Greater use of digitaltechnologies foreducationalpurposes has, for sometimenow, been seen asa means for enhancing the quality of highereducation.Inthe Norwegian policy context, this washighlighted in the ‘Quality reform’ of 2003, which focused particularly on the oppor-tunities ICT provides for flexibility in access to education and for distributed activities across geographical boundaries. Since then, the use of digital technologiesineducational contexts has continued to be an issue of concern. For example, the most recent white paper on quality enhancement inhighereducationstated that “allstudents should experience stimulating and varied learning and assessment methods that exploit digital opportunities” (Meld. St. 16, 2016–2017). Digital skills and advanced ICT proficiency are also seen asimportant generic competencies required for participation in today’s society and working life. Research on tech-nology-enhanced teaching and learning is growing rapidly and highlights how technology-rich learning environments differintheir forms and functions and how technologicaltools
need to be adapted to the knowledge domainandintegrated into learning activities in order to be conducive for learning (Damsa et al., 2015; Fossland, 2015; Kirkwood and Price, 2014).
Moreover, though they aresupportive inseveral ways, digital technologies do not solve teach-ing and learning challenges per se. Rather, they must be carefully integratedinto course de-signs, and their use must be facilitated by teachers(Henderson,Selwyn and Aston, 2017; Land et al., 2012).
The case studies presented in thisreport illustrate different forms of technology use and the opportunities and challenges they imply. Twoof the courses were selected on basis of their type of technology-based learningenvironments (i.e. the online activities in the MBA programme describedinchapter 7 and the technology-based simulationin nursing described in chapter 5). The othercourses also included digital technologies, though of different kinds and to different extents. All courses used learning management systems, such asFronter or Canvas, for administrative and communicative purposes, including sharing not only course materials and requirements, such as lecture slides, texts, assignments and video lectures, but also teachers’ feedback on students’ work. Some courses, such as the Norwegian biology course(chapter 3) andthe MBAcourse(chapter 7), alsoencouragedpeer discussions and peerassessment intheseenvironments.However, across the cases, we observed a tendency for students to prefer other and/or supplemental social media and generic technologies for sharing and communicating around their work.For example, many students formed Face-bookgroups for thesepurposes, and technologieslike Google Docs were used for collabora-tive writing and work onassignments. Even in the MBA course and the nursing practicum course, students seemed to prefer social media for sharing resources, asking questions and discussing issues related to their learning. Since they were geographically dispersed, the stu -dents in these courses also usedsocialmediato form andsustain communities of learners during theircourseperiod. These findings are in linewithotherstudies that haveshownhow digital tools arebecoming integral to students’ way of life (e.g. Henderson et al. 2017), while simultaneously pointing to the obvious, yet important fact that students’ use of digital tech-nologies for learning is not equal to that offered by the course or study programme. Moreover, the analyses presented inthis report indicate that physicalmeetings and face-to-face commu-nicationare important for establishing social contexts and a sense of belonging among the participants, from which online communication can emerge.
Several case studies illustrated how digitaltechnologiesare not only used tosupport teach-ing and learning, but also form important parts of a course’s knowledge content. Many do-mains haverecently experienced transformations in knowledge and requiredexpertise due to the emergence of new technologies, such astechnologiesrelated to computerisation, new statistical methods and other research tools. Hence,learning to use such tools has become, in itself, part of the content and a learning task for developing necessary professional skills. Not surprisingly, this wasevident in the computer engineering course describedinchapter 2, in which students bothwere introduced to and used a set of domain-specific programming and project management tools. Knowledgeinthisdomain is closely linked to versatile technolo-gies and standardisedprocedures, which are often sharedonline and accompanied by instruc-tions and examples of use. These tools provide students with extended learning spacesand facilitatetheir access to professionalpractice (see also Damsa and Nerland, 2016). Similarly,