About the project
A new approach to teaching digital competencies, building on students’ experiences from the workplace was used. The aim was to enable students to critically think of the technologies they use in their work and actively take action improving undesired situations concerning technology usage. Each lesson was organized in the form of a workshop, where students were involved in a set of activities.
The workshops were inspired by the Norwegian born tradition of Participatory Design (PD). PD started in the 70s with Kristen Nygaard being involved with Iron and Metal Union (JNMF) to analyse problematics of new technologies in the working place and develop strategies to boost workers' power in relation to management technology initiatives. The rapid development of new technologies and the progressive digitalisation of the workplace nowadays, place employees in all sectors and especially in the healthcare sector, in a similar situation, making it hard to keep updated with the latest technologies that are introduced to them. Actions that increase their competences are needed. Work-Integrated Learning is a philosophy of education that aims at the integration of work experience and learning.
The course was a common field where the research interest of the trio could come together and served as an arena to research how Participatory Design can be used in Work-Integrated learning of digital competences. The knowledge gained through the experience in the course was published as a scientific article and presented at UDIT 2019 (Norsk konferanse for undervisning og didaktikk i IT-fagene). The title of the publication is: Participatory design as an approach for work-integrated learning of digital competences: putting theory into practice.
The collaboration both in teaching and research is a good example of interdisciplinary research activities that look at how digitalization is changing and affecting society. The interdisciplinarity, the social relevance of the project, and the look into future challenges that the healthcare sector is facing and consequently preparing practitioners to deal with them make Klaudia’s, Camilla’s, and Susanne’s work an example of what we aim to achieve with the Digital Society initiative. In analogy to the paper’s title, the work is an example of our Digital Society – putting theory into practice.
About the authors
Klaudia Çarçani is a Ph.D. student at the Faculty of Computer Science affiliated at the Institute of Informatics at the University of Oslo. Her current research interest is the design of healthcare technologies with a focus on the rehabilitation process of patients facing acquired brain injuries. This is a joint research initiative with Sunnaas Rehabilitation Hospital. Her research interest is in Participatory Design and Computer Supported Cooperative Work.
Camilla Gjellebæk is employed at the Faculty of Health and Welfare. She is currently affiliated at the Institute of Economy and Informatics at University West in Trollhättan, Sweden where she is doing her Ph.D. study in informatics with specialization in work-integrated learning. Her Ph.D. research is focusing on the digitalization of health and welfare services and the consequences digitalization has on the way professionals provide the services. Her research is seeking answers on how to organize for work-integrated learning when digitalizing health and welfare services.
Susanne Koch Stigberg is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Computer Science. Her research interest is in interaction design. Using a human-centered perspective and a participatory methodology she explores how we can interact with technology beyond the desktop paradigm. Furthermore, she is involved in several interdisciplinary projects that create and study technology-based learning experiences. As a computer scientist and interaction designer, she takes a cautious but optimistic stance towards technology in a process that tightly couples research and design.