While learning activities and text production in language subjects typically include multiple forms of multimodal expression, assessment in the subjects continues to a great extent to depend on students’ written texts. As a contribution to an increasing call for alignment of curricular activities and assessment, this article explores an approach to assessment of upper secondary students’ production of multimodal persuasive texts in the subject of English as an additional language (EAL). The article reports from a design-based study comprising two classroom interventions where assessment of students’ multimodal texts was conducted separately by peer groups and the teacher and researcher in collaboration, applying assessment criteria informed by multimodal social semiotic theory and operationalisations of communicative competence. Comparing the results of peer and teacher assessment of students’ multimodal persuasive texts, agreement was found relating to representational, interactional, and compositional aspects of the texts, whereas differences in views mostly concerned nuances in interpersonal aspects. Unpacking these nuances, the article concludes that peers’ and teachers’ assessments of multimodal texts complement each other in ways that can prompt fruitful discussions on meaning making in the light of context and social factors and thus contribute to heightened semiotic awareness and a broader recognition of the students’ communicative competence in the subject.

In this study, the aim is to explore what genres can be found in applications used in preschool as a way to facilitate preschool teachers’ informed choices and raise awareness concerning the importance of choosing digital content carefully. In particular, applications that facilitate communication beyond a verbal majority language are in focus in this study. The research questions concern what the affordances are of applications used in preschool in relation to children’s agency and multilingual competencies and which kinds of genres that emerge from the applications’ affordances. Analyses of the applications were based on a social semiotic approach, in combination with the notion of translanguaging, taking into account many modes of communication, as well as different languages. The results illustrate how affordances include possibilities to listen to several spoken languages, opportunities to create documentation and produce stories in many different modes, including the verbal language of choice, but also restraints such as lack of opportunities for children’s agency in some applications with more closed composition. 10 genres are proposed which consist of three monolingual app-genres: talking picture books, storytelling and games, and seven app-genres that allow for several languages: talking picture books in more languages, multilingual storytelling, storytelling with recording possibilities, boardgames with recording possibilities, communication apps, draw-and-record apps and documentation apps. Conclusions highlight the importance of careful selection when choosing digital content in educational settings for younger children and that some of the app-genres proposed could be seen as facilitating digital pedagogical translanguaging.

This special collection contains articles from participants in the 7th International Designs for Learning Conference – Remediation of Learning. The focus of the conference and the special collection is on current changes in the designs of information and knowledge representations and their consequences on how we understand and evaluate learning and communication. The conference was held in May 2021 and due to the pandemic it was run digitally through Zoom. A total of 43 abstracts were submitted, and all delegates were invited to submit a full paper to the Designs for Learning Journal. Five articles were finally included in the special collection and are presented below, along with an acknowledgement of the abstracts presented during the conference.

In this study, we apply theories about self-efficacy, empowerment and motivation to account for the phenomena that people with diabetes Mellitus type 1 express as being influential for people with diabetes’ behaviour regarding self-regulation. They must make significant changes to their lifestyle, to keep the disease stabilized. The changes can be cumbersome and hard to implement why people with diabetes receive training in self-regulation. For many people it can be challenging to comply with the recommendations. We conducted field observations and surveys to understand how people with diabetes experience their perceived self-efficacy, and what motivates them to perform blood sugar measurements and physical activities. We found differences in people with diabetes’ ability to follow the recommendation based on gender, motivation, and their level of self-efficacy. We also found indications on how a motivational dialog may affect both professionals and people with diabetes. Thus, we suggest that guidance of people with diabetes should be based on an emancipating motivational approach such enabling the possibility of strengthening the people with diabetes’ motivation and thereby their self-efficacy. Through these processes, the people with diabetes may become able to achieve a higher level of health literacy such experiencing a better outcome of their self-regulation. With this paper we contribute to the contemporary overall knowledge about the diabetes field, such our investigation focus on people with diabetes ability to act upon information provided by healthcare professionals and how to best approach the issues people with diabetes experience as being essential for their general well-being and everyday lives.

Involving children in a participatory research design entails certain ethical challenges that require the researcher to consider how to respond and act ‘right here and right now’. All child and childhood researchers are familiar with their obligation to inform and obtain consent from parents and teachers, before involving children in research. However, even with the signed consent, the research can easily take another direction than first planned. This study explored how involving children in research forces ethical dilemmas in-situ which require a ‘right here and right now’ response from the researcher. Data from this study were gathered through the multi-method mosaic approach. Originally, this study focused on children’s learning paths as they transition from pre-school to primary school, however, when analysing the transcribed and coded data through a constructivist grounded theory, we revealed micro-ethical moments where the research repeatedly took another direction than first planned. Thus, the research topic changed focus. Based on the analysis of interview transcripts, two types of ethical considerations emerged as important when involving children in research: (1) researchers’ response in-situ when micro-ethical moments occur (2) continuing the data collection when the research topic is changing. Considering this, the results point to a need for reframing the research design which includes what we have termed ‘ethical sensitivity’ when it comes to processual aspects of data generation. The process may entail arising ethical dilemmas, which in turn may influence how the children participate in the research and the generated data.

<p class="designartikelbrdtext">This article shows conditions for how an educational digital tool can open doors to an increasingly playful world – and address some of the issues with introducing digital maths in early childhood education. Guided by a design-based research approach, the multimodal design of the educational app-based game DigiMat was iteratively created by a multidisciplinary team and introduced to teachers and children. In this study, we focused on transformative processes to illuminate conditions for meaningful <em>design for learning</em>, based on what teachers reported in interventions. In addition, we considered children’s play with the app-based game, which elucidated the conditions for <em>design in learning</em>. We performed thematic analysis and applied the Learning Design Sequence model to illuminate notions from critical incidents with children and teachers. The findings indicate that, although children <em>re-design</em> and create their purpose whilst playing, beyond digital affordances, teachers needed an explicit alignment with the curriculum to integrate meaningful and guided play with the use of DigiMat. This study indicates that designers and innovators wishing to introduce playful apps into educational practice should consider how learning outcomes and playful activities resonate with educational practice. Based on our findings, we argue that digital educational tools should be designed and implemented collaboratively with teachers and children, in a didactic context where the goals of the curriculum are recognised.

Article: A Cultural-Historical Perspective on How Double Stimulation Triggers Expansive Learning: How Teachers and Social Educators Can Use Double Stimulation to Implement Computational Thinking in Mathematics

The presence of digital technologies in classroom settings is relentlessly getting stronger and has shown to have powerful playful qualities. In recent years, digital game-based learning (DGBL) has been introduced in schools. In this paper we explore game-based design activities to unfold playful and creative actions and interactions among children. The study is based on two cases, where game design activities were applied in both analogue and digital form. The unit of analysis is game design activities. The research questions posed in this study are: (1) What activities develop when school children design games in two similarly framed workshop cases, where one included analogue material and the other a combination of analogue and digital material?, and (2) How do children interact in a learning environment framed by purely analogue-based material as opposed to a learning environment framed by a combination of analogue and digital material? A thematic analysis identified three themes: exploratory activities; combinational activities; and transformative activities. These themes suggest that the game design workshop sessions including only analogue material facilitated playfulness promoting creative actions in children’s production of different ideational considerations. In a mixed activity combining analogue and digital material, creativity in the form of fluency was represented by the way the children produced their ideas, which opened up for playfulness, e.g. in the form of humour. The analysis showed that a procedural activity design including pre-designed theme framing children’s constructions facilitated an open-ended activity.

This article explores relevant conceptual frameworks and design principles for the planning and implementation of a virtual reality (VR) learning environment in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts. The primary focus is on what knowledge teachers need to acquire when designing and implementing a spherical video-based training world that allows English learners to experience the different phases of an oral examination in English. Therefore, the paper introduces the educational potential and affordances of spherical videos and describes structural and contextual aspects of oral examinations in English. Employing a prototype learning environment, we expand on major learning theories in spherical video-based learning and suggest best practices for the design and implementation of immersive learning experiences in EFL contexts.