This paper aims to explore how visual literacy emerges when visual analytics and students enact in social science secondary classrooms. Interacting with visual technology likely demands new forms of literacy as various dimensions of complexity emerge in such learning activities, where reading become a way to impose order and relevance on what is displayed. However, there is a lack of research how these visual processes emerge. By applying a socio-material semiotic approach, the interactions between teachers, students and a visual analytics application are followed. The paper clarifies what might strengthen or weaken the socio-material relations at work in emerging visual literacy. This design-based study was conducted in five classes in three secondary schools in Sweden, with 97 students. The visual analytics application introduced was Statistics eXplorer. Each class were followed two to three lessons by a video recording program that captured both the students and the actions at the computer screen. The socio-material analyses show that the enactments between the visual analytics and the students were both strengthened and weakened by different social as well as material forces. The actions were directed by visual properties as movement, highlighting and color. Connecting to the students these often produced a quick vision or a "locked" vision. The paper argues for close didactic alignment and deeper knowledge of how the visual interface attracts human (students’) attention and how students’ visual literacy ablilites may emerge in that relation.

This paper investigates the potential aspects of visual literacy that might appear when visual analytics and students interact in social science secondary classrooms. Interacting with visual technology likely demands new forms of literacy as various dimensions of complexity emerge in such learning activities where reading imposes order and relevance on what is displayed. However, only a few studies have evaluated how these visual processes emerge. Applying a socio-material semiotic approach, this paper examines the interactions between teachers, students and a visual analytics application, clarifying what strengthens or weakens the socio-material relations at work in emerging visual literacy. Methodologically, a design-based research approach is chosen. Notably, it is the early stages of the designed-based research cycle that are applied. Interventions were designed and conducted in five classes in three secondary schools in Sweden (97 students). The visual analytics application introduced was Statistics eXplorer. For each class, two to three lessons were video recorded to capture how the students interacted with the application. The socio-material analyses show that the interactions between the visual analytics and the students were both strengthened and weakened by different social as well as material forces. The actions were directed by visual properties such as movement, highlighting, and color, properties that often resulted in quick vision or locked vision. This paper argues that there needs to be a close didactic alignment and deeper knowledge of how visual interfaces attract students’ attention and how students’ visual literacy emerges in that relationship.

Hur kan en framtida digital utbildningspraktik främja elevers utveckling av kunskaper, förmågor och bildning i Hans Roslings anda? Elevers möjligheter att bidra till samhälleliga utmaningar som klimatförändringar, fattigdomsbekämpning och förbättrade levnadsvillkor behöver stärkas. I VISE-projektet arbetar lärare och forskare gemensamt för att skapa insikter i hur interaktiva datavisualiseringar kan bistå elever att analysera viktig fakta, skapa förståelse om vår värld och visuellt presentera dessa kunskaper.

In this study, a visual analytics application is put into practice in Swedish secondary school social science classrooms. The application offers support to analyse vast amounts of data through interactive data visualizations. Previous studies have demonstrated that the visual interactive interface challenges the traditional practice in school, where students usually demonstrate their knowledge by means of written texts. Thus, this study examines what happens if students work with more malleable, adaptable, or fluid modes when attempting to express their conclusions from work with interactive data visualizations. It aims to detect patterns in how knowledge visualizations are produced and arranged multimodally. Inspired by design-based research, the study conducted two classroom interventions followed by video captures. It employed a socio-material semiotic approach, which enables the study of interactions between both social and material actors. Three patterns emerged when students’ insights were translated into knowledge visualizations – exploring, gathering, and inserting. It became obvious how different actors taking part of such a digital multimodal writing activity affect and change every actor/everyone/everything, which in turn transfers, relocalizes, reformulates, and re-presents the communicated message. Knowing how knowledge visualizations are produced might strengthen students’ visual abilities when transforming insights multimodally.

This study aims to demonstrate how interactions between a Visual Analytics (VA) application and students shape an interactive and multimodal reading practice. VA is a technology offering support with analysing vast amounts of data through visualisations. Such information-rich interactive interfaces provide possibilities for students to gain insights, find correlations, and draw conclusions, but they also generate complexities concerning how to ‘read’ multimodal information on a screen. Inspired by Design-Based Research, interventions were designed and conducted in five social science secondary classrooms. The interactions between the VA application Statistics eXplorer and the students were video captured. A socio-material semiotic approach guides the analyses of how interactions between all actors (the interactive visualisations, the written text, the teachers, students, etc.) produce a reading network. The results show a reading characterised by being performative, collaborative, and dynamic. A combination of visuals and text supports the reading. However, visuals such as colour, highlighting and movement dominantly attract students’ attention, while written text often becomes subordinate and sometimes even ‘invisible’. Hence, this paper argues that it is vital for teachers to didactically support students’ visual reading skills.

This study qualitatively examines synchronous online encounters in Swedish teacher education, learning from the distance and hybrid mode triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, conceptualized as emergency remote teaching. The separation of bodies in such online teacher education challenges participants’ sensory involvement and how they can be “present” to one another. The aim of this study is to scrutinize body-sensory dimensions of presence to enlighten online encounters in teacher training in circumstances of emergency remote teaching, as well as in contemporary and future online teacher education, generally. Online encounters were documented by video recordings during online seminars and lectures, and by diary entries and focus groups with eight teacher educators and their students. With inspiration from a posthumanist problematization of communication and post-qualitative methodology, the analytical process puts the concepts alterity and attunement to work with the data. Results show that online teaching encounters provides an altered body-sensory situation to which participants sensorily attune in different ways, bringing both positive, and troublesome affects. Different sensory attunements further involve exploiting some body-sensory dimensions (i.e. vision) when others are concealed. When performing teacher training of all levels through emergency remote teaching/online teacher education, awareness of how the material setting of online encounters affects the body and thus the didactic conditions for building meaningful relationships in the study environment, is important. Since the lived body has a key role in teachers’ professional becoming, the study suggests a critical, creative consideration of its full sensory, along with further, qualitative expansion of online teacher education.

När covid-19-pandemin skakar utbildningssystemet i grundvalarna angrips inte bara elever och lärare utan också de pågående processer som skapas i utbildningens relationella spänningsfält. Syftet med denna text är att belysa lärares förmåga att ta in och agera i den unika fysiska och digitala kontext som uppstår. Studien genomfördes mellan 19 mars och 19 april 2020. Genom dagboksanteckningar och reflektionsnoteringar dokumenterade fem svensklärare sin skolvardag under denna tid. Med hjälp av begreppet respons- och ansvarskapabel pedagogik analyseras de förändrade processerna och lärares agerande. Studien visar att de komplexa händelserna aktiverar lärares känslighet för sina inneboende förmågor och sin moraliska kompass. Med andra ord, de sociala, politiska och materiella relationer som uppstår påverkar lärares etisk-politiska praktik. Det blir än mer centralt att vara uppmärksam, nyfiken och agera ansvarsfullt. En sådan respons- och ansvarskapabel pedagogik förstärks alltså när den gängse lärarpraktiken delvis är satt ur spel. Avslutningsvis diskuteras hur undervisningen ska bedrivas framöver. Hur ska vi tänka när skolan fortsätter att innebära en turbulent tillvaro?

This study explores how digital tools play a part in the practices of Swedish school-age educare centres (SAEC). The aim is to contribute knowledge about opportunities and/or obstacles in and with digital activities in SAEC practices. Data is produced using observations and conversations at five SAEC centres. The SAEC practice is found to be characterized by three different approaches to digital tools and their use: 1) A permeating practice, where digital tools are an integrated part of the whole day, 2) A happening practice, where digital tools are present on special occasions, and 3) A neglecting practice, where digital tools are absent. These differences can be connected to how teachers interpret their assignment but also to differences in competence, access, and interest in relation to digital tools. This entails that SAEC pupils are given unequal opportunities to develop digital skills.

In the last three decades, the development of digital technology, and not least the Internet, has affected how we communicate, make meaning, and learn, both on an individual and on societal levels. Changes in communication patterns also coincide with increased globalization, changes in production and economic conditions. What drives what is difficult to ascertain, but all factors impact the educational system and contribute to the changing conditions for teaching and learning. Teaching nowadays involves the use and incorporation of digital technologies where learning increasingly becomes a matter of student-active participation, collaboration and sharing. Moreover, students need to be able to interpret information from a diversity of sources and media, formulate questions for this content and solve problems (Binkley et al., 2012; EU, 2017; Godhe et al., 2020). This special issue aims to showcase digital approaches to communication with the help of case studies that illuminate how text, information and multimodality in the digital age shape and influence education.

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) in education necessitates a shared understanding of its intended purpose and societal implications. This paper underscores the significance of societal perspectives in AI and education, often overshadowed by technological aspects. At the same time, policy guidelines for the integration of AI technology within educational systems are playing a pivotal role in shaping the future of education. What we as society imagine AI and education to be, will in some shape or form lead the development of suggested fixes. The aim is to aid the understanding of why and how visions of learning and education are framed in relation to developments in Educational Technology (EdTech) and their introduction in education. It thereby contributes to the ongoing discussion on the integration of AI in education and its potential societal impacts.

This paper studies how transnational children and their distantly locatedbut emotionally close family members recreate their relationship usingapplications for online video calling. The focus is on the interaction ofbodies and language, and if/how proximity of any kind is enabled. Acritical posthumanist applied linguistics is embraced and communicationis viewed as a bodily coordination ocurring in real time. This includes amaterial and dynamic view of language in constant transformation.Video captures are produced with three transnational, multilingualfamilies in China and their adult relatives residing abroad (Europe).Moment analysis informs the processing of data. The analysis includesmultipart semiotic assemblages of critical/creative moments and appliesthe Deleuzian concept of sense. The results suggest, the multi-localanalogue/digital situation in online calling transcends conventionallyimagined spatial ‘boundaries’. Furthermore, a bodily, multisensoryproximity emerge as simultaneously critical to and created by thistranscending spatiality. Multi-local communicative practices shed lighton the multiple, material and semiotic components of the humansenses, and how a rational understanding of proximity might be twisted.Proximity constantly emerges ‘in new copies’ transcending the far awayand close.

This study scrutinizes the emerging focus on physical activity correlated with academic achievement. The aim is to produce knowledge on the entanglement of human body and mind when involved in reading and to bridge theoretical-disciplinary gaps between cognitive and socio-cultural accounts of reading literacy. Based on a field test with 10-11-year-old primary students it engages a pragmatic problematization of the “body” in relation to reading literacy practices (Deleuze 1995). A micropolitical perspective is employed to map different articulations of ”heart”. Data indicates reading being differently experienced before/after pulse-pounding and in relation to types of reading activity. Critical/creative questions arise concerning the motoric/sensual body while in reading and the “pedestal status” of individual decoding skills, motivation/interest or an exercised brain.

The current effort to establish computational thinking in compulsory school is not a new agenda. In Sweden, the history starts in the late 1960s with the introduction of computer technology in schools. This chapter explores how the arguments for this endeavour have varied over time and what preceded the initiation of the concepts of digital competence and programming in the subject of Technology and the Swedish national curriculum of 2017. The foundation for this is, on one hand, a scrutiny of four large-scale national campaigns and, on the other hand a review of the Swedish curricula from 1969, 1980, 1994 and 2011. It was found that an underlying political agenda has tightly connected the introduction of “new” technology in schools with the competitiveness of Sweden as an industrial nation.

In these times, described as an ´post-truth´ era where we are faced with information overload, it is a challenge to help students find relevant information, support their knowledge building and engage them in thinking critically about information and knowledge from different perspectives. This study investigates how a visual analytics interface (with a dynalinked view of an interactive map together with interactive graphs) and students interact to solve tasks in secondary schools’ social-science classrooms. Teachers are probably better able to support their students if they know more about the translations and the patterns that emerge when students try to engage in interactive graph reading. We have distinguished three patterns that emerge in the interactions. These patterns, decoding, manoeuvring and incorporation of prior knowledge, is supportive in elucidating the students’ visual and analytical reasoning processes. Insights about those reasoning processes is important since earlier research has highlighted the centrality of considering the problems of the complexity of interactive graph reading and thus dealing with issues concerning students’ abilities to read and interpret such graphs, when presented as part of interactive information visualization technology.

Vår tid kännetecknas av att samtidigt som den empirisk-realistiska uppfattningen om betydelsen av vetenskap och kunskap är ifrågasatt, står mänskligheten inför en rad utmaningar såsom hot mot klimatet, hot mot demokratiska institutioner, växande ojämlikhet och pandemier. För att möta detta behöver medborgare inte enbart kunna sovra och bedöma information utan också kan agera som politiska subjekt.

Kapitlet bygger på en studie i två klassrum i ämnet samhällskunskap där elever använder officiell statistik för att med hjälp av ett visualiseringsverktyg undersöka globala handelsmönster. Eleverna presenterar sedan muntligt och visuellt sina insikter, och läraren bedömer elevernas redovisningar.

Studien visar att eleverna med hjälp av visualiserad information, kan förstå ekonomiska och politiska samband, vilket skulle kunna ligga till grund för politiskt engagemang. I klassrummet uteblir dock insikten om att det “skulle kunna vara annorlunda” och att den enskilde/gruppen kan medverka till förändring. Istället hamnar fokus på bedömning av elevens prestation. Studien visar därmed att även om pedagogiska praktiker kan skapa förutsättningar för politisk subjektivitet så tenderar dessa att undergrävas av krav på bedömning, kvalificering och prestationer.

Den trettonde nationella konferensen i Svenska med didaktisk inriktning (SMDI13) genomfördes i Linköping 22–23 november 2018. Temat förkonferensen var Bildning, utbildning, fortbildning. Svenskämnet erbjuder genomspråket och litteraturen kraftfulla verktyg för en framåtsyftande bildning. Att äga ett språk och ha tillgång till en mångfald av textvärldar är en förutsättning för att delta i samhället fullt ut som en demokratisk, kritisk och självständig medborgare.Vi ville därför med detta tema belysa olika aspekter av forskningsområdet svenska med didaktisk inriktning. Vid konferensen i Linköping deltog ca 150 personer och under de två dagarna genomfördes drygt 60 paper presentationer och symposier, varav flera från våra nordiska grannländer. Ett nytt inslag för året var en session som ägnades åt temat ”Att skriva en forskningsansökan”, där erfarna forskare bidrog med sina erfaren-heter. Konferensen föregicks av en doktoranddag, som lockade omkring 25 doktorander och handledare. Vid konferensen hölls tre plenarföreläsningar. Cristina Vischer Bruns från LaGuardia Community College, New York, inledde konferensen med en föreläsning under temat ”Students and Stories In and Out of Classrooms”, i vilken hon talade om hur lärare kan möta elevers vikande intresse för att läsa skönlitteratur med att ta utgångspunkt i de berättelser som eleverna möter utanför skolans värld. Konferensens andra plenarföreläsning hölls av Per Ledin,Södertörns högskola, som talade under temat ”Skolans nya och kvalitetssäkrandespråk”. I föreläsningen gav han många illustrerande exempel på hur språket i granskningssamhället kan se ut och ställde frågan om detta kvalitetssäkrandespråk riskerar att leda till försämrade mellanmänskliga relationer. Konferensens sista talare var Gunilla Molloy, docent i Svenska med didaktisk inriktning. Molloys föreläsning hade rubriken ”På spaning efter ett svenskämne” och innebar en exposé över en lång lärar- och forskargärning, där svenskämnet i relation till demokrati- och värdegrundsfrågor står i fokus. De 18 bidrag som presenteras i denna konferensvolym omfattar två artiklarbaserade på plenarföreläsningarna (Cristina Vischer Bruns och Gunilla Molloy)och 16 artiklar baserade på paperpresentationer eller workshops. Samtliga bidrag har granskats av minst två granskare genom en double blind review-process.Texterna uppvisar en bredd i tolkningen av konferensens tema. Flera artiklar handlar om skrivande eller grammatik (Edander & Palmér, Forsling & Tjernberg, Malmberg, Ohlsson, Rejman et al.) på olika nivåer i utbildningssystemet och utifrån olika perspektiv. Literacypraktiker, läsning och skrivande i andra skol-ämnen än svenska är fokus i några artiklar (Björk, Hallesson, Norberg, Visén). Andra artiklar handlar om arbete med skönlitterära texter och läsning (Elam &Widhe, Johansson & Nordenstam, Nordenstam & Olin-Scheller, Revelj, Nissen). Ett annat område som uppmärksammas i volymen är hur olika typer av policy-dokument påverkar utbildningen (Borsgård, Fägrell, Varga). Ett bidrag (Sofkova et al.) presenterar olika infallsvinklar på digitala textkompetenser. Det är vår förhoppning att nätverket Svenska med didaktisk inriktning ska fort-sätta vara ett viktigt forum för aktuell forskning om svenskämnets olika delar, liksom en betydelsefull aktör på andra arenor, där svenskämnet diskuteras.Konferensvolymen offentliggörs därför också via nätverkets hemsida,www.smdi.se.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is often highlighted as a transformative technology that can“address some of the biggest challenges in education today”(UNESCO, 2019). Introducing data-driven AI in classrooms also raises pedagogical and ethical concerns related to students’, teachers’ and teacher educators’ understanding of how AI works in theory and practice (Holmes, 2022; Sperling et al., 2022). This extended abstract presents initial findings from the first study conducted within the WASP-HS1-funded research project: "AI Literacy for Swedish Teacher Education - A Participatory Design Approach". The project aims to establish a scientific foundation for teaching AI literacy in teacher education (TE) programs.

Artificial intelligence (AI) literacy has recently emerged on the educational agenda raising expectations on teachers' and teacher educators' professional knowledge. This scoping review examines how the scientific literature conceptualises AI literacy in relation to teachers' different forms of professional knowledge relevant for Teacher Education (TE). The search strategy included papers and proceedings from 2000 to 2023 related to AI literacy and TE as well as the intersection of AI and teaching. Thirty-four papers were included in the analysis. The Aristotelian concepts episteme (theoretical-scientific knowledge), techne (practical-productive knowledge), and phronesis (professional judgement) were used as a lens to capture implicit and explicit dimensions of teachers' professional knowledge. Results indicate that AI literacy is a globally emerging research topic in education but almost absent in the context of TE. The literature covers many different topics and draws on different methodological approaches. Computer science and exploratory teaching approaches influence the type of epistemic, practical, and ethical knowledge. Currently, teachers' professional knowledge is not broadly addressed or captured in the research. Questions of ethics are predominantly addressed as a matter of understanding technical configurations of data-driven AI technologies. Teachers' practical knowledge tends to translate into the adoption of digital resources for teaching about AI or the integration of AI EdTech into teaching. By identifying several research gaps, particularly concerning teachers' practical and ethical knowledge, this paper adds to a more comprehensive understanding of AI literacy in teaching and can contribute to a more wellinformed AI literacy education in TE as well as laying the ground for future research related to teachers' professional knowledge.

This article explores the complex challenges of co-designing an AI- and learning analytics (LA)-integrated learning management system (LMS). While co-design has been proposed as a human-centred design approach for scaling AI and LA adoption, our understanding of how these design processes play out in real-life settings remains limited. This study is based on ethnographic fieldwork in primary and secondary schools and employs a relational materialist approach to trace, visualise, and analyse the increasingly complex and transformative relations between a growing number of actors. The findings shed light on the intricate ecosystem in which AI and LA are being introduced and on the marketisation of K-12 education. Instead of following a rational and sequential approach that can be easily executed, the co-design process emerged as a series of events, shifting from solely generating ideas with teachers to integrating and commercialising the LMS into a school market with an already high prevalence of educational technology (EdTech). AI and LA in education, co-design and data-driven schooling served as negotiating ideas, boundary objects, which maintained connectivity between actors, despite limited AI and LA implementation and the development of a stand-alone app. Even though teachers and students were actively involved in the design decisions, the co-design process did not lead to extensive adoption of the LMS nor did it sufficiently address the ethical issues related to the unrestricted collection of student data.

Machine learning and other artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are predicted to play a transformative role in primary education, where these technologies for automation and personalization are now being introduced to classroom instruction. This article explores the rationales and practices by which machine learning and AI are emerging in schools. We report on ethnographic fieldwork in Sweden, where a machine learning teaching aid in mathematics, the AI Engine, was tried out by 22 teachers and more than 250 primary education students. By adopting an Actor-Network Theory approach, the analysis focuses on the interactions within the network of heterogeneous actors bound by the AI Engine as an obligatory passage point. The findings show how the actions and accounts emerging within the complex ecosystem of human actors compensate for the unexpected and undesirable algorithmic decisions of the AI Engine. We discuss expectations about AI in education, contradictions in how the AI Engine worked and uncertainties about how machine learning algorithms ‘learn’ and predict. These factors contribute to our understanding of the potential of automation and personalisation—a process that requires continued re-negotiations. The findings are presented in the form of a fictional play in two acts, an ethnodrama. The ethnodrama highlights controversies in the use of AI in education, such as the lack of transparency in algorithmic decision-making—and how this can play out in real-life learning contexts. The findings of this study contribute to a better understanding of AI in primary education.

Denna text redogör för de klassrumspraktiker som uppstår mellan elever och verktyg för digital informationshantering och textproduktion samt diskuterar undervisningsinterventioner utvecklade av lärare och forskare i syfte att finna nya former för literacyundervisning- och multimodal bedömning. I en tid av stora informationsmängder, alternativa fakta och fake news blir det särskilt angeläget att utveckla elevers förmågor att hantera digitala gränssnitt, läsa digitala texter, träna på att analysera och skapa mening ur stora mängder information. Det handlar om att; via effektiva verktyg utveckla kompetenser för att säkert och kritiskt kunna hantera, interagera och kommunicera information. Verktyg utvecklade för att bidra med tekniska lösningar i detta sammanhang kallas Visual Analytics (VA) och anses utgöra en så kallad ”key technology”. Denna teknik erbjuder möjligheter för visualiseringar av stora datamängder. Dessa analysverktyg gör det möjligt att på ett annat sätt än tidigare hantera, läsa och analysera information. Det som numer i media ofta kallas för ”big data”. Verktygen erbjuder också möjligheter att producera egna budskap eller berättelser, med andra ord det finns potential att kommunicera via verktygens multimodala resurser. Det går att likna denna process, informationshanteringen, med de visualiseringar och berättelser som Hans Rosling presenterade. Att kunna interagera som han gjorde via interaktiva datavisualiseringar, och därigenom vara kapabel att både kunna läsa och uttrycka sig multimodalt, är och kommer att vara en alltmer angelägen färdighet för elever att utveckla i skolan.

Denna artikel ger en orientering om skillnader mellan läsning av traditionella texter och digitala texter. Den problematiserar också elevers läsförståelse kopplat till webbtexters uppbyggnad och struktur. Syftet med artikeln är att läraren ska få förståelse för de specifika förmågor och färdigheter som krävs av eleverna för att skapa mening vid digitalt läsande. Artikeln har också digital informationshantering som fokus, det vill säga hur digitaliserad information söks, hur den kan förstås och hur informationen kritiskt kan granskas. Tanken är att lärare, med hjälp av denna text, ska kunna utveckla redskap som bidrar till förståelse, organisation och hantering av lärsituationer där de digitala redskapen ofta oförutsett påverkar vad som händer i klassrummet. Det handlar därför om att skapa en medvetenhet om det digitala läsandet där det samtidigt finns ett kritiskt granskande förhållningssätt till de digitala redskapen och källorna

Official statistics are used as a more or less important background for decisions especially in public planning and policy making. However, in education, official statistics are much less recognized and used than they could be and among the informed public they are even less used. Web-enabled Geovisual Analytics is a technique that can help illustrating spatio-temporal statistical data which for the eye are hard to uncover or even are not possible to perceive or interpret. We introduce novel “storytelling” means for the educator to 1) select any spatio-temporal and multidimensional national or sub-national statistical data, 2) explore and discern trends and patterns, 3) then orchestrate and describe metadata, 4) collaborate with colleagues to confirm and 5) finally publish essential gained insight and knowledge embedded as dynamic visualization “Vislet” in blogs or wikis with associate metadata. The educator can guide the reader in the directions of both context and discovery while at the same time follow the analyst’s way of logical reasoning. This emerging technology could in many ways change the terms and structures for learning, especially for the young generation. A better understanding of how educators and students can exploit visualization and its associated science of perception and learning is the focus of this paper in relation to the use of official statistical data. The results show that the geovisual analytics can be effective for students and it is easy for them to understand and control the interactive tools. It is sufficient for supporting the apprehension of connections between different kinds of statistical data. The user satisfaction and learning possibilities are extensive.

This paper aims to determine the distribution of problem spaces in learning activities, when geovisual analytics is introduced into social science education. We know that various dimensions of complexity emerge in learning activities including this kind of technology. This paper clarifies the features of the problem spaces in such activities. The study was conducted in three middle schools in Sweden, in four social science classes with students aged 10 to 13 years. The specific geovisual analytics platform used was Statistics eXplorer. The learning activities were followed for two to four weeks at each school using video observations. Drawing on actor–network theory, we conducted material discursive analyses of the learning activities. The geovisual analytics generally support student understandings, but the didactic design of the classroom was not completely supportive. Six central aspects were found in the distribution of problem spaces within the learning activities. Novel approaches to pedagogy and teaching employing geovisual analytics could benefit students’ knowledge building as they work with visualized data.

The aim of this paper is to understand emerging learning conditions, with a focus on complexity, in primary schools social science education, when a geovisual analytics’ visual storytelling methods are employed. To date, little attention has been paid to the role geovisual analytics (digital media and technology that highlight visual data communication in order to support analytical tasks) can play in education, and to the extent to which these tools can process actionable data for pupils in school. This study was conducted in three public primary schools, in four different social science classes, with pupils aged 10 to 13 years, over a period of two to four weeks at each school. Empirical data were generated using video observations. The learning conditions are distinguished by broad complexity emerging from the actors’ deeply intertwined relations in the activities. The paper argues that novel approaches to teaching and learning could benefit pupils’ knowledge building as they work with and analyse visualised data.

Handling the vast amounts of data and information available in contemporary society is a chal-lenge. Geovisual Analytics provides technology designed to increase the effectiveness of infor-mation interpretation and analytical task solving. To date, little attention has been paid to the rolesuch tools can play in education and to the extent to which they can process actionable data for students. The aim of this paper is to examine students’ learning activities involving a GeovisualAnalytics tool in order to understand education in such settings. The paper builds on a study con-ducted in three public primary schools in grades 4 through 6. The implemented technology wasused in four different social science classes, each for a period of two to four weeks. Empiricaldata were collected via video observations and speak-aloud interviews conducted using softwarethat allows recordings by computer webcams and captures the actions on the computer screen.The interactions were analyzed, applying constructs and metaphors developed by Latour. Theresults indicate that, together, the data-rich setting and the students create intelligibility, whereknowledge emerges from heterogeneously constructed networks. These show that learning iscomplex in character, continuously ongoing in an intertwined, multimodal, multiple, and content-focused mode.

The aim of this paper is to understand emerging learning conditions, when a visual analytics is implemented and used in K 12 (education). To date, little attention has been paid to the role visual analytics (digital media and technology that highlight visual data communication in order to support analytical tasks) can play in education, and to the extent to which these tools can process actionable data for young students. This study was conducted in three public K 12 schools, in four social science classes with students aged 10 to 13 years, over a period of two to four weeks at each school. Empirical data were generated using video observations and analyzed with help of metaphors within Actor-network theory (ANT). The learning conditions are found to be distinguished by broad complexity, characterized by four dimensions. These emerge from the actors’ deeply intertwined relations in the activities. The paper argues in relation to the found dimensions that novel approaches to teaching and learning could benefit students’ knowledge building as they work with visual analytics, analyzing visualized data.

The aim of this paper is to understand emerging learning conditions, when a visual analytics is implemented and used in K 12 (education). To date, little attention has been paid to the role visual analytics (digital media and technology that highlight visual data communication in order to support analytical tasks) can play in education, and to the extent to which these tools can process actionable data for young students. This study was conducted in three public K 12 schools, in four social science classes with students aged 10 to 13 years, over a period of two to four weeks at each school. Empirical data were generated using video observations and analyzed with help of metaphors by Latour. The learning conditions are found to be distinguished by broad complexity characterized by four dimensions. These emerge from the actors’ deeply intertwined relations in the activities. The paper argues in relation to the found dimensions that novel approaches to teaching and learning could benefit students’ knowledge building as they work with visual analytics, analyzing visualized data.

The aim of this compilation thesis is to understand how technology for visual storytelling can be shaped and used in relation to social science education in primary school, but also how social dimensions, technical and other matters create emerging learning conditions in such an educational setting. The visual storytelling technology introduced and used in the study is ‘the Statistics eXplorer platform, a geovisual analytics. The choice of theoretical perspectives to inform and guide the study is a socio-cultural view of human action, but also actor network theory is used to take account also of activities of technology and other matters. The study builds on three empirical materials that generate data from 16 social science teachers, and 126 students from five social science classrooms, in three Swedish primary schools. It contains field notes from the introduction of the technology; focusgroup interviews with teachers; think-aloud interviews with students and two kinds of video recordings from the classrooms (with an ordinary video camera and with software that capture activities at the computer screen, students’ activities and the audio as well). The analysis shows that the visual storytelling technology is shaped in relevant ways for social science teachers. The analysis also illustrates that the visual educational material are usable for primary school students in their social science education. They illustrate further how teachers, students, technology, information, tasks, data types, etc. together and in in close relation create highly complex learning conditions. The technology can therefore be seen as appropriate for the educational practice, but the complexity together with students’ apprehension of how to announce knowledge distribute severe problem spaces in the learning activities. The technology can therefore be assumed as a catalyst for educational change, but to achieve its potentials, reflections on didactic design and knowledge formation is requested to support the quality of students’ knowledge in relation to visual analysis.

Bokens kapitel handlar om hur barn lär sig språk och kommunikation, naturvetenskap och teknik, samt estetik i förskolan. Alla kapitel är baserade på olika empiriska och praktiknära studier från förskolans värld.Bokens inledande kapitel problematiserar barndom, lärande och ämnesdidaktik i dagens Sverige och belyser frågor kring barndom och förskola i förändring och förskolan som utvecklings- och läromiljö. I bokens avslutande och sammanfattande kapitel diskuterar bokens redaktörer det som undersökts i de olika studierna i relation till dagens krav på en mer kunskapsorienterad förskola.

In a world of massively mediated information and communication, students must learn to handle rapidly growing information volumes inside and outside school. Pedagogy attuned to processing this growing production and communication of information is needed. However, ordinary educational models often fail to support students, trialing neither efficient tools such as visual analytics (VA) nor educational improvements via, for example, knowledge visualization (KV). This paper accordingly explores the facilitation and realization of teachers’ development of innovative didactic designs, that is, thoroughly conceived lesson plans in which VA and KV are combined in learning activities in school settings. The aim is to clarify vital components emerging in innovative didactic designs intended to support students’ visual literacy, knowledge construction and visualize knowledge. These components are central to better understanding future outcomes in classrooms where visual learning tools are applied. This design-based research emerged from a ‘teacher researcher team’ comprising 15 teachers and four researchers, VA, theory, etc. Actor network theory, applied in analyzing significant issues and developments, revealed that teachers were aware not only to concentrate learning how to use VA but also considering how students can demonstrate growing knowledge – a more challenging tasks than simply introducing VA for students and teachers.

The study explores students production of interactive visualized stories with visual analytics (VA). The aim is to understand emerging interactions in classrooms of grades 7-9 students when visual storytelling methods are playing a part in producing social science content. The dual aspects of visual literacy, information retrievement paired with the creation of interactive visualized stories, are crucial. Video captures of students working in groups and of what happens on their screens are conducted. The results show that students can handle the technical aspects of a VA application, but interpretation of visualized statistics is challenging. The study suggests that VA has potential to strengthen students ability to handle huge amounts of data and increase the possibilities for young people to take part in society.

This paper describes a methodological inquiry that explores ways of performing classroom studies, where posthuman theory and data production are plugged in to each other from the very outset of this effort. Posthuman theory insists on research practices that demand attention to materialities, research practices that seek to detach the investigations from human concerns and positionality, research practices that consider how data and researcher(s) are entangled producing each other and by that try to operationalize the ‘unself’ of the researcher(s). Hence, a research machine was constructed and put to work in one Physics classroom in an upper secondary school. Five researchers focused on various multiparty interactions, whilst attempting to background the interpersonal interactions. Subsequently, the research machine was plugged into different concepts and turned into workshops where changes in configurations became significant for emergences in the classroom. In this process the concept affraction emerged as an effort to map how material-semiotic processes become observable in classrooms. The work of the research machine points to possible ways of avoiding commonly privileged perspectives in classroom observations. This attempt to deconstruct boundaries between human and non-human and the human as a bounded non-porous subject may affect possibilities to produce research that aids what otherwise might be shadowed actions in classrooms.

This study examines teachers’ accounts of what is happening in practices of the School-age Educare centre (SAEC) when faced with pressure from policy reforms to adopt digital technology and promote digital competence as both a requirement and a right for all children. The aim is to explain anticipated tensions that may produce the (im)possible digital practices of SAECs. The study is conducted with teachers from three SAECs in Sweden. Reflection conversations and interviews were used to produce data that was analysed using a constructivist grounded theory approach. The study contributes to understandings of teachers' main concerns when SAECs are requested to adopt technology and align with reforms. It explains how tensions emerge, impacts SAEC teachers’ actions towards revised curricula and affect the distribution of digital learning activities. Attention is asked to ensure that the rights of also young pupils are upheld in the digital world of today and tomorrow.

This study examines teachers’ accounts of what is happening in practices of leisure time centres (LTCs) when faced with pressure from policy reforms to adopt digital technology and promote digital competence as both a requirement and a right for all children. The aim is to explain emerging tensions that may produce the (im)possible digital practices of LTCs. The study is conducted with teachers from three leisure time centres in Sweden. Reflection meetings and interviews are used to produce data that was analysed using a constructivist grounded theory approach. The study contributes to understandings of teachers’ main concerns when LTCs encounter new demands and change. It explains how tensions emerge and affect LTC teachers’ actions towards revised curricula and reforms. Thereby, unequal distribution of digital learning activities emerges, which in turn pushes for educational change to ensure that the rights of pupils are upheld in the digital world of today and tomorrow.

It is vital to understand what kind of processes for learning that Geovisual Analytics creates, as certain activities and conditions are produced when employing Geovisual Anlytic tools in education. To understand learning processes created by Geovisual Analytics, first requires an understanding of the interactions between the technology, the workplace where the learning takes place, and learners’ specific knowledge formation. When studying these types of interaction it demands a most critical consideration from theoretical perspectives on research design and methods. This paper first discusses common, and then a more uncommon, theoretical approach used within the fields of learning with multimedia environments and Geovisual Analytics, the socio-cultural theoretical perspective. The paper next advocates this constructivist theoretical and empirical perspective when studying learning with multiple representational Geovisual Analytic tools. To illustrate, an outline of a study made within this theoretical tradition is offered. The study is conducted in an educational setting where the Open Statistics eXplorer platform is used. Discussion of our study results shows that the socio-cultural perspective has much to offer in terms of what kind of understanding can be reached in conducting this kind of studies. Therefore, we argue that empirical research to analyze how specific communities use various Geovisual Analytics to evaluate information is best positioned in a socio-cultural theoretical perspective.(This article belongs to the Special Issue Geovisual Analytics)

This paper presents an ongoing research project of use and learning with geographic information visualization and Visual Storytelling (geovisual analytics) in education. The fully developed study will be applied in school settings in order to 1) customize the application for educational purpose, 2) improve the teaching in social science and 3) study teachers and students experiences and learning. - The application "Open Statistics eXplorer" will be used to improve the students knowledge and understanding of sophisticated statistical relations, - Teachers will be able to, individually and together, develop a dynamic teaching material through storytelling, through the web, - Students will be able to, with help of powerful geographical statistics, explore statistical relations on their own. A better understanding of how educators and their students can elicit deeper user understanding and participation by exploiting dynamic web-enabled statistics visualization is of importance. Results from an usability study in this project are promising. Together with the associated science of perception in learning in relation to the use of multidimensional spatio-temporal statistical data this research will contribute to the research fields of geovisual analytics as well as educational science.

This paper presents a study of how geographic information visualization and Visual Storytelling (geovisual analytics) will be applied in school settings in order to 1) customize the application for educational purpose, 2) improve the teaching in social science and 3) study teachers and students experiences and learning.  - The application “Open Statistics eXplorer” will be used to improve the students knowledge and understanding of sophisticated statistical relations, - Teachers will be able to, individually and together, develop a dynamic teaching material through storytelling, through the web, - Students will be able to, with help of powerful geographical statistics, explore statistical relations on their own. A better understanding of how educators and their students can elicit deeper user understanding and participation by exploiting dynamic web-enabled statistics visualization is of importance. Together with the associated science of perception in learning in relation to the use of multidimensional spatio-temporal statistical data this will contribute to the research fields of geovisual analytics as well as educational science.

The paper focuses on the most ancient of social rituals: “storytelling” – exemplified through telling a geovisual analytics story about a country’s development over time and shape the measure of economic growth and well-being, applied in an educational setting to 1) customize a geovisual analytics application for educational purpose, 2) improve the teaching in social science and 3) study teachers and students experiences and learning. Our tool “World Statistics eXplorer” with a database link to the public World dataBank with more than 400 indicators for 1960-2009 will help to improve the students knowledge and understanding of a variety in national demographics, healthcare, environment and economic structures and their performances over a longer time period. Teachers might be able to, individually and together, develop a dynamic teaching material about the progress in the world through storytelling accessed on the Web. Students will be able to, with help of powerful geographical statistics, explore statistical relations on their own. A better understanding of how educators and their students can elicit deeper user understanding and participation by exploiting dynamic web-enabled statistics visualization is of importance. Together with the associated science of perception and learning in relation to the use of multidimensional spatio-temporal statistical data this will contribute to the research fields of geovisual analytics as well as educational science. 

In a world of massively mediated information and communication, ordinary educational models might fail in both using those tools to improve education and to prepare the students for their future. Therefore this on-going research project investigates how a Visual Analytics (VA) and tools for Knowledge Visualization (KV) in school settings (within social science as school subject) could be combined to generate synergies in a learning process which not only aims at unveiling hidden facts but also to develop knowledge that includes all its accompanying facets such as experiences, attitudes, perspectives and opinions. The aim is to explain how VA together with KV interfere and can shape learning in social science classes in K 12 schools (from visualization on the screens to a growing body of personal knowledge). Another aim is to develop guidelines for didactic design and develop a web-based information visualization and visual analytics framework for educational purposes. The study is conducted in K 12 schools and empirical data is gathered through three case studies. The results will contribute to knowledge about visual literacy and its relations to different didactic designs. Researchers in the field of VA and KV can as well be supported in their questions to construct useful tools for these kind of analyse processes and different ways of knowledge formation.

Vari består egentligen digital kompetens i relation till skolans undervisning? Kan en sådan definieras på en generell, ämnesövergripande nivå eller behöver begreppet nyanseras i interaktion med skolans olika ämnen? I den här boken adresserar vi didaktiska frågor som uppstår i relation till en pågående, global och till stora delar digitalt driven förändring av samhället och därmed skolan. Denna förändring påverkar om inte innebörden av, så i alla fall de praktiska uttrycken för en tänkande, kunskapsskapande individs mest grundläggande förmågor: att läsa och skriva; att kommunicera; att hantera olika typer av text i olika typer av sammanhang. Ett begrepp som inte sällan dyker upp när mötet mellan dessa förmågor och samhällets förändring diskuteras är just digital kompetens. Begreppet har ofta använts, exempelvis i olika policy-, strategi- och styrdokument (Utbildningsdepartementet, 2017) med ett kvantitativt fokus på att digitala verktyg ska tas i bruk i undervisningen, helst i alla lärares klassrum och helst så mycket som möjligt. Den implementering som skett av en mängd olika digitala verktyg i skolan har också fått till följd att digitala resurser ofta diskuteras i dikotomi med andra, analoga och redan befintliga resurser: den digitala (moderna) skolan ställs ofta mot (gårdagens) ”papper och penna-skola” (jfr Biesta, 2022). Detta, menar vi, är olyckligt då det skapar en falsk föreställning, som skymmer sikten för hur olika resurser – digitala såväl som analoga – kan fungera på olika sätt, erbjuda olika möjligheter i olika situationer, för olika personer och i relation till olika syften, såväl i som också utanför skolans värld.

This study chrono-logically investigates teachers’ professional knowledge in relation to the digitally ‘boosted’ educational landscape caused by the Covid-19-pandemic. The aim is to describe how teachers employ their competences under extreme digitizedcircumstancescompared to ordinary, to greater extent analogically organizedschooling. The study is inspired by action research where five secondary and upper secondary teachers document their work between March 19 and April 2020. Contrastive analysis highlights qualitative aspects of teachers’ (digital) competence when teaching is affected by digital “interferences” in its corporeal and material framing, a dissolved spatiality and “truncated” senses/sensuousness.Employing different dimensions of knowledge in terms of intellectusand ratio, the study argues that subjective, emotional and relational processes of teachers’ digital competence need to be prioritized in contrast to the easily measurable aspects that tend to overrun the discussions about educational digitalizationand its knowledge in society.

This study chrono-logically investigates teachers’ professional knowledge in relation to the digitally ‘boosted’ educational landscape caused by the Covid-19-pandemic. The aim is to describe how teachers employ their competences under extreme digitized circumstances by reading these through the lens of ordinary, to greater extent analogically organized schooling. The study is inspired by action research and data is collected in schools by five secondary and upper secondary teachers between March 19 and April 2, 2020. The analysis highlights qualitative aspects of teachers’ (digital) competence when teaching is affected by digital “interferences” in its corporeal and material framing, a dissolved spatiality and “truncated” senses/sensuousness. Employing different dimensions of knowledge in terms of intellectus and ratio, the study argues that subjective, emotional and relational processes of teachers’ digital competence need to be prioritized in contrast to the easily measurable aspects that tend to overrun the discussions about educational digitalization and its knowledge in society.

We study how a specific Visual Analytics (VA), the Statistics eXplorer, and tools for Knowledge Visualization (KV) in school settings can be combined in a learning process. The goals are to explain how VA together with KV shape learning in social science classes in K 12 schools and to develop guidelines for didactic designs as well as a visual analytics framework for educational purposes.There is a huge divergence between the large amount of information that is produced and the capacity of humans to make sense of it. VA deals with designing and applying tools that support insights in unexplored data sets, where interactions with screens are directed through eye attention. KV on the other hand deals with expression and organisation of such insights and utilizing the knowledge thus created. Together, these could support learning. Recent research, however, point out that current methods for learning processes often only supports basic visual analysis but not the entire process of the analysis. This means that methods that include the process of making visual discoveries (VA) combined with methods that support the process to express them (KV) are lacking. We know it is easy for both students and teachers to use a VA. It is easy for teachers to learn how to maneuver a VA to produce visualizations for educational use. Despite this, the full potential of the VA has been found difficult to reach.In this world of massively mediated information and communication, current educational models therefore might fail. It looks as teachers’ lack of experience of how to arrange a didactic design of the classroom, when it comes to combining suitable tools that can facilitate analytical reasoning (VA) with a process that support students to construct meaning from visual information (KV), hampers the development of a suitable learning processes. Hence, the aim of this paper is to explore a “set up” of a cooperation in between teachers and researchers in order to support the creation of such combinations of VA and KV in educational settings where didactic designs can be tried out.In order to explore this a teacher-researcher team has been formed by four researchers together with 15 social science teachers. The researchers have provided theory and earlier research findings in relation to the topic. The teachers have provided their classroom experiences, their well-tried methods and didactic skills. The team members have together shared their views and knowledge through in depth discussions in order to develop lesson plans that take into consideration not only to modify a VA to be used in the lessons but also to develop task for the students that make them benefit from the strengths of the visualization.In this paper, the didactic designs that the teachers intend to implement are presented as well as preliminary findings from an analyses of these lessons plans. The analyses show that teachers are aware of the importance of not only concentrate on how to use the powerful VA, but also carefully think through how students can demonstrate their growing knowledge. However this is a more challenging task than to introduce the VA for students and teachers.In the next phase of the project the implementation of the lesson plans will be followed in case-studies. The field of VA and KV can be supported by findings reported in this paper in efforts to construct useful tools for these kinds of analyze processes and different ways of knowledge formation.

In a world flooded with data, students in school need adequate tools as Visual Analytics (VA), that easily process mass data, give support in drawing advanced conclusions and help to make informed predictions in relation to societal circumstances. Methods for how the students insights may be reformulated and presented in appropriate modes are required as well. Therefore, the aim in this study is to analyse elementary school students practices of communicating visual discoveries, their insights, as the final stage in the knowledge-building process with an VA-application for interactive data visualization. A design-based intervention study is conducted in one social science classroom to explore modes for students presentation of insights, constructed from the interactive data visualizations. Video captures are used to document 30 students multifaceted presentations. The analyses are based on concepts from Pennycook (2018) and Deleuze and Guattari (1987). To account for how different modes interact, when students present their findings, one significant empirical sequence is described in detail. The emerging communicative dimensions (visual-, bodily- and verbal-) are embedded within broad spatial repertoires distributing flexible semiotic assemblages. These assemblages provide an incentive for the possibilities of teachers assessments of their students knowledge outcomes.

Denna ”post-sanningens-tid” innebär en osannolik överbelastning avinformation. Det utmanar skolan att stödja elevernas kunskapsuppbyggnad,förmåga att hitta relevant information och samtidigt kritiskt hantera uppgifterfrån olika perspektiv.Detta design-baserade projekt har därför undersökt hur Visual Analytics (VA)och verktyg för kunskapsvisualisering (KV) kan bidra till eleversinformationsprocesser som inte bara syftar till att upptäcka fakta, se sambandoch dra slutsatser utan även utvecklar kunskaper i kombination med attityder,perspektiv och åsikter.Med stöd av aktörnätverks-teori har relationer analyserats mellan visualiseringarpå bildskärmar, interaktivitetens erbjudanden, betydelsebärande semiotiskabudskap och skolans kunskapskrav. Ambitionen har varit att förstå hur VAtillsammans med KV kan stödja lärandet i samhällskunskap på grundskolanshögstadium.Resultaten visar hur VA i undervisning påverkar läraktiviteterna med bådemervärden och utmaningar. Elever kan använda VA, dra slutsatser och göradatavisualiseringar men de måste erbjudas alternativa sätt att visa sina kunskaper(KV), jämfört med vad skolan oftast erbjuder. Här kan en kombination avmuntlig och bildlig kommunikation fungera mer flexibelt. 

Den digitala samhällsutvecklingen skapar ett gigantiskt paradigmskifte för både skolan och lärarutbildningen. Här kan skolelever spela en viktig roll och bidra till lärarstudenters pedagogiska digitala kompetens. 

Universitetsutbildningars förmåga att skapa relevant samverkan med det övriga samhället är avgörande för studenternas framgång (Arnold et. al, 2013). Då det handlar om att förbereda lärarstudenter för arbetslivet har samverkan med skolpraktiken alltid varit central. Den verksamhetsförlagda utbildningen (VFU) har setts som ett viktigt inslag för att utveckla studenternas pedagogiska förmågor. VFU-momenten är därför något som har ansetts vara positivt av både skola och lärarutbildning under lång tid.

Just nu utmanas dock både skolpraktiken och lärarutbildningarna av den digitala samhällsutvecklingen. Numer räcker det inte att lärarstudenterna utvecklar en pedagogisk kompetens, utan det ställs också krav på att de utvecklar en pedagogisk digital kompetens. Tyvärr är nyexaminerade lärare sällan tillräckligt förberedda på den digitala verklighet eleverna lever i, eller hur utbredd användningen av digitala verktyg är på deras nya arbetsplats. 

Det finns alltså en diskrepans mellan vad lärarstudenter möter på VFU och vad de teoretiska kurserna erbjuder i relation till elevers digitala livsvärldar, till digitala undervisningsformer och till de digitala kompetenser elever ska utveckla i skolan (Skolverket, 2016). På så vis växer behov av nya perspektiv på både VFU liksom på den universitetsförlagda delen av lärarutbildningen.

Med dessa utgångspunkter har vi försökt undersöka andra sätt att samverka än de gängse för att bidra till lärarstudenters kunskaper kring digitala verktyg och undervisning samt barns digitala världar.

This paper provides a critical examination of the domain of artificial intelligence (AI) in education, with a focus on the expectations and practical implications accompanying its integration into teaching. The expectations have been propelled by two interconnected concepts: (1) the potential for AI to automate pedagogical processes, replacing teachers in certain scenarios; and (2) the notion that teachers’ insights can be augmented through AI-based analysis. Drawing on two ethnographic studies in Swedish primary and secondary schools, this paper explores the enactments of pupils, teachers and two AI-based educational technologies. The aim is to demonstrate how automation and augmentation can emerge in teachers’ practice. Utilizing inspiration from a relational epistemological problematisation of socio-technical phenomena, the paper demonstrates how rather than automation and augmentation, AI in education is an act of symmation in which automation and augmentation is co-produced by the technology and teachers’ different hidden work, in this paper conceptualised as adaptations, experimentations, compensations and confirmations. The paper suggests that the study of symmation in relation to the teaching profession can be productive in further exploring the yet limited understanding of AI in educational practice.