When InterMedia was founded in 1998, they had high expectations for how new information and communication technology would change our society, organisations and, not the least, learning.

Since then, information and communication technology has become more and more prominent in our daily lives.  What effect has this technology had on learning and learning systems?

No Learning Effect in Itself

InterMedia’s research shows that new technology does not represent any learning effect in itself.

“Technology does not get students to learn without them noticing, without them making an effort,” says Anders Kluge, researcher at InterMedia.

If we are going to generate better ways of learning using technology, knowledge and technology must be adapted and put into context.

So, researchers at InterMedia are testing many different ways of communicating and imparting knowledge, and designing their own programmes and learning materials.

Among other things, they have studied how mobile phones and blogging can get young people more interested in visiting museum exhibitions.

GIDDER

With the project, GiDDER: Groups in Digital Dialogue, post doctor Palmyre Pierroux was looking to study how mobile and social technologies could be used to support high school students’ understanding of art. What resources are important for young people to form their own opinions about art?

A wiki-based website, with mobile phone blogging, was set up.  The website also contained information and exercises related to the exhibition, and a special area where students could blog.  Curator, Hanne Beate Ueland, at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, was an important collaboration partner.

Before visiting the museum, students and teachers used the website to get information about the exhibition.  Then, the students were divided into groups and chose an activity to work on during their visit.

At the museum, students used their own mobile phones to collect textual, audio, and video information about the exhibition, which they sent as SMS and MMS messages to their blogs.

Blogging Generated Enthusiasm about Art

Back at school, the students discussed and edited their blog entries and completed the activities they had chosen.  The results were presented in the groups’ blogs on the wiki website.
This process was tested in two variations, by more than 150 students, from four different Oslo high schools.

It turned out, that this form of learning caused the students to get deeply involved in the artworks.
Using a blog as a way to complete an assignment generated interest and discussion between the students and teachers.  But this usage of mobile phones and the Internet in an educational context also proved to be demanding.

Science Created By You

“Another project we're working on is SCY – Science Created by You,” says Anders Kluge, researcher at InterMedia.  SCY is going to look at methods and technologies that make it easier to understand natural sciences.

In the first phase of SCY, students are going to construct a carbon-neutral house on a computer.
To complete this project, they have to look at several fields, such as biology, physics, and mathematics.  For example, they need to understand the carbon cycle to be able to make their own calculations for the house.

“Students are posed a large and general question,” says Kluge, “Then, they need to make their own hypotheses and research them.”

Collaboration and Understanding

When constructing the house, the students need to collaborate with each other and understand the content of the information they acquire.  The students need to explore new terminology and use it in other contexts.

To make sure that no one falls through the cracks, each student has his or her own role in the group.  For example, one student can be responsible for developing the heating system for the house, while another can be in charge of finding the best insulation.

Then, the simulations are sent to participating schools in other countries, where other students continue building the houses and modify them based on their own conditions and cultural background.

No Learning without Effort

Other relevant topics for SCY include gene technology, the environment, and climate.

“They will be scientific topics that are also socially significant,” says Kluge.

Through his research, Kluge and his colleagues have seen that technology in learning contexts is used very differentially.  The same technology, with the same teacher training, was used differently from school to school.

But using technology in an educational context is no miracle cure.

“We can stimulate learning and find new ways to do it, but there is no way around a certain amount of concentration and work on what needs to be learned,” concludes Kluge.

By: Berit Ellingsen, freelance journalist
Article previously published on www.forskning.no