The Materiality of Learning

Estrid Sorensen is currently a Research Associate in the Department of European Ethnology at Humboldt University in Berlin. She is also Associate Professor at the Department of Learning in the School of Education at Aarhus University, Denmark. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Copenhagen, where she was a research leader in the EU-funded project '5D - Local Learning Communities in a Global World.' Previously, she was a visiting scholar at the Centre for Science Studies at Lancaster University, and she has held various other research and teaching positions at universities in Berlin and Denmark. She also worked on research projects concerning protection of children from harmful media content as well as on computer game health information. Moreover, she has been a member of the Danish film classification board. In 2006 Professor Sorensen was granted the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship. She has contributed to several edited volumes and to many peer-reviewed journals, including Comparative Sociology, Forum Qualitative Social Research, Nordisk Psykologi, Nordiske Udkast - Tidsskrift for kritisk samfundsforskning, Outlines - Critical Social Studies, and Psyke og Logos.

“Estrid Sørensen offers a deeply fascinating, new look on learning. She shows us how blackboards and notebooks, pencils and rulers, bodies and tables, PCs and virtual environments are profoundly implicated in learning processes in an ordinary classroom and an internet-based 3D virtual environment project in a fourth-grade class. Her introduction of science and technology studies into research on education inspires us to re-imagine and rearrange educational practices at a time when we are struggling with integrating new technologies in our schools.” —Ole Dreier, University of Copenhagen

• 1. Introduction: a minimal methodology; 2. Components and opponents: designing the Femtedit Network; 3. Forms of technology; 4. Forms of knowledge; 5. Forms of presence; 6. Conclusion: the materiality of learning.