Designs for Learning in an Extended Digital Environment : Case Studies of Social Interaction in the Social Science Classroom

Abstract: This thesis studies designs for learning in the extended digital interface in the Social Science classroom. The aim is to describe and analyse how pupils interact, make meaning and learn while deploying digital learning resources.Together with the thesis a multimodal design theoretical perspective on learning has developed: Designs for Learning. Here learning is understood as multimodal transformative processes of sign-making activities where teachers and pupils are viewed as didactic designers. A model called Learning Design Sequence has been developed and serves as a tool for data collection and analysis. Video observation material from five ICT-advanced schools with pupils aged 6-17 was multimodally transcribed and analysed.In conclusion the thesis, among other things, indicates that:- Social Science acquires informal features and pupils are independently designing their own digital Social Science material.- Pupils’ interactions are significantly multimodal and the digital learning resource becomes a third element in interaction. Pupils are constantly active and very responsive to each others’ representations. They cooperate as if learning in the extended interface is a collective responsibility.- Pupils’ learning is also significantly multimodal. Being digital natives, they engage in colours, sounds and images to represent some of their learning.- Learning represented in modes other than text and speech becomes invisible and disappears in the digital divide.- Pupils are simultaneously designing parallel paths of learning. One path represents the formalised education which is the path initiated, promoted and assessed by the teacher. The other path is guided by pupils’ interests and by affordances in the digital interface. This represents the extended learning that goes on below the surface.          The thesis ends with a discussion about didactic complexities in The Online Learning Paradigm.