Kenneth Silseth

The Multivoicedness of Game Play: Exploring the Unfolding of a Student's Learning Trajectory in a Gaming Context at School

The purpose of this article is to gain knowledge about how interactions in a gaming context become constituted as effective resources for a student’s learning trajectory. In addition, this detailed study of a learning trajectory documents how a computer game becomes a learning resource for working on a specific topic in school. The article reports on a qualitative study of students at an upper secondary school who have played the computer game Global Conflicts: Palestine to learn about the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A sociocultural and dialogic approach to learning and meaning-making is employed as an analytical framework. Analyzing different interactional episodes, in which important orientations and reorientations are located, documents how the student’s learning trajectory developed and changed during the project. When engaged in game play in educational settings, experiences with playing computer games outside of school can relevantly be invoked and become part of the collaborative project of finding out how to play the game. However, these ways of engaging with a computer game might not necessarily facilitate a subtle understanding of the specific topic that is addressed in the game. The findings suggest that the constitution of a computer game as a learning resource is a collaborative project, in which multiple resources for meaning-making are in play, and for which the teacher has an important role in facilitating student’s adoption of a multiperspective on the conflict. Furthermore, the findings shed light on what characterizes student-teacher interactions that contribute to a subtle understanding, and offer a framework for important issues upon which to reflect in game-based learning (GBL).

Learning and identity construction across sites: A dialogical approach to analysing the construction of learning selves

We introduce the notion of learning selves as a way of tracing learning across sites. Learning selves is a way of characterizing how people as learners are constituted in and between settings. Focusing on the concept of self represents an attempt to address what becomes of the person in sociocultural and dialogical theorizing. Through a discussion of central concepts in dialogical theory, we outline three analytical resources to examine and identify cultural constructions of learning selves. The first is narratives, the second categories, and the last inscriptions. By working through an episode of interaction, where a teacher and his students discuss and negotiate the use of a particular learning resource in school, we demonstrate how the analytical resources enable us to study the process through which particular versions of learning selves are put together and contrasted. Finally, we discuss the implications for educational research on learning and identity.

Being a Learner Using Social Media in School: The Case of Space2cre8

The aim of this article is to gain knowledge about what it means to be a learner using social media in an educational setting. The article presents an ethnographic study of students in a multiethnic community in Oslo who participate in a social networking site called Space2cre8 (S28). In this article, we set out to explore the kind of space for learning that can be created in a lower secondary classroom by a social networking site. The article provides a detailed study of how two students made use of this social networking site as part of school activities, and it outlines two specific ways in which to be a learner using social media in school. The findings suggest that a social networking site such as S28 can provide different resources for different students with different learner identities, and might represent a space in which everyday knowledge and school knowledge merge to offer a hybrid space for learning.

Frames for learning science: analyzing learner positioning in a technology-enhanced science project

In this article, we examine the relationship between how students are positioned in social encounters and how this influences learning in a technology-supported science project. We pursue this topic by focusing on the participation trajectory of one particular learner. The analysis shows that the student cannot be interpreted as one type of student having only one type of identity as a learner. His position as a learner shifts multiple times during the instructional trajectory. We discuss the different consequences that this has on the students participation and learning of science.

Multimodal composition and assessment: a sociocultural perspective

Abstract In this article, we examine how assessment is enacted and negotiated in a school project that involves multimodal composition. The case is a project on advertisement in which lower secondary students collaboratively composed multimodal commercials about various products and topics. The theoretical framework is based on sociocultural perspectives on learning and assessment, and video data of classroom interaction are subjected to detailed analysis. The findings document the consequences of decoupling production and assessment practices. The analysis show that written texts and multimodal texts have different statuses in the project because of how they are assessed and that this has consequences for students’ participation as learners. In addition, the analysis shows how students position themselves differently towards resources that are intended to help them in summative assessment situations. We discuss issues that teachers may reflect upon when planning and executing multimodal composition in schools.