Jørgen Lerche Nielsen

Department of Communication, Education and Computer Science

Roskilde University, Denmark

Based on a presentation of the alternative approaches to education at reform universities in Denmark, Roskilde and Aalborg, the study explores how students make use of ICT (information and communication technology) as support for their problem-based project work.

Historically the universities at Roskilde and Aalborg were established in the beginning of the 1970’s with innovative approaches to advanced learning as a response to new needs for qualifications. In order to create flexible and personal competencies, studies were organised as participant-directed, collaborative problem-oriented project work, with an interdisciplinary approach. At that time it was not as yet actual to take into consideration the challenges and possibilities afforded by two later developments - those of internationalization or globalisation and of computer based information technology.

Theoretically new educational concepts and practices were formed to cope with these challenges. In focus for this educational strategy was the learning process; and inspiration was taken from John Dewey and Oskar Negt. From the 70's new strands within pedagogy were termed alternative, critical and progressive. These innovations have been thought of as closely related to at least certain approaches which - since David Kolb - have been referred to as "experiential learning. >From the beginning of the 90's Lave and Wenger with terms as situated learning, communities of practice have engaged in similar endeavours. At the university we have tried to develop a strategy for pragmatic explorative experimentation in the structuring of the teaching-learning processes. The purpose is to find ways of organising the interaction among teachers and students which further develop knowledge, abilities and competencies which increase students' reflective control over the elements of their experiencing processes.

Lately this educational model for active learning is undergoing a crisis. More and more students prefer to work on their own and traditionalistic tendencies - such as an emphasis on courses and seminars as forms for organizing study activities -seem to be gaining ground. Paradoxically you can at the same time find a growing interest for collaborative learning and problem-based approaches in the international community.

The last part of the project will thus focus on how this crisis may be overcome by incorporating ICT in the learning processes. How may an extensive and selective integration of new media and technology help to support the pedagogical aims at the new universities and to improve possibilities for collaboration, learning and communication.

Keywords: educational strategies, learning theories, collaborative problem-based project work, ICT as a tool for presentation and communication.

This study is an investigation of how new media and new information and communication technologies (ICT) are being incorporated in teaching at the primary and lower secondary school level (Folkeskolen) and the upper secondary school level (Gymnasium) in Denmark. The data is collected from the local community of Farum near the capital of Copenhagen, where in 1999 computers with access to the internet have been made available free of charge in the homes of all pupils and of all public employees, including teachers and other personnel in the local school system.

Will use of the technology be limited to the introduction of computer supported skill programs - for example, spelling and reading programs? Or will the technology be able to contribute to paving the way for an organisational renewal of the school day with a partial reorganisation and breaking up of the time schedule and classroom structure? How do teachers use the new technology - both at home in their preparation and in their communication with colleagues and pupils - and in school? How do the pupils make use of the computers at home? Here there will be drawn, in part, from results of the research project Children growing up with interactive media - a perspective for the future. (Birgitte Holm Sørensen, The Royal Danish School of Educational Studies; and Birgitte Ravn Olesen, Roskilde University); and in part, from my own observations in pupils’ homes.

As a part of the project, there will also be an analysis of which form of discourse is dominating in the relation between education and learning on the one hand and information technology on the other hand. Will the school necessarily become drastically changed in the near future as a reflection of the transition from an industry-based society to a knowledge-based information society? Is the computer the catalysing agent of change which, as a technology in and of itself, necessarily radically transforms the school as we have hitherto known it? Or does the computer and access to the internet merely represent a new technology, the possibilities of which will only become realised as there is a more far reaching reorganisation of everyday life in schools - an abolition of the stiff time schedule and classroom structure, a giving of greater weight to project work and pupils’ own active learning?