Learner’s Interaction With Information and Communication Technologies

Sammanfattning: This Master’s thesis aims to explore how children and teen-agers (i.e. learners) interact and create a use for information and communication technology in the classroom during their lectures. The study is based on distributed cognition theory in order to describe a cognitive  system which involves interactions among humans (i.e. learners), artifacts which they use (i.e. information and communication technology active boards) and the environment in which they interact (i.e. a classroom). User’s (such as the children, teen-agers and teachers) interaction with information and communication technology can lead towards new and important ways of invention in the classroom. No doubt the ideas, thoughts and vision of these users (such as children and teenagers) are very important which can change an environment that supports learning. The Distributed Cognition Approach is a widely acknowledged approach, but it is less commonly applied in order to observe learner’s (such as children and teen-agers) interaction with information and communication technologies in their learning setting. Therefore this study aims to explore the children and teen-agers interaction with the information and communication technology active boards by using distributed cognition theory which can be expressed as important and interesting for the researchers, designers and developers in evaluating, designing and developing effective interactive technologies that supports better education. Through an empirical case study, qualitative data have been collected using interviews and observations. Based on related research, related theory, qualitative results and analysis, a conclusion is presented which shows that (with the help of the analysis of distributed cognition theory) the information and communication technology active boards seems to engage the children and teen-ager’s to collaborative learning activities which supports collaboration and shared knowledge. It helps to capture their concentration towards learning which can increase the opportunities and possibilities of better learning results related to their education. The distributed cognition approach provides an analytic and investigative methodology in order to examine the learner’s interactions with artifacts which are difficult with other traditional methodologies to the analysis of cognitive-tasks. This approach highlights the complicated interdependencies among learners and artifacts in collaborative learning activities.