities, including conflicts and transitional actions, can lead to an understanding of the distance teaching implementation process. The concepts further provide a theoretical lens through which one can understand the complex relationship between the established and historically rooted, face-to-face teaching activity and the new non-dominant distance teaching activity introduced in the educational setting. Data in the study was collected through an online survey, log data, observations, and in-depth interviews. During the analysis, conflicts between the dominant face-to-face teaching and non-dominant distance teaching activity were identified, and they partly inhibited medical teachers at the program from adopting and developing distance teaching. By illustrating transitional actions as small, innovative bottom-up solutions, further analysis revealed how medical teachers tried to overcome those conflicts to facilitate the adoption and development of distance teaching. The non-dominant distance teaching activity, even if not fully adopted, actually influenced and facilitated change in educational practice. The discussion argues that understanding the implementation of a non-dominant teaching activity in medical education in terms of mere success or failure is not fruitful. Instead, we should strive for sensitivity by closely analyzing the implementation process as interplay between dominant and non-dominant teaching activities. Such sensitivity will make it possible to cultivate future educational development and change.

Introduction: Moving from theory into practice : on the informed design of educational technologies

This special issue of Technology, Pedagogy and Education originates from a symposium on educational technology held in 2012 at Umeå University in Sweden. Through keynote speeches, cutting-edge research knowledge was disseminated and combined with follow-up dialogues among the participants. Interesting, innovative and critical questions and concerns about the informed design of educational technologies for teaching and learning were addressed. Many insightful answers and suggestions were given; but even so, the editors of this special issue, after closing the symposium, thought that the question of how research can be designed in a sustainable and successful way, as well as implemented, integrated and used by practitioners, was not answered satisfactorily enough. Compared to other research fields, such as, for example, medicine and engineering, the link between research and practice does not yet seem, apparently, to be strong in the field of education. According to Burkhardt and Schoenfeld (2003), for example, educational research has, over time been both questioned and challenged by practitioners such as school leaders, teachers and politicians. When practitioners experience problems, they seldom turn to research. Burkhardt and Schoenfeld (2003) even claimed that ‘education has no collective voice to counterbalance less expert commentators. Indeed, many “common sense” results that are widely accepted by the public (e.g., “retention works”) fly in the face of modern research’ (p. 9). Research results seem to have had difficulty making their way into educational settings. One might ask: why does this seem to be the case? Why is it so hard for researchers and practitioners to work together and, through mutual efforts and joint visions, improve their educational practices? How come there is such difficulty integrating research and development work? Mor (2014) for example suggested that researchers and teachers in fact can both take the role of providers of knowledge and designers of teaching and learning activities through educational technologies. In this special issue, we attempt to go further into this complex web of problems. One way we suggest the problems can be resolved is through informed design of educational technologies. Informed is – in broad terms – here understood as the design of educational technologies that are built on solid and explicit theoretical assumptions. This implies designs that are possible for both researchers and practitioners to criticise and develop on their own assumptions and that, most importantly, have the possibility to enhance teaching and learning in digitalised educational environments (see Olofsson & Lindberg, 2012). Next in this editorial, we provide a brief overview of already formulated critical insights and concerns within this field of research. Thereafter, the six articles included in the special issue are presented as well as their specific relation to the idea of having an informed design as a starting point for enhancing teaching and learning. With inspiration from Burkhardt and Schoenfeld (2003), this will be doneIntroduction: Moving from theory into practice : on the informed design of educational technologies

Moving from theory into practice : on the informed design of educational technologies

This special issue of Technology, Pedagogy and Education originates from a symposium on educational technology held in 2012 at Umeå University in Sweden. Through keynote speeches, cutting-edge research knowledge was disseminated and combined with follow-up dialogues among the participants. Interesting, innovative and critical questions and concerns about the informed design of educational technologies for teaching and learning were addressed. Many insightful answers and suggestions were given; but even so, the editors of this special issue, after closing the symposium, thought that the question of how research can be designed in a sustainable and successful way, as well as implemented, integrated and used by practitioners, was not answered satisfactorily enough. Compared to other research fields, such as, for example, medicine and engineering, the link between research and practice does not yet seem, apparently, to be strong in the field of education. According to Burkhardt and Schoenfeld (2003), for example, educational research has, over time been both questioned and challenged by practitioners such as school leaders, teachers and politicians. When practitioners experience problems, they seldom turn to research. Burkhardt and Schoenfeld (2003) even claimed that ‘education has no collective voice to counterbalance less expert commentators. Indeed, many “common sense” results that are widely accepted by the public (e.g., “retention works”) fly in the face of modern research’ (p. 9). Research results seem to have had difficulty making their way into educational settings. One might ask: why does this seem to be the case? Why is it so hard for researchers and practitioners to work together and, through mutual efforts and joint visions, improve their educational practices? How come there is such difficulty integrating research and development work? Mor (2014) for example suggested that researchers and teachers in fact can both take the role of providers of knowledge and designers of teaching and learning activities through educational technologies. In this special issue, we attempt to go further into this complex web of problems. One way we suggest the problems can be resolved is through informed design of educational technologies. Informed is – in broad terms – here understood as the design of educational technologies that are built on solid and explicit theoretical assumptions. This implies designs that are possible for both researchers and practitioners to criticise and develop on their own assumptions and that, most importantly, have the possibility to enhance teaching and learning in digitalised educational environments (see Olofsson & Lindberg, 2012). Next in this editorial, we provide a brief overview of already formulated critical insights and concerns within this field of research. Thereafter, the six articles included in the special issue are presented as well as their specific relation to the idea of having an informed design as a starting point for enhancing teaching and learning. With inspiration from Burkhardt and Schoenfeld (2003), this will be doneIntroduction: Moving from theory into practice : on the informed design of educational technologies

Can physicians be replaced with gynecological teaching women to train medical students in their first pelvic examination? A pilot study from Northern Sweden

OBJECTIVEnThe main objective was to gain a deeper understanding of how medical students perceive and experience learning from gynecological teaching women (GTW) instead of physicians in their first pelvic examination. A second aim was to describe how the women experience their roles as GTW.nnnMETHODSnData were collected from individual interviews with 24 medical students from a medical school in Sweden and with 5 GTW. Discourse analysis was performed to acquire a deeper understanding of the informants experiences and to understand social interactions.nnnRESULTSnFive themes revealed in the medical students experiences: Hoping that anxiety will be replaced with security, Meeting as equals creates a sense of calm, Succeeding creates a sense of security for the future, Wanting but not having the opportunity to learn more, and Feeling relieved and grateful. One theme revealed in the GTW experiences: Hoping to relate in a trustworthy way.nnnCONCLUSIONnTo replace physicians with GTW may facilitate the learning process and may also help medical students improve their communicative skills. Using GTW will hopefully further improve students basic medical examination techniques and physician-patient relationships.nnnPRACTICE IMPLICATIONSnSince GTW seems to increase self-confidence and skills of medical students performing their first pelvic examination we recommend that the use of GTW is considered in the training of medical students.