CHANGE: learning and communication with digital knowledge representations in changing contexts
The CHANGE research group explore design, use of and learning with technology-based environments in schools, museums and workplace settings.
About CHANGE
The overall aim of the CHANGE research group is to understand how people use and learn with new types of digital knowledge representations in schools, museums and workplace settings. The key analytic concepts are learning, digital knowledge representation and social practice. The group explore the relationship between these concepts.
The overall goals are:
- to strengthen and develop theoretical and analytical perspectives on learning involving the use of representations, tools and artifacts
- to strengthen methodological approaches that combines analysis of multiple sets of data
CHANGE research group targets learning and communication with digital technology in schools, museums and workplace settings. In keeping with extensive digital and technological innovations in recent decades, a variety of new practices have emerged that today constitute central parts of our everyday and professional lives, with knowledge represented in increasingly complex forms of digital tools and devices. The overall aim of CHANGE research group is to explore and understand how people use and learn with different types of digital technology, such as visual knowledge representations, computer games, social media, and textual information sources. Based on socio-cultural and socio-cognitive perspectives, our research projects include various knowledge domains (math, science, social science, and art), and work formats (inquiry-learning, problem-based learning and project work). There is an analytical focus on social interaction and literacy issues within these projects. Applicants with qualifications in both qualitative and quantitative methods are encouraged to apply.
Theoretical foundation
The socio-cultural perspective is the common perspective for the CHANGE group. The ways in which representations are used is connected to norms, values and conventions in the settings in which they become a part of the practice. Understanding the situated contingencies is necessary for developing a robust understanding of how representation works in a specific context. The implication is that we must combine analyses of the history of the activities in which representations are used. Then we can understand how the longer-term development meets the short and rapid changes that ICT brings. More theoretically, we work with models conceptualizing the social human mind and what the historically changing nature of learning means for participants’ possibilities and capacities for knowledge construction.
Research questions
Research questions create a collective orientation for studies of schools, museums and work-settings:
- How can we understand students’/participants’ process of conceptual understanding of scientific concepts?
- In which ways does social interaction contribute to collective knowledge construction in and across changing contexts?
- How is knowledge embedded in activities, artifacts and tools, and how are rules and conventions played out in specific institutions?
- How can we understand learning as collaborative activities and the production of resources and ‘objects’ (products) that can be reused across these activities?
Activities
The CHANGE group work on two levels of organizing the activities. Regularly scheduled research meetings, seminars, and a portfolio of specific projects form the basis for the group. The research program and the projects described below are the strategic drivers that give theoretical, methodological and empirical specificity to the scope of research.
Main projects
- CONTACT: Communicating Organizations in Networks of Art and Cultural Heritage Technologies
- MIRACLE - Mixed Reality Interactions across Contexts of Learning
- SCY - Science Created by You
Collaboration and networks
The research group has extensive collaborations with partner institutions in Europe and Canada.
Research training and education
We are also involved in research training and organize open seminars to disseminate and discuss advancements relevant for understanding learning and communication with digital knowledge representations.
(Photo: Anthony Perritano, Telenor R&D og Colourbox)