Learning in the 21th century: Capitalizing on students' digital strengths; compensating for capabilities that need development (OMRÅDE 4)

The gap noted between the Net Culture and the culture of disciplined instruction in school can easily turn into a conflict with the former gaining the upper hand to the detriment of the acquisition of disciplined knowledge and skill. It is clearly the cas e that the culture of school will have to incorporate elements from the Net Culture and adapt to them while not losing its mission of cultivating knowledgeable individuals. We aim to find non-trivial, theoretically sound and empirically proven ways of att aining this goal. The proposed project will use a variety of methods to answer the research questions. The first question is to be addressed via interviews with a random sample of high school students engaged in different media-based activities, on obser vations of their behaviors while engaged in activities such as games, Facebook, Internet search, YouTube and Twitter, and on questionnaires that tap their subjective explanations of their learning activities. The second question entails two phases. First, there is the phase of conceptualization, trying to formulate hypotheses as to ways that can be adopted from the media culture and differentially incorporated into the teaching of a sample of subject matters, history, biology, mathematics and language, wh ile retaining the disciplined nature of these fields. We also formulate hypotheses as to the kinds of learning outcomes that could result from these differential adoptions. The second phase entails experimentation in actual classrooms to examine the exten t to which the elements incorporated from the media culture lead to the different, both traditional and novel, learning outcomes. This research will be done at the new University Schools (universitetsskoler) planned in partnership with the Universities of Oslo and Tromsø. As for Stord/Haugesund University College the agreements with partner schools from Møre og Romsdal, Sogn og Fjordane, Hordaland and Rogaland are about to be finalized.