Abstracts - Earli

42 participants and the variation of ways in which they experience higher education and itsacademic practices.Constitution of meaning for "sustainability" in global networked meetingsBirgitta Norden, Lund University, SwedenBirgit Hansson, Lund University, SwedenThe purpose of our research is to analyze and describe the ways in which young people from manydifferent countries and cultures who take a course (Young Masters Program, YMP) which focuseson sustainability experience their learning. We characterize the course as an extended globallearning space in which the common content takes on first a local meaning that gradually becomesmore global. The data were collected from open questions in a questionnaire given during thecourse that ran in 2006, some 550 of which were analysed to find themes in the broad concept ofsustainability that the students related to their learning. The four following aspects of sustainabilityas related to what the students had learned were seen as significant themes which account forvirtually all of the responses we analysed. Knowledge for sustainability Communication forsustainability Looking for sustainability Acting for sustainability It is fundamental that facts areneeded to understand the issues involved, both locally and globally, on the basis of the wide localknowledge that comes from the students’ diverse backgrounds and its meeting with the globalcommon content of the course. The meetings between the course materials, the interculturaldiscussions and the students’ own life-experiences, together constitute a context for learning.Communication occurs in the meetings between diverse cultures and is not just about talking toone another. Looking for sustainability is to be observing the society today related tosustainability. Constitution of meaning in this context is difficult to analyse and describe becauseof the complexity and the transdisciplinary nature of sustainability. The students consider that theyby using the tools given for preventive environmental strategies, they have become more aware ofsustainability, and they have improved their skills make professional analyses.Diversity meets flexibility at a distance: Experienced affordances for learningLotta Antman, Blekinge Institute of Technology, SwedenLotty Larson, Lund University, SwedenPetter Pilesjö, Lund University, SwedenThe aim of the study was to capture, analyse and describe the variation of ways in which studentsexperience, understand and act in the fully internet-based two year international master’sprogramme and how this impinges on their learning of GIS. For this paper we focused on in-depthinterviews with nine strategically chosen students who accounted for their experiences of learningGIS in the first two courses of the LUMA-GIS programme. The results of the phenomenographicinterview study were discussed in relation to two broader studies of the same population — oneconcerning flexibility-related actions (n=140) and the other concerning learning outcomes andcourse experiences (n=50) — in an effort to understand and make sense of the variation of ways inwhich they experience affordances for learning and make use of them.Flexibility, diversity and distance in the context of learning – a consideration of 3 empiricalstudiesShirley Booth, University of Witwatersrand, South AfricaThis paper takes as a starting point that learning takes place against a context that is individual,and meaning is constituted in the meeting between the individual, with their history of learning– 417 –