Mobile learning (m-learning) environments open a wide range of new and exciting learning opportunities, and envision students who are continually on the move, learn across space and time, and move from topic to topic and in and out of interaction with technology. In this article we present findings from a study of how students manoeuvre and study within an m-learning environment. The students in the study were enthusiastic about the new learning options provided by the mobile technologies, and they reported that the learning environment offered new study opportunities. One major asset was the flexibility of being able to study at any time and any place. The students engaged in learning activities within three learning spaces: attending lectures, on-campus activities and off-campus activities. Each learning space had different features when it came to how the students worked with the course material. Interactions between the participants, how they used the mobile technologies and their perceptions of the student role also differed across the learning spaces. To realize the valuable affordances provided by m-learning environments, educators will need to undertake complex pedagogical reasoning in their planning and teaching and must take into account how students act within various learning spaces.
The purpose of this text is to explore how schools can become professional learning communities, involving teachers who continuously engage in building and sharing knowledge. We use theory and a model of knowledge conversion from the field of organizational learning to explore knowledge sharing within schools. The presented findings are based on a research project in a Norwegian secondary school. The data analysis discusses two circumstances of knowledge sharing, captured in the categories creation moments and bumpy moments. While knowledge sharing activities at team levels led to knowledge creation moments, whole staff assemblies proved to be challenging meeting places and bumpy moments occurred. We suggest that knowledge sharing as a key to developing professional learning communities needs to be organizationally supported.
This article presents a longitudinal study of students in vocational education in Norway. Statistics show that one third of the students do not complete their vocational education. In our study, we have followed 32 students over six years from the time they started their vocational education. The method was annual semi structured interviews. The aim of the study was to develop insights into how students tend to change course choices, occupational aspirations, and dispositions to learning as well as approaches to studentship throughout this significant period of their life. The intention has been to bring out the students' own descriptions, understandings and experiences related to the main research question: What choices do young people make regarding education and occupation and what is the background for these choices? The study draws upon the concept «learning trajectories». We describe findings from the study by using the three metaphors "stayers, movers and leavers". These categories describe the students' different learning trajectories. The category stayers describes those who have completed their planned education at the appointed time. Movers describes those who have changed courses along the way, and the category leavers describes those who do not complete upper secondary education.
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