Activities

International Master's Program

LeaDMe is working toward the creation of an International Master's Program in collaboration with three universities in India. The LeaDMe team has signed Memoranda of Understanding with SNDT Women's University, Mumbai University, and K. C. College.

Funding was received from the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT) to support the development of the International Master's program with SNDT Women's University.

The collaboration includes conferences to take place in both Sweden and India, including MediaMorphosis, GeM2018 Opens in new window. and the international conference MuDD2019 Opens in new window. (Multilingualism, Diversity and Democracy).

In preparation for the Master's Program, three pilot courses will be offered during the 2019-2020 academic year: Academic Social Responsibility External link, opens in new window., Digitalization and Implementation Processes in School, I External link, opens in new window., and Digitalization and Implementation Processes in School, II (Spring 2020). The courses are designed for educational leaders, teachers, and researchers who hold a bachelor’s degree.

The Language and Literacy in Education Research Cluster at the UMBC Department of Education Presents:

Literacy in Education During Challenging Times (Click here for more information) Pdf, 399.9 kB, opens in new window.

Research School

The LeaDMe team is developing doctoral courses within the thematic profile of learning, digitalization, and media and the implications of the digital shift. Course topics will include globalization, internationalization, multilingualism, and inclusive/exclusive practices.

The first doctoral course, Intersectionality Inside and Outside Schools External link, opens in new window.: Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives on Multilingualism, Culture, and Identity was offered in Spring 2019.

UPGRADE Research School

The Research School UPGRADE - Teacher Education and the Digitalization of the School System is a national research school that in the spring of 2020 accepts at least nine doctoral students. The reserarch school is funded by the Swedish Research Council and the purpose is to strengthen the digital competence in teacher education and increase the proportion of teacher educators with doctoral education.

Research

The LeaDMe initiative emerged from the international network-based research group CCD - Communication, Culture and Diversity Opens in new window.. Our research team pursues investigations that fall under three themes 1) digitalization and implementation in educational settings, 2) communication practices for inclusive learning, and 3) multimodal learning in language and literature.

Ongoing Research Projects include:

Systematic Meta-Study on digitalization as a tool for inclusion

Sara Goico and Dr. Giulia Messina Dahlberg are conducting a meta-study on the use of digital technologies in order to improve the inclusion of marginalized populations in educational settings.

Survey on the use of digital technologies among teacher trainers

Ulli Samuelsson is conducting a survey as a first effort to understand the experience and competence with digital technologies of teacher trainers in teacher training programs around Sweden.

DiveiN (Diversity as Normality)

Ylva Lindberg, Elisabet Sandblom, Therése Haglind, Karl Hedman, and Sylvi Vigmo have a current project Diversity as Normality (DiveIN), which investigates what diversity can be found in school-related digital-communicative practices, how it can theoretically be conceptualized and described, and what gaps exist between digital-communicative practices in society at large, educational steering documents, and practices in school-related contexts. The research has been presented at conferences including EARLI SIG 10 & 21 External link, opens in new window., Mediamorphosis, and Forskningsbaserad undervisning – teori och praktik i samverkan Opens in new window..

Text Universes in teaching design

Anette Svensson, Therése Haglind, Anette Almgren White, and Fredrik Ebefors have a current research project, Text universes and complex learning, that combines teaching design with text universes, where (parts of) a storyworld, for example, plot or characters, is recreated within and across different media forms such as novels, films, graphic novels, and computer games. Thus, the project responds to the challenge of teaching literature in an increasingly digitalised school in which teachers express a need for new ways of integrating students’ media use with literary studies. The project emerged from a previous research project, Fiction and Education in a new Media Ecology, led by Stefan Lundström, LTU and financed by The Swedish Research Council. The research has been presented at conferenes such as SMDI External link, opens in new window., Forskningsbaserad undervisning – teori och praktik i samverkan Opens in new window., GeM2018 Opens in new window., and MediaMorphosis.

Perceptions of future learning in formal and informal settings post covid19

The primary aim of this project is to shed light on educational imaginaries among teachers and students in higher education (Selwyn & Jándric, 2020). This aim builds on ideas about t

he need to contribute to the discussion of education and digital technologies that are forward-looking and explore the potential of digital technologies. The project results will form the basis for elaborating conceptual tools for critical and creative thinking regarding learning design in the future (Bleeker, 2009). To this end, we will focus on students’ and teachers’ perceptions and experiential qualities of using digital tools during the pandemic. By experiential qualities (Löwgren & Stolterman, 2005), we refer to properties (affordances) of a digital design that are experienced in use. Such qualities, perceived by the users, are linked to aspects that directly connect with the felt-like experience of using technology (McCarthy & Wright, 2004). Qualities are not given or pre-determined but emerge from the interaction between the use and the computer system or app. Specifying the experiential qualities of learning and teaching with digital technologies will provide us with a vocabulary to express the students’ and teachers’ felt experiences with teaching and communicating with digital materials.

Practices, Skills, and Knowledge – PraSK - seminar series

An exploration of learning opportunities in education and professional practice as a dimension of social and technological change.

The exploration is motivated by, on the one hand, rapidly and ever-changing practices with technology in everyday life, specifically in the aftermath of Covid19, on the other hand, a noticeable focus on practices in recent research publication flows (2019-2020) pertaining to education and technology.

Doctoral Research

Lars Almén's doctoral research focuses on the digitalization of the Swedish school system, with a point of departure in the digitalization initiative taken by the Government of Sweden in 2017.

Johan Bäcklund's doctoral research focuses on teaching methods and student learning in a digitalized world.

Content updated 2022-08-16

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