Information Research (original) (raw)
Related papers
Changing Conditions for Information Use and Learning in Swedish Schools : A Synthesis of Research
Human IT: Journal for Information Technology Studies as a Human Science, 2012
This article presents findings from a series of research studies conducted between 1998 and 2010 on the ways in which knowledge formation occurs through students’ own research and on the interaction between information seeking and use and learning. Our point of departure is that information seeking and learning are closely interwoven in constantly on-going human activity. Our studies have directed particular interest to the ways in which information and communication technologies (ICTs) and new digital media shape conditions for learning. The research design was inspired by ethnographical studies, including observations, field notes, video recordings, interviews, questionnaires and documents produced in the practices studied. In the present article we have chosen to focus on four main findings common to the series of research projects, which together indicate not only changes within schools but also on a structural level. Firstly, we claim that the new digital tools which mediate in...
Journal of Documentation, 2018
Purpose. The purpose of this paper is to historicise research conducted in the fields of Information Seeking and Learning and Information Literacy and thereby begin to outline a description of the history of information in the context of Swedish compulsory education. Design/methodology/approach. Document work and documentary practices are used as alternatives to concepts such as information seeking or information behaviour. Four empirical examples of document work – more specifically informational reading – recorded in Swedish primary classrooms in the 1960s are presented. Findings. In the recordings, the reading style students use is similar to informational reading in contemporary educational settings: it is fragmentary, facts-oriented, and procedure-oriented. The practice of finding correct answers, rather than analysing and discussing the contents of a text seems to continue from lessons organised around print textbooks in the 1960s to the inquiry-based and digital teaching of today. Originality/value. The paper seeks to analyse document work and documentary practices by regarding “information” as a discursive construction in a particular era with material consequences in particular contexts, rather than as a theoretical and analytical concept. It also problematises the notion that new digital technologies for producing, organising, finding, using, and disseminating documents have drastically changed people’s behaviours and practices in educational and other contexts.
Information Practices in Elementary School
Libri, 2008
This article presents a qualitative study that examines the roles of pedagogues in elementary schools with regard to young children's information literacy. The con cept of infor ma tion literacy is seen from a sociocultural per spective, as a di mension of literacy that varies in different so cial practices. Further, from this perspective the importance of the med i ating functions of tools used in information seek ing is stressed. Data was collected from a Swedish village school from one focus group interview and two individual in ter views with different kinds of pedagogues. Problem-centred teaching was also observed in five forms with pupils aged 6-8. In the analysis an overarching divi sion or two dis courses connected to information literacy emerged. On the one hand, literacy, aesthetic activities and the reading of fi c tion were the focus and, on the other hand, there was a focus on information literacy, utilitarian in forma tion-seeking ac ti vi ties and ICTtools. It is also shown that information seek ing is given a certain meaning in prob lem-centred activities in elementary school. The authors consider that the dis courses found in the empirical material might have im pli ca tions for the concept of information lit eracy, if they are ex plored to a fuller extent.
Computers & Education, 2010
This article deals with how school subjects’ paradigms, i.e. the established content of the teaching and the way in which the teaching is traditionally organised, are influenced when digital media are becoming increasingly common in educational contexts. The study is based on interviews in so-called focus groups with teachers of different school subjects in a Swedish lower secondary school about issues concerning how much they use media and ICT in their teaching and how they think this affects the content of their subject, relations in the classroom, working methods and the role of the teacher. The theoretical point of departure is Basil Bernstein’s concepts of ‘recontextualisation’, ‘framing’, ‘classification’, and ‘the sacred and the profane’. The study shows that the teachers in the lower secondary school where the investigation was conducted use so-called new media to a relatively limited extent but that they are ready to develop their use if resources are made available. They also think that the content, working methods, relations and the role of the teacher are changing, usually for the better. Drawing on Durkheim’s concepts of ‘the sacred’ and ‘the profane’ it appears in this study that the sacred in schools is often associated with the physical and practical.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2020
This paper reports a study of pupils' experiences of media and information literacy education in five Swedish schools by answering the following overarching question, what roles do the teaching of information seeking and critical assessment of information play for pupils in their school-work as well as in their everyday life? Pupils in ninth grade were asked to fill in a questionnaire regarding their use of digital technology as well as their thoughts on media and information literacy education. The study shows that many pupils are knowledgeable about the terms of production pertaining to content in most online sources they mention. Still, infrastructural meaning-making that take into consideration issues of personalization, data integrity and surveillance, are largely lacking. The study also shows that the school's teaching is central to the pupils' development of a critical stance towards the information that they encounter online. These findings underline the importance of how schools choose to treat media and information literacy education. It is concerning then that infrastructural meaningmaking is quite absent in the pupils' responses.
From informational reading to information literacy
Journal of Documentation
Purpose This paper attempts to historicise research conducted in the fields of Information Seeking and Learning and Information Literacy and thereby begin to outline a description of the history of information in the context of Swedish compulsory education. Design/methodology/approach Document work and documentary practices are used as alternatives to concepts such as information seeking or information behaviour. Four empirical examples of document work-more specifically informational reading-recorded in Swedish primary classrooms in the 1960s are presented. Findings In the recordings, the reading style students use is similar to informational reading in contemporary educational settings: it is fragmentary, facts-oriented, and procedureoriented. The practice of finding correct answers, rather than analysing and discussing the contents of a text seems to continue from lessons organised around print textbooks in the 1960s to the inquiry-based and digital teaching of today. Originality/value The article seeks to analyse document work and documentary practices by regarding "information" as a discursive construction in a particular era with material consequences in particular contexts, rather than as a theoretical and analytical concept. It also problematises the notion that new digital technologies for producing, organising, finding, using, and disseminating documents have drastically changed people's behaviours and practices in educational and other contexts.
History of Education, 2016
This study investigates reading activities in Swedish primary school classrooms during the late 1960s. Sound and video recordings of 223 Swedish lessons held between 1967 and 1969 are used to analyse the activity of reading as taught and performed. The results indicate that the practice of informational reading, often based on finding predetermined, explicit ‘facts’ in textbooks through individual, silent reading, was common. The practice of experiential reading, based on fiction, imagination and the joy of reading, was not only less common, but also often compromised by instrumental concerns. In the national curriculum of the time, the practice of informational reading was related to study skills and was intended to prepare all pupils for higher level education. While often appearing overproportioned, superficial and fragmented, these reading practices were still intentional objects of learning and teaching, and were grounded in the democratic and egalitarian ideals of Swedish post-war educational policy.
2015
This thesis has taken a long time to be finalised and would not have been completed without assistance from my family and friends. I am grateful for their support and the encouragement I got. I also am grateful to my main supervisor, Professor Jón Torfi Jónasson, for his support, constructive feedback and contributions that enabled this thesis to be written. My appreciation is extended to Dr Sólveig Jónsdóttir, my cosupervisor, for her assistance and valuable support. I like to thank Professor Inga Dóra Sigfúsdóttir, a member of the PhD committee, for her care, assistance and positive encouragement. Information technology (IT) is the design, study and use of processes for representing physical, hypothetical or human relationship employing the collection, creation, storing, retrieving, manipulation, presentation, sending and receiving of information (Cox, 2004, p. 67). If we look at the definition of IT from the Icelandic Ministry of Education from 1996 it has a stronger connection to technology than the definition suggested by Cox above: … to use appropriate technology for information processing whereby the term technology refers to computer technology, telecommunications technology and electronics (Ministry of Education, 1996, p. 92, translated by the author). Interactive educational environment also has different names, e.g. educational software, cognitive tools for learning, interactive multimedia systems, intelligent tutoring systems. The field is ill-defined, it is not even clear what interactivity is as it can be of many forms and there is a lack of consensus in the discussion (Brown, 2008). Brown´s brief analysis shows how difficult it is
Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 2009
This article investigates the intersection between the in-school information literacy practices and out-of-school (i.e. home and community) information literacy practices of a third grade student and examines how this intersection may be contributing to his overall literacy learning. Data collected from field notes; observations of in-school and out-of-school information literacy practices; video-tapings of the home and classroom domains; drawings and writings from the home and the classroom; and interviews with the focal participant were analyzed and organized into recursive themes illustrative of in-school and out-of-school information literacy practices. Analysis revealed that the out-of-school and in-school information literacy practices of the focal participant ran parallel to each other and only intersected in ways in which school practices took precedence. The participant's out-of-school information literacy practices were not strongly recognized or valued in the classroom.