Glimpses of dialogue: transitional practices in digitalised classrooms

ABSTRACT

This socio-culturally informed qualitative study examines digitalised classrooms in Norwegian secondary schools, with a focus on the relationship between information and communication technology (ICT) and dialogic aspects of literacy practices. In the article, we foreground two cases: one on the use of digital mind maps and one on a writing process with online response. These cases display productive results of the tensions between old practices and new technology in that they open up spaces for dialogic interaction. This experience calls for a deeper historical contextualisation, and in the article we refer to different time scales: First, the restricted time scale of practices observed in the local school contexts over an academic year; second, the somewhat wider perspective of 20–30 years of educational research addressing technological innovation; and third, the extensive time scale of cultural history, with an analogy to the slow move from orality to literacy in ancient Greece. On this basis we suggest the term ‘transitional practices’ as an appropriate reference to all of these three time scales. Against this background, the glimpses of dialogue observed are seen as promising precursors of future development, but also as vulnerable plant shoots that may very well shrivel and die if they are not supported.

KEYWORDS:

• Literacy practices
• dialogic teaching
• dialogic space
• ICT in education
• change

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Atle Skaftun is a professor in Literacy Studies at the Norwegian Reading Centre, Faculty of Arts and Education at the University in Stavanger, Norway, and also has a part time position (professor II) at the Faculty of Teacher and Interpreter Education at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim.

Dag Husebø is an associate professor in Religious Education at the Faculy of Arts and Education at the University in Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway. He is currently vice principal at the University in Stavanger.

Mari-Ann Igland is a professor in Mother Tongue Education (Norwegian) at the Faculty of Teacher and Interpreter Education, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, and also has a part time position (professor II) at the Norwegian Reading Centre, Faculty of Arts and Education at the University in Stavanger, Norway.

Sture Nome is an assistant professor in Literacy Studies at the Norwegian Reading Centre, Faculty of Arts and Education at the University in Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway.

Arne Olav is an assistant professor in Literacy Studies at the Norwegian Reading Centre, Faculty of Arts and Education at the University in Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway.

ORCID

Atle Skaftun http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2351-5464

Notes

1 All names referred to are fictional.

2 In Norway, municipalities are in charge of years 1–10 of primary and lower-secondary education.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by The Research Council of Norway [237994], and conducted at the Faculty of Arts and Education, University of Stavanger.