Designs for Learning conference 28–30 August 2024

We warmly invite you to the 8th Designs for Learning conference, at the Department of Education, Frescati, Stockholm University! The theme of the conference is Conceptualizing design in research and developmental work.

Designs for learning

Designs for learning is an approach to research and practice that emphasizes forward-looking and creative development in educational activities. The conference highlights the versatility of the design concept, which extends from the theoretical and analytical level to the more practical level, where it can be used to shape concrete activities and tools for multimodal communication, teaching and learning.

With concepts such as design for and in learning and cultures of recognition, the focus is on the conditions and processes of learning and on what counts as valid resources and knowledge in different environments.

Conference themes and topics

The conference takes the concept of design as a starting point to explore themes and topics that include learning, teaching, interaction, multimodality, digitization, learning resources, artificial intelligence and knowledge representations both within and outside formal education.

We look forward to welcoming you to the conference and to exploring together new perspectives and challenging boundaries in design for learning.

Keynotes

Carey Jewitt, Department of Culture, Communication and Media, Institute of Education (UCL), London, UK. Title: Digital touch design futures.
The Designs for learning team, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden. Title: Conceptualizing design in research
Ola Erstad, Department of Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway. Title: Shaping Trajectories of Learning – design of new socio-digital ecologies
Robert Ramberg & Patrik Hernvall, Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden. Title: Visualisations as support for reflection and pedagogical development

Location

Department of Education, Stockholm University, and The Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, Sweden.

Important dates

April 12, 2024: Last date for submission of abstracts and panel proposals
April 26, 2024: Notice of acceptance
April 26, 2024: Registration open (Early bird)
May 24, 2024: Full price registration starts
August 2, 2024: Final day for registration

Programme

August 28: 13.00 - 17.00

13.00 Opening of conference

August 29: 09.00 - 17.00

18.00 Conference Dinner

August 30: 09.00-12.00

12.00 End of conference

Keynotes abstracts

Digital touch design futures

Carey Jewitt

Design is a prospective, and forward-looking concept, a ‘motor which drives semiotic change in line with social change’ (Kress, 2010: 50), that brings attention to the social in social semiotics. I reflect on design in the context of digital communication through the digital remediation of touch.

Digital touch design and use is reshaping the resources for people’s agentive social and material engagement through touch in profound ways for the who, what and how of touch communication including what people count as touch. Digital touch is a complex, emergent, and exploratory space for design, that is further complicated by the rapidly changing array of technological development.

I will discuss design directions for the future development of touch technologies, and the potentials to give rise to new kinds of touch. I will argue that understanding the social factors within the contexts for which digital touch is designed is key to its rethinking. In so doing, design can draw together the multimodal and multisensory concepts and categories employed or imagined by designers and users, as well as the social and semiotic resources that people use to interpret digital touch communication in meaningful ways, and I discuss how these might impact on the design of future digital touch environments.

I will illustrate that there are both gains and losses experienced through the digital touch designs, and users explore and develop their own ways of working towards meaningful touch communication. I suggest that new meanings, uses and norms will continue to emerge and morph, as digital touch enters the mainstream and new ways of touching through the digital materialise.

References
Kress, G.R. (2010). Multimodality: a social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. London: Routledge.

Conceptualizing design in research

Eva Insulander, Susanne Kjällander, Ola Knutsson, Fredrik Lindstrand, Staffan Selander, Eva Svärdemo Åberg, Anna Åkerfeldt

During this session we will present some of the work done by the Designs for Learning research group – from the first DFL conference in 2008 with focus on “defining the field” to this conference with the focus on “conceptualizing design in research”.

Firstly, we will outline some basic theoretic concepts within our design-oriented, multimodal perspective. Secondly, in the form of a dialogue, we will discuss how this perspective has been used in different empirical studies of for example textbooks and digital learning resources, subject-oriented studies of teaching and learning, museum studies of exhibitions and of visitor’s meaning-making, studies of toys and games, as well as of collaborative work between researchers and professionals. Finally, we will give some hints of theoretical challenges, including ethical commitments, and thoughts about future research engagements.

References
Arnseth, H.C.; Hanghøj, T.; Henriksen, T.D.; Misfeldt, M.; Rambeg, R. & Selander; S. (2019) (Eds.) Games and education. Designs in and for learning. Leiden & Boston: Brill/Sense.

Björklund Boistrup, L. & Selander, S. (2022) (Eds.): Designs for research, teaching and learning. A framework for future education. London & New York: Routledge.

Danielsson, K. & Selander, S. (2021) Multimodal texts in disciplinary education. A comprehensive framework. Cham: Springer Nature.

Insulander, E.; Kjällander, S.; Lindstrand, F. & Åkerfeldt, A. (2017) (Eds.) Didaktik i omvandlingens tid. Text, representation, design. Stockholm: Liber.

Kress, G. & Selander, S. (2021, 3rd ed.) Design för lärande – ett multimodalt perspektiv. Lund: Studentlitteratur.

Kress, G.; Selander, S.; Säljö, R. & Christof Wulf (2012) (Eds.): Learning as social practice. Beyond education as an individual enterprise. London & New York: Routledge.

Rostvall, A-L. & Selander, S. (2010, 2nd ed.) (Eds.) Design för lärande. Stockholm: Norstedts.

Selander, S. (2017) Didaktiken efter Vygotskij. Design för lärande. Stockholm: Liber.

van Leeuwen, T. & Selander, S. (in print). The semiotics of toys and games. The childhood artefacts that introduce us to the world. London: Bloomsbury.

Shaping Trajectories of Learning – design of new socio-digital ecologies

Ola Erstad

How technological and cultural transformations impact on people’s everyday lives has become one of the key concerns of our times. This presentation will rather take the point of view of young people and how they develop as learners across diverse spaces and contexts.

Design is understood as a process by which trajectories of participation and engagement are shaped as part of evolving socio-digital ecologies. By drawing on ideas from the New London Group and their ’pedagogy of multiliteracies – design of social futures’ (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000, 2015). I will link to recent conceptions of ‘design futures literacies’ (Morrison, 2023) and ‘hyperconnectivity’ (Brubaker, 2022).

My own work on ‘learning lives’(Erstad, 2023) and ‘platformisation of family life’ (ongoing project) will represent the main empirical input. Key to this approach is an interdisciplinary understanding of how meaning-making is developed and shaped over time and across spaces.

References
Brubaker, R. (2022). Hyperconnectivity and Its Discontents. New York: Polity Press.

Cope, B. & M. Kalantzis (Eds.) (2000). Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures. London: Routledge.

Cope, B. & M. Kalantzis (Eds.) (2015). A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Learning by Design. London: Palgrave Macmillan

Erstad, O. (2023). ‘Understanding Learning Lives in Transition: The Cultural Dynamics of Education Among Migrant Children’. I Lee, W.O.; Goodwin, A.L. & Green, A. (Red.), International Handbook on Education Development in Asia-Pacific. Springer

Morrison, A. (2023). Design Futures Literacies. Vol. 1 and 2. See: http://www.fuel4design.org/index.php/2023/11/12/design-futures-literacies-2-free-e-books-published/

Visualisations as support for reflection and pedagogical development

Patrik Hernvall & Robert Ramberg

Embracing the theme of the conference, we will present research and developmental work, including two school developmental projects. In this, both the research process as well as the developmental projects, are illustrations of design processes. Design processes striving towards development of pedagogical practice, based on iterative critical discussions with teachers. And also, the development of research methods as well as theoretical concepts.

Research on the use of digital technology in educational contexts point at the need to conduct qualitative studies and evaluations of the technology use in a school context. Contemporary technologies of today offer opportunities in both registering and visualizing data.

In this presentation, results from a qualitative study of the use of technology to register, document and visualise data (RDV technology) are discussed. The setting is the classroom, where the use of visualisations of e.g. teachers’ movements, and pupils’ eye movements, are used to support teacher reflection on their practice. Data has been collected through iterative conversations with participating teachers, which in total amounts to 22 teachers from 13 different schools. In total 80 conversations of between 15 to 40 minutes each were carried out.

In this presentation, we will present tentative results from the thematic analysis. The analysis indicates that the visualisation supports teachers to reflect on their classroom practice by providing an objective representation, as a complement to subjective memory and experience. In the presentation we will also provide examples of the technology used and visualisations, as well as the method for collecting data (i.e. coaching dialogues).

Submissions and registration

You are welcome to submit proposals for presentations in the following categories:

Abstract

Research projects or PhD projects, ongoing and completed. Max 500 words, including title, keywords, abstract and key references.

Panel

Symposium or workshop. Title, keywords and short introduction to the panel (250-300 words) plus name of presenters and information about each presentation (short abstracts) (250-300 words).

The abstract will undergo a review process. It is permitted to use AI to generate text and images in abstracts and presentations, but this must be stated in the abstract. The authors are fully responsible for all content in abstracts and presentations. Any form of inappropriate use of AI will result in the abstract and presentation being withdrawn from the conference.

You will have the opportunity to submit a full paper to the journal Designs for learning after the conference. Indicate in the abstract if you intend to submit a full paper for a special collection issue.

Last date for submission of abstracts and panel proposals: April 12, 2024

Link for submission (EasyChair)