Digitalisation, technologies, media and learning

The digitalisation of society brings with it both opportunities and challenges nationally, regionally and individually. The research programme Digitalisation, Technology, Media and Learning (DTML) studies and develops the terms on which various stakeholders use digital technologies.

Digitisation changes the terms and conditions for work, learning and leisure. Digital technologies generally offer the user so-called affordances, or possibilities of action. As these need to be discovered and tested, the DTML programme places great emphasis on investigative and experimental research – design-based research, for example – in order to study how the conditions for learning can be created in various formal and informal contexts. One priority of this work is to study how digital technology can be used to support teaching and learning that addresses societal problems such as climate change.

The DTML programme is a collaboration with regional stakeholders, often focused on their present-day or potential future use of digital technologies and how this can take place in an innovative, efficient and sustainable manner in the context in question. Explorative studies are conducted in various occupational contexts and in collaboration between different subjects, such as social work, caring sciences, media and communication studies, business studies, computer science and didactics. This creates the conditions for interdisciplinary research collaborations and results with relevance regionally, nationally and internationally. The DTML programme is linked to the research group ICT in Learning.

Can virtual reality be used as a teaching aid in schools?

Current research

Doctoral projects

Experimental activities in collaboration with diverse stakeholders

In the interests of increasing our ability to conduct interdisciplinary research and collaborations with external partners, it is important that we perform experiments and hold workshops and other activities related to cutting-edge digital technologies (such as VR, AR, AI) together with diverse national and regional stakeholders. This will create opportunities and increase understanding with regard to:

• the opportunities and challenges for companies, organisations and individuals associated with the use of new technologies;
• the specific affordances created when technologies are used in different ways and for different purposes by different stakeholders;
• identifying important areas for study, development and evaluation on behalf of external stakeholders; and
• identifying key research questions and potential research collaborations in relation to the above.

Digital Learning Lab

The principal arena for the experimental activities of the DTML programme is the Digital Learning Lab (DLL) at the University of Gävle. DLL has a number of concept rooms that facilitate innovative lesson design and game-based learning using using physical and digital solutions, in order to create new possibilities for teaching, study and other forms of human meaning-making; for example, innovative learning environments in which students can interact with both human and virtual actors, participating in the classroom and/or online, and in real time of asynchronously. The DTML research group leads the investigative and explorative work at DLL in collaboration with both internal and external regional stakeholders in the fields of education, healthcare and social work. Digital Learning Lab also functions as an experimental environment for national graduate schools and research programmes.

National and international collaboration

As the primary focus of the DTML is design-based research in collaboration with practitioners in various fields, the programme collaborates with a number of stakeholders in schools, healthcare, social work and the business community.

DTML conducts research in collaboration with an innovation network of researchers from all Scandinavian countries.

The programme also collaborates with the Education and Learning Sciences (ELS) group at Wageningen University in the Netherlands and with research groups at Aarhus University in Denmark and Shahid Beheshti University in Iran.

Facts about the DTML research programme