The aim of this thesis was twofold, on the one hand to compile a set of usability and accessibility guidelines in order to establish the characteristics of a user friendly website, and on the other to test these guidelines on eight library webcourses with user education to see how well they adhered to the guidelines. The methods used were literature survey and source studies. The guidelines found in the literature survey were divided into four different categories: document properties, structure and navigability, visual characteristics and accessibility. In order to establish the adequacy of the guidelines, I examined reference sources, mostly on the web. To a certain extent this examination has been based on HCI Human-Computer interaction theories.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how Swedish highereducation librarians mediate discovery tools to its users. Thisstudy aims to investigate higher education librarians? generalattitudes towards discovery tools, their perception ofstudents? discovery tool usage, and how they mediatediscovery tools to students through reference interviews anduser training. The empirical ground of this study is a semistructuredsurvey that was answered by 115 instructinglibrarians. The study concludes that although librariansgenerally have a critical attitude towards discovery tools theyalso think that the discovery tools serve a useful purpose,especially as a starting point in the information searchprocess.

Forskning visar att det är viktigt för barn i förskoleklass att få språklig stimulering i sin vardag. I vår studie jämförde vi två pedagogers språkstimulerande arbete i två förskoleklasser. Vi ville se om pedagogerna arbetade efter samma metoder som de förespråkade. Därför observerade vi naturliga situationer i två förskoleklasser samt intervjuade en pedagog ur varje klass. Jämförelsen visade att pedagogerna hade kunskap om den språkliga medvetenheten och arbetade medvetet för att stimulera detta hos barnen.

SyfteEtt av syftena med beskriven studie är att undersöka om och hur läsförmågan på en skola sjunkit. Ett annat syfte är att undersöka vad detta fått och har haft för pedagogiska konsekvenser. Uppsatsen fokuserar på de pedagogiska konsekvenserna. TeoriUppsatsens undersökning utgår ifrån det sociokulturella perspektivet, och tar stöd av Säljös och Vygotskijs teorier om lärande, det vill säga lärande i det inlärningsklimat elever skapar tillsammans i klassrummet. Om elevers läsförmåga förändras, förändras också den sociala miljö som karaktäriserar inlärningsklimatet.

The educational underachievement of children in foster care has been known for a long time. This study aimed to compile and analyze the current knowledge about interventions, intended to improve foster children?s school achievements. The method used was a systematically undertaken narrative review. Despite a comprehensive searching strategy, only ten relevant studies were found, indicating that little has been done to improve the educational outcomes for children in public care.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the English writing activities of young Swedes on the site FanFiction.net to determine what type of differences were perceived between this activity and the writing activities taking place in upper secondary English courses, what effects fan fiction had on their English skills as well as what possibilities were perceived in regards to using fan fiction as a tool of learning. Methods used include an interview study along with a textual analysis to determine changes in grammatical complexity, errors and mistakes. Results indicate that partaking in fan fiction-related communities of practice in English can potentially improve language skills. Results also showed that informants valued interaction and practical language use, largely perceiving the formal teaching of English as lacking in opportunities for practical, contextually relevant and creative language use. However, introducing fan fiction and its practices of peer-reviewing in a formal educational setting was also perceived as risky, at the same time as there existed a sense of optimism that the fan fiction format and its practices could both be used to facilitate learning..

The aim of this Master thesis is, from a sociocultural perspective, to investigate the views the teaching librarians at Södertörn University Library (SHB) have on learning, information Literacy, and their own pedagogical role, and how their views affect user education and their ideas about the future of user education.The research questions used were: How do the teaching librarians view learning? How is this view reflected in their work with user education? How do the teaching librarians envisage user education in the future, and how do they work to reach that goal?Five semi-structured interviews were conducted with the teaching librarians at SHB. The interviews were then analysed using qualitative content analysis.The results of the study show that the teaching librarians at SHB share a sociocultural view on learning, and take a communicative oriented approach to user education. They believe that communication and interaction support learning, and in the classroom they stimulate discussions both between librarian and student, and between the students themselves. In the future, they hope for improved collaboration between librarians and academic staff, and that user education will become a natural element of the curriculum..

Eftersom vi lever i ett samhälle där informationen flödar, är det svårt att veta hur man ska sålla bland all information. Hur ska man veta vilka källor som är trovärdiga och vad som är sant? I gymnasieskolans läroplan finns direktiv att elever ska ges möjlighet att utveckla dessa färdigheter, som i denna uppsats kallas mediekompetens.Syftet med detta arbete är att undersöka om två läroböcker i svenska ger tillräckligt med stöd för lärare och elever i sitt arbete att utveckla en mediekompetens. Metoden för arbetet har i huvudsak varit jämförelser mellan Skolverkets kursmål i svenska 1 och innehållet i de två läroböckerna.Enligt min tolkning av resultatet kommer jag fram till att innehållet i båda böckerna stämmer ganska väl överens med kursmålen med endast några få undantag. Den nyare boken av de två läroböckerna är något utförligare i sina beskrivningar och behandlar medier som en större helhet och förklarar tydligare de bakomliggande mekanismer som styr mediernas innehåll..

The demands on the adult Literacy-rate are very high in Sweden. People with reading and writing difficulties may find it hard to fit into the community and to succeed in school. To accommodate the needs of students with learning disabilities, Swedish schools provide easy-to-understand materials. The purpose of my thesis is to examine how easy-to-read textbooks for high school students are different from regular textbooks. The study was carried out using a content analysis and I examined the books according to criteria specified by the Swedish author Torbjörn Lundgren.

International studies show that Literacy skills have deteriorated among Swedish students. Empirical evidence states that before being able to learn to read it is important to have phonological awareness. From this perspective, an intervention study was launched to examine whether pupils´ phonological awareness could be enhanced through the work of a special model during a limited time. The aim of the study is to investigate whether six pupils in preschool develop phonological awareness based on Bornholmsmodellen during a limited period of time. The control group was made up of the remaining pupils in the preschool class.

The development of five individual pupils? writing abilities, as reported by six of their teachers, is analysed. The thoughts and reflexions inspired by the everyday interaction between the teacher and the pupil suffering from some kind of reading and writing disability are presented. The purpose is to capture what was unique and characteristic in the measures that triggered a positive response in the pupils. Some of the questions answered in this study are: How does the phenomenon of reading and writing disabilities manifest itself in the classroom, and what are the consequences for the individual pupil of the various pedagogical measures available?One conclusion that may be drawn from this study is that there is no cut-and dried method for working with pupils suffering from reading and writing disabilities.

TitelGod, don't you ever feel like everything we do and everything we've been taught is just toservice the future?1FörfattareTor KindahlKursMK1500: Examensarbete i Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskapTerminVT2011SyfteAtt undersöka vilken typ av mediekunskaper eleven kan utveckla i den svenskagymnasieskolan (Gy2011) och hur detta ska förstås i relation till forskning inom MediaLiteracy samt utbildningsfilosofier och politiska ideologier.Metod och materialECA (Ethnographic content analysis) och styrdokument för gymnasieskolan.HuvudresultatMediekunskaperna handlar mer om att orientera eleven i olika mediekunskapsområden samtgrundläggande färdighetsträning som både gäller hur man använder media och hur medier kananvändas för att sprida budskap - i synnerhet till olika målgrupper. De handlar mindre om attbelysa intressekonflikter, normer och värderingar i samhället. Mediekunskaperna igymnasieskolan är följaktligen en snäv gestaltning av vad som förespråkas inom MediaLiteracy-forskningen. Man kan av samma orsak även konstatera att kunskaperna i hög grad ärinordnat under vad Englund kallar den vetenskapligt rationella utbildningskonceptionen..

The educational underachievement of children in foster care has been known for a long time. This study aimed to compile and analyze the current knowledge about interventions, intended to improve foster children?s school achievements. The method used was a systematically undertaken narrative review. Despite a comprehensive searching strategy, only ten relevant studies were found, indicating that little has been done to improve the educational outcomes for children in public care.

With inspiration from Bitzers situational analysis a phenomenografic method has been used, influenced by Brown & Levinsons´s theory of politeness, to find perceptions concerning constraints (in Bitzer´s sense in his model of the rhetorical situation) in Internet-based communication. Based on three qualitative interviews, this essay has found that the perceptions are closely linked to views of what constitutes formal and informal contexts, varying due to the gender or age of the informant. Netspeak is not considered appropriate, with some exceptions, in any formal situation. However, the perceptions regarding decorum in informal situations differ in nature, based mainly on what kinds of associations and connotations are produced by elements found in netspeak. Since perceptions regarding informal situations vary, there is a large risk of misunderstanding, which this essay aims to survey..

Syftet med den här studien var att ge en bild av vad som sker i mötet mellan lärare, elever och skönlitterära texter i grundskolans senare år. Jag ville undersöka hur lärarna planerar sina lektioner utifrån skönlitteraturen och kursplanen i svenska och vad som händer under själva processen. För att samla in data använde jag semistrukturerade kvalitativa intervjuer. Jag intervjuade fyra svensklärare på fyra olika grundskolor. Resultatet påvisar att läsning av skönlitterära böcker har en given plats i skolan och att lärarnas främsta syfte är att motivera och inspirera elever till läsning.