Leikny Øgrim & Margareth Sandvik, OsloUniversityCollege

Describing and assessing a digital learning resource for young students

(Title in the book of abstracts: Learning about Egypt in an electronic environment)[1]

The focus of this paper is a newly published web based learning resource called Norskverkstedet (translated “The workshop of Norwegian”):

The present paper will present an analysis of selected aspects of the digital learning resource. Following questions will be raised:

  • Who is the implicit reader of the digital learning resource?
  • Can the implicit reader be characterised in terms of gender and ethnicity?

The data are drawn from the project “Knowledge, education and learning: Effects of multifunctional learning resources on interaction, learning, and teaching approaches” – LISBET (Norwegian abbreviation). See

About the project

The reason for concentrating on the first two questions:

In the LISBET project we will follow four school classes in a period of three years, from the young students are 10 to 12-13 years old. These young students are the users of the learning recourses, with special emphasis on Norskverkstedet.

A central issue in the project is to further develop the product, and to study how learning resources can be designed and re-designed with children. In this work we will draw upon experiences from participant oriented design and redesign.

As a first step it is important to learn to know the product as a whole. Norskverkstedet includes over 100 pages and has a complex structure with several links. Firstly, we study the implicit perspective in the product by examining its implicit perspective on gender and ethnic diversity. Later on, we will study internal navigation, user interface (human computer interaction) and adaptation for users with disabilities.

A detailed study of one concrete digital learning resource will serve as a model analysis from which we can gain experience on potential fruitful perspectives to include in a fixed analytical procedure. Hopefully it will tell us how digital learning resources can be designed and redesigned, and hopefully it will also make teachers conscious about potential precautions to take when using this kind of learning material in school.

Implicit Reader

The theoretical fundament in the project as a whole is socio-cultural learning theory, conversation analysis, and critical discourse analysis. For selected aspects, theoretical perspectives from other disciplines will be supplied. The data consists of interviews, videotapes, and transcriptions.

We regard Norskverkstedet (“The workplace of Norwegian”) as a text. When analysing this text, it is interesting to reflect upon who the reader of it, the audience for whom it is directed, might be. When planning, designing and producing the learning resource, the “author” has had an ideal reader in his/her mind, and this reader can be revealed by an analysis of the implicit reader.

Method

The analysis of Norskversktedet will be undertaken from two different perspectives, from feminism and cultural diversity, and from different methods of data collection: 1) A group of teacher training students, emphasising on ICT and learning, are asked to analyse the digital resource with respect to gender equality and cultural diversity. 2) A group of young students (aged eleven years) within the core user group are asked to give their first impressions of the digital learning resource, from totally open questions. 3) Two of the researchers from the project group have analysed the whole resource according to gender equality and cultural diversity, from a set of predefined categories.

A short introduction of the digital learning resource ”Norskverkstedet”( version 2004/2005)

Norskversktedet is developed by Mediesenteret at BergenUniversityCollege. The drawings are by Mauricio Pavez. It‘s web based and includes more than 100 web pages, both text, photos, drawings, tasks, courses, and instructions, and as such it can be characterised as varied. Its main metaphor is a society, including as city with a local community, a rural district, and a school.

A central issue in the project is redesign during the project period, with the young students as the main source of the redesign. Norskversketedet is meant to stimulate reading and writing abilities, creativity, and the joy of creating.

Students’ evaluation

A group of 10 teacher training students, specialising in ICT and learning, were in December 2004 given the task to analyse the learning resource Norskverkstedet withrespect to gender equality and adapted for the multicultural school. The task was quite open, and the students were not given specific evaluation criteria or methods for analysis.

Gender

Altogether, the students find the gender equality accepting:

”The tasks are designed so that both sexes may find tasks and texts that fit. The sexes are approximately equally represented among the characters used throughout the learning resource. I suppose the resource is as appealing for boys and girls. Girls are often not as interested in digital resources as boys, but I believe this resource will be a grad opportunity for girls to experience possibilities on the Internet.”

This student text is a typical example. Most of the students count the human characters, while glancing quickly at the tasks. From this material, they conclude that gender equality is fulfilled. Also, the students have their own opinion on which tasks are interesting for boys and girls. The quotation below is typical and illustrating:

”Making radio programs, photographing and making movies, may be examples on ”technical” tasks that boys tend to be more interested in than girls. In many of these courses, however, there is a girl character as tutor or main character, and this might stimulate girls’ motivation to start out. The program contains many topics that are interesting both to girls and boys, but my impression is that there are more boys’ things. For example, many tasks deal with heroes and supermen, the outer space and UFOs. The design on these pages are naturally best fit for boys.”

Tasks on fashion, commercials and cooperation are by most of the students supposed to appeal to girls, while those on myths and magi’s are supposed to appeal to boys.

The multicultural school

With respect to the multicultural school, the students’ texts showed more diversity. Some students mention that the use of simple language might ease the language learning process for bilingual children. The drawings are criticised: All characters have a typical Nordic look, with white skin and blond hair; there are no characters for immigrant children to identify with. One student has a different opinion:

”In the local community one might meet and interview immigrants from different countries. This is good adaptation. Norwegian children can learn from other cultures. At the same time children with immigrant background may feel a belonging.”

Also the title of one particular task, ”immigrants – problems or resources? ” is criticised, as not exactly promoting integration. Another student says:

”The only link to the multi cultural school is a link to 1001 nights.”

Young students’ evaluation

28 young students in a school in the centre of Oslo met with Norskverkstedet in October 2004. For an hour or so, they were allowed to play with the digital learning resource. They were not given any instructions on what to do, or which parts of the program to look into.[2]

What did we observe? The pupils were seated together in pairs, but with their own PC. The neighbours usually looked at the same page. Myths and magi’s was popular, as well as comics. Many of the young students read properly all text on the pages they visited. We observed slightly more quiet cooperation in the girls’ pairs, while some of the boys shouted questions and answers around in the room.

The young students surfed eagerly on the web site, and then investigated specific pages. A few started on writing tasks, others required a drawing function. Some of the more outspoken students declared very soon that they had seen all, and explained the program as boring. They wanted games and action. One insecure girl wanted a teacher as supervisor throughout the learning resource.

Of the more specific reactions we observed, we might mention the movie concerning some children falling in love. This content was disliked by some of the pupils.

After this session, the young students were asked to write down three likes and dislikes about Norskverkstedet. We have to remind the reader, that this only represents the first impression of the product – it gives an idea of what parts of the program that might appeal to the children, at the first glance. The impression after in fact using the learning resource by purpose and over a period of time is not yet investigated. From this form, we may summarise that the young students look forward to work with this resource. They find it exiting and fun. The theme Myths and magi’s is a winner, with both sexes. Especially many girls appreciate this topic. Also the course on comics is popular, including a slight overweight from the girls. On the other hand, more boys than girls mention the course and the activities on commercials as appealing, and solely boys mention games.

With regard to dislikes, the boys are slightly more negative than the girls. Three boys and no girls slaughter the whole program as bad or boring. Also the boys are more likely to fill in the forms on dislikes.

We do not find any differences according to ethnicity.

Very interestingly, the gender differences we can find from this small investigation differ totally from the presumptions of the teacher training students. They mentioned fashion, commercials and cooperation as appealing to girls. Fashion and cooperation is not mentioned by any of the young students, and commercials were in fact most popular among the boys. The teacher training students supposed that Myths and magi’s would appeal to the boys, while more girls than boys mentioned this topic as one of their favourites. Very importantly, these findings pinpoint that grown ups cannot replace children as users when designing a program for children.

Systematic analysis

We have analysed and systematised the findings from the over 100 web pages that create the digital learning resource Norskverkstedet. The program consists of a great variety of pages, some illustrated with photos, and some with drawings.

The opening page can serve as an illustration of how we have analysed all the pages in the learning resource. The characters are described from the left side of the page towards the right side. Following coding criteria are applied: sex, we/them, role, and action. We have also given space for comments.

We will shortly comment the coding categories: Naturally, sex has only two alternatives, male or female. We/them has two alternatives, we (Norwegian) and them (other ethnic background).Role has four alternatives: profession, active/passive, at home/out, and appearance/tone of voice. Action is an open category, thus containing the different actions the characters are undertaking.

In all the coding categories a question mark indicates that the coders are not sure of the exact coding.

Page: The opening page:

Character / Sex / We/them / Role / Action / Comments
A / male / Norwegian / Young student / Introducing the recourse
B / female / Norwegian / Journalist, active, out, neutral appearance / Chews on a pencil, is about to write on a note book / Link to writing course
C / female / Norwegian / Photographer, active, out, neutral appearance / Raises the finger, perhaps about to take a picture / Link to photo course
D / male / Norwegian / Film photographer, active, out, neutral appearance / Actively filming / Link to video course
E / female / Norwegian / Interviewee, partly active, out, neutral appearance / Is filmed / Link to video course
F / male / Norwegian / ? / Sits on a commercial / Link to a course in commercials
G / male / Norwegian / Journalist, active, out, neutral appearance / Talks in a microphone / Link to sound course
H / male / Norwegian / wizard, partly active, out, neutral appearance / Doing magic / Link to Myths and magi’s
I / male / Norwegian / super hero helt, partly active, out, neutral / Climbs on a wall / Link to a cartoon course

From the web page and the presented table we can conclude that everyone is Norwegian, they have white and light hair. All men are active, and one girl is passive.

Gender

Today, there exists a pressure on young girls related to sex roles. Physical appearance – how you look – is important even for girls as young as three and four years. The official policy in Norway is to counteract the existing gender roles. In our opinion, learning resources should thus not only reflect existing gender roles, but find strategies to actively counteract them. In order to reveal the implicit reader, for whom the resource is meant, we have analysed all the images and drawings in the resource. Following questions are asked: Are both sexes equally represented? Are the characters active or passive? Are the activities performed by the characters gender biased, and in what way?

Some of the students stated that there are approximately as many girls as boys among the characters in the product. This statement has to be modified. Less than 40 % of the characters are girls and women. The number is not given more specifically, because it depends on the way of counting, for instance if one character is counted many times, if the characters mentioned in the texts are counted and so on.

More interestingly, however, is how the characters are presented. In most of the drawings, the general gender roles in society are gendered. This means that men and boys are more present, and they are presented as more active than women and girls. An example can be taken from the following image, from the newspaper course. The task directed to the young student is to design his or her own new paper front page.

As we see, the characters are almost solely males. They are active and present. Unfortunately this mirrors the usual situation in media. Men are most present in the public space, and journalists in general do not make efforts on finding female sources. In a newspaper course for children, we would expect to find a more conscious approach to this problem. Just mirroring the society seems as a very passive strategy.

There are many examples like this one. Girls and women are in the drawings throughout the program to some degree presented as posh and sissy.According to official politics on gender equality, this should not be the case in teaching materials.

/ In the course mentioned above, the newspaper source, the main character or tutor is a girl. This is a better strategy according to gender equality. Still, this female supervisor is obviously not able to guide the pupils in finding female sources for interviews and picture models. Anyhow, this seems to be the only example where a girl has a clear, active and positive role in the drawn characters.

There are several examples of directly discriminating or dishonourable drawings of women. We will here give the two worst examples.

The first one is presented as an illustration to the task story telling. The purpose is to highlight the fact that when telling, the teller is telling from his/her own perspective – from his/her perception of the world around him/her. The young students are supposed to be inspired by the drawing to tell their own story, from their own perspective. In fact the image was object of several general negative comments and reactions by our young students, saying for example “hey - take a look at the ugly woman!” and “uh! bitch!”

The sweetest comment from the young students was perhaps this one:”He probably does not want to hurt her”

The next drawing, found under fashion, is also quite shocking, from a gender equality point of view.

The problem seems to be a fundamental one: The drawings are probably meant to be ironic. If this is the case, it is a great problem when designing texts for children. It is a fact that children in general have problems with understanding ironic texts. The learning resource Norskverkstedet is designed for the public school, with the core user students aged from 10 to 12-13 years old. This is a group which differ largely in their understanding of language. Most of them are born in Norway, with Norwegian parents, some use another language as their mother tongue, and some have mental disabilities and other problems with language and concepts. We cannot assume that a child, who has difficulties in spelling through a screen text, also can understand the hidden irony in the drawings. From our point of view, this has to be fundamentally changed in the next version of the learning resource.

The ironic way of drawing may also be seen in this image, presenting the ”Green village”

In this scene, the young students are presented to a village, where people are afraid of wolves. In the next scene from the village the plot is that minks are released from the mink farm. As a starting point, we find these scenes somehow surprising to represent “the village” as a phenomenon. The two scenes are neither typical for rural children to identify with, nor are they suited for urban children to gain knowledge about the countryside.