Volume 6 - issue 3 - 2010

Editorial Seminar.net Issue 3 Vol. 6

blomsterSeminar.net reached 100 000 unique visitors in October 2010 after nearly six years on the web. Since its inception, a total number of 64 articles have been published, and the site has been visited 3000 times each month at its most. A journal needs to publish good articles. Judging by the increasing number of readers, the readers seem to find our articles to be relevant, readable and contributing to the global discourse. The e-journal format offers opportunities to employ the media to its full potential. A unique feature of the e-journal is to communicate in other media than textual. Seminar.net has for a long time been alone on the academic marked in the field of presenting an abstract of the paper in video format. The assumption is that a short introduction presented on a video makes the reader more interested and that he/she reads the paper with more enthusiasm. On the other hand, journal readers are conservative, and often fail to appreciate the value of visual communication other than the textual. It will be a challenge to continue to develop the e-journal genre in light of the need to balance reader conservatism with exploring the opportunities offered by multimedia-publishing.

Promoting the Good e-Teacher: Didactical Choices when developing e-pedagogical Competences

The first article, “Promoting the Good e-Teacher: Didactical choices when developing e-pedagogical Competences”, by Grete Oline Hole, Anne Karin Larsen and Jon Hoem, from the Bergen University College, explains how a blended e-pedagogy course for teachers of Higher Education teachers has been developed. The course evolved from the experiences of teaching international online courses for European BA students. The students plan their own courses in accordance with the stages of becoming an e-learner. Evaluations by students have demonstrated that this hands-on training course can help students attain the necessary competences needed to be skilled e-teachers. This paper demonstrates a concern that many higher education institutions hold for developing teaching skills in on-line or e-learning. Private institutions develop internal training, such as the University of Phoenix, and some actors plan to produce courses for the commercial market.

Learning Outcomes and a Taxonomy as a Starting Point for creating digital Multiple-choice Tests

Bjørn Klefstad, Geir Maribu, Svend Andreas Horgen and Thorleif Hjeltnes, from the Sør-Trøndelag University College present an article called: “Learning outcomes and a taxonomy as a starting point for creating digital multiple-choice tests”. They make the case for the use of multiple-choice tests for both formative and summative purposes. They regard the making of valid and reliable tests to be challenging, but they find Bloom’s taxonomy being a useful framework for assessment in higher education and fruitful for developing “learning outcomes”. Based on an analysis of several digital tests they examine to what degree learning outcomes and levels are reflected in the questions of each test they have developed and suggest functionalities for a future test tool to support an improved design process.

Tools for peer assessment in an e-learning environment

Hugo Nordseth, Sonja Ekker and Robin Munkvold of Nord-Trøndelag University College present their joint article: “Tools for peer assessment in an e-learning environment”. They explore the functionalities of tools for peer assessment within the LMS used for two different topics taught at their college, in combination with a set of rubrics and a tool called “Six Thinking Hats”. They report that using these in combination stimulate students to write better assignments and provide a deeper understanding of the subjects taught.

Experiences from Blended Learning, Net-based Learning and Mind Tools

Arvid Staupe of The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, argues in his article “Experiences from Blended Learning, Net-based Learning and Mind Tools” that in spite of a strong increase in the number of students attending classes, it is possible to improve the quality of the course when blended teaching approaches are employed, using net-based learning material and mind tools, and founded firmly on an educational philosophy.

Digital storytelling as an emerging documentary form

The last article, by Ana Laws, of the University of Bergen, is about “Digital Storytelling as an emerging documentary form”. She claims that digital storytelling can be fruitfully studied using concepts and perspectives from documentary theory. She offers two definitions of digital storytelling and compares to how documentary filmmaking has been characterized. She further argues that contemporary discussions in the field of documentary theory are applicable to the ongoing theorising of “Digital storytelling” and therefore might benefit from the reflections on authorial responsibility and claims of realism and truthfulness in this area.

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Article list vol 8. - issue 2

1. Hugo Nordseth - Adopting digital skills in an international project in teacher education

2. Ragnhild Nilsen - Digital Network as a Learning Tool for Health Sciences Students

3. Yvonne Fritze & Yngve Nordkvelle (Editor) - Online dating and education

4. Siv Oltedal - Developing Contextual Knowledge Arenas in the Global Classroom

Call for papers

Seminar.net welcomes papers and reviews for upcoming issues, and you find guidelines for authors here. Our scope is to publish refereed articles dealing with research into theoretical or practical aspects related to the learning of adolescents, adults and elderly. A vital field of interest for seminar.net is the use of media technology in lifelong learning.

Monitor 2011 - The digital state of the Norwegian school

Lillian Gran

Department of Education and Social Work
Lillehammer University College
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Review of the national digital survey

A yearly digital survey committed in compulsory school in Norway

Keywords: The Digital condition of the Norwegian compulsory school, motivated students, technology, media, digital natives

Monitor 2011(Egeberg, 2012) is a submission on the fifth quantitative survey of the Norwegian digital health situation completed by Egeberg et al. The survey is a qualified comparison foundation with international surveys on digital competence such as, e.g. PISA. Since 2003, the digital surveys have been completed every other year in Norway to identify indications on schools' digital state. The respondents who were chosen are a selection of school leaders, teachers and student in the 8th and 9th grades and level two in upper secondary school. The submissions research and results are also organized according to these three areas of participants.

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Digital Storytelling, Mediatized Stories: Self-Representations in New Media

Knut Lundby (red.)

Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing, New York, 2008.

Reviewed by
Jill Walker Rettberg
Associate Professor of Digital Culture
University of Bergen
http://jilltxt.net

We live in an age in which more and more of us are creating our own "digital stories". In 2008, 18% of Norwegian 16-24 year olds were recorded as being active bloggers over the previous three months (Statistics Norway, "ICT in households", 2nd quarter 2008) while more than 2/3 of American teenagers have uploaded self-produced material to the Internet, in the form of YouTube videos, photographs, blogs, stories, remixes etc. (Pew Internet). The numbers of these "user-made" cultural productions are growing year by year and spreading from the younger generation to us adults, who are now the group most increasingly represented on Facebook. In blogs and on Facebook the distinction between amateur and professional is largely meaningless.

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Story Circle: Digital Storytelling Around the World.

John Hartley and Kelly McWilliam (eds.)

Publisher: Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009

Reviewed by
Birte Hatlehol
PhD student in Media Education
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
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The anthology Story Circle is an international study of digital storytelling that discusses the phenomenon in a global context. The book contains 20 articles with contributions from a number of key specialists with wide-ranging experience in the field of DST.

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Moving Media Studies - Remediation Revisited

Edited by Heidi Philipsen and Lars Qvortrup

Publisher: Samfundslitteratur Press: Frederiksberg Press, 2007.

Reviewed by
Stephen Dobson
Professor
Lillehammer University College
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Introduction
Two questions can be asked: firstly, not do we need another book on remediation, but why? And secondly, if this is the case, what kind of book should it be? This review spirals around these questions.
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Global perspectives on E-learning.

Rhetoric and reality by A. A. Carr-Chellman (Ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2005

Reviewed by
Dr. J. Ola Lindberg
Department of Education, Mid Sweden University
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Dr. Anders D. Olofsson
Department of Education, Umeå University
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.


It seems suitable to begin this review by giving a brief description of the context in which the texts of this book are produced. If it fails to be regarded as a description, then we hope at least it can be regarded as one possible understanding of the context. When contextualizing a book, a good idea seems to be to start with a few words about the editor, Alison A. Carr-Chellman.
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