Researcher portrait, 2010-02-04

Digital Technology Changes Our Way to Learn


– Meet Roger Säljö

Professor Roger Säljö, Göteborg University, Director of the Linnaeus Centre for Research on Learning, Interaction, and Mediated Communication in Contemporary Society (LinCS), has a Linnaeus Grant from the Swedish Research Council. Here you can read an interview with him.
"We are studying how digital technology changes learning and the dissemination of information and knowledge in society, and how people integrate new technology in how they read and remember and solve problems. Our starting point is that we find ourselves in a time of transition."

"We come from an era of text on paper, a print culture, and we are moving towards a digital culture. As humans, we have created this change, but it also changes us. It offers us new possibilities, imposes new demands, and changes the way we view knowledge."

"Earlier, for instance, acquiring information could be a lengthy process. Now information is increasingly available via the Internet — but this abundance is of course only information, not knowledge. We need strategies to convert information into knowledge. People must teach themselves to understand what is relevant, what they can trust, what is important."

"Several of our research projects study this change in the schools, but we are also interested, for example, in the changing role of libraries and learning within the context of working life. We are studying environments that have advanced far in the use of digital technology, both more and less successfully. Not every large project is successful, and it can also be educational to study the failures."

What does the 10-year Linnaeus Grant mean for your work?


"It has given us a stable foundation for our activities and the opportunity for long-term thinking. For instance, we have been able to develop a video laboratory, which has been a great advantage. Such investments are difficult without stable financing."

"The grant also gives us opportunities to actively participate in national and international collaboration and to arrange seminars. Being selected as a Linnaeus environment is also helpful when we apply for funds from other funding bodies."

Why did you choose this area of research?


"It began with a major interest in language and communication, and especially in what the written word has meant for our possibilities to acquire knowledge and experiences, how it has made us different. People who can read and write have, of course, greatly different opportunities to learn about the world than people who cannot."

"Imagine if we never would have had books. What skills and knowledge would we have had then? The shift to a society of the written word has changed people so much that we who live today would not have survived without it. The next stage is the transition to digital information. This makes it extremely exciting to live today."

 

 

 

 

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