Looking forward to the 5th decennial Århus conference and the presentation of our work “In Search of Fairness: Critical Design Alternatives for Sustainability“. 

Somya Joshi – Stockholm University – somya@dsv.su.se
Teresa Cerratto Pargman – Stockholm University

Abstract: Does fairness as an ideal fit within the broader quest for sustainability? In this paper we consider alternative ways of framing the wicked problem of sustainability. One that moves away from the established preference within HCI, towards technological quick-fixes. We adopt a critical lens to challenge the belief that by merely changing practices at an individual level one can do away with unsustainability. This thinking, we argue, is flawed for many reasons, but mostly because of the wickedness of the sustainability problem. By analyzing the case of Fairphone, we illustrate how it is possible to imagine and design change at a broader level of community engagement, when it comes to concerns of fairness and sustainability. We contribute to a deeper understanding of how social value laden enterprises along with open technological design can shape sustainable relationships between our environment and us.

CSCL 2015 in Gothenburg was great! I presented our work on “Materiality of online students’ peer-review activities in higher education”.  PDF

Teresa Cerratto-Pargman, Ola Knutsson and Petter Karlström from Stockholm University.

Abstract: In spite of the widespread use of technology in higher education, discourses on learning technologies commonly account for their features as disembodied from their use. There has so far been few theoretical approaches which have delved into “the technology question” in CSCL.  We present an empirical study that investigates how students’ peer-review activities are entangled with sociomaterial aspects of mediated collaborative learning. The students’ peer-review activities were analyzed according to the Collective Instrument-mediated Activity Situation (CIAS) model, and findings show that the materiality of two different tools had considerable influenced how students engaged with the texts and how they interacted with each other.

Our Workshop. And together with Isa Jahnke, we had fun organizing and conducting the workshop Changing Teaching and Learning Practices in Schools with Tablet-Mediated Collaborative Learning (#TMCL15): Nordic, European and International Views

Take a look at the great contributions we have discussed during the workshop!