Abstracts - Earli

G 2030 August 2007 08:30 - 10:30Room: 3.67 BékésySymposiumResearch for development for learning in the ICT extended universityChair: Ake Ingerman, Chalmers University of Technology, SwedenOrganiser: Eva Wigforss, Lund University, SwedenOrganiser: Shirley Booth, University of Witwatersrand, South AfricaOrganiser: Birgit Hansson, Lund University, SwedenOrganiser: Birgitta Norden, Lund University, SwedenOrganiser: Lotta Antman, Blekinge Institute of Technology, SwedenOrganiser: Lotty Larson, Lund University, SwedenOrganiser: Petter Pilesjö, Lund University, SwedenDiscussant: Vivien Hodgson, Lancaster University, United KingdomDiscussant: Camilla Osterberg Rump, University of Copenhagen, DenmarkThe papers that make up this symposium have their basis in a common research project and takeup significant aspect of it. The research focuses on learning in distance courses offered by theuniversity, which are characterised by an element of outreach to unusual student groups on the onehand, and flexibility and diversity on the other hand. Learning is conceptualised as the constitutionof meaning by the individual in the context that arises when their pedagogical history and theircurrent socio-cultural surroundings meet the challenges of the course. The overriding researchquestion that is addresses in the symposium is, In what ways are the concepts of flexibility,diversity and distance experienced by participants in distance courses, and how do they impingeon their learning in relation to the experienced context? The predominant research disposition isphenomenographic, which is to say that the research effort is to capture, analyse and describe thevariation of ways in which participants experience significant features of their learning and theircontext for learning. The first three papers focus on, respectively, how a course for union memberswith poor educational background impinges on their life-worlds when the university and academicpractices are both content and context for learning (paper 1); What young people from differentcountries and cultures learn when working interactively with a common content, "sustainability",in an extended global learning space. (paper 2); and how masters level students in an extremelyflexible programme on Geographic Information Systems (paper 3) tackle their studies given awide variety of ways to study. The fourth paper brings these three cases together to clarify theexperience of distance, flexibility and diversity and thereafter to discuss them in a model forlearning in the ICT extended university.Coming to understand the university from a distanceEva Wigforss, Lund University, SwedenShirley Booth, University of Witwatersrand, South AfricaThe aim of this study is to consider the interaction between a distance course for adult learners andtheir life-worlds, when higher education is both the context and the content for learning. The paperis a case study of two women who take the course at the same time, with the aim of gaining aqualification to study further courses in higher education, and of improving their understanding ofand skills for academic study. The case study is placed against a background of a broader study of– 416 –