Abstract:

I would like to present some reflections on digital tools in university teaching: both possibilties and problems. The Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences, at Lund University, Sweden, is where I belong, and will function as my starting point and main case in this presentation.

The Department embraces six different sections, and some more courses: Ethnology, Intermedia Studies, History of ideas, Art history and visual culture, History of Books, ABM (Archives/Libraries/Museums), Musicology, and Humanities Informatics. Many of the different courses and programs at the department are today using different digital tools, both developed by Lund University ICT platforms, and external platforms and media, such as facebook, Wikipedia, etc. I will briefly present a couple of such examples, and then put som emphasis on an upcoming candidate program (starting next year): DIGITAL CULTURES. I will describe the program, when it comes to both the digital tools planned to be used in teaching the courses in the program, as well as the digital content and concepts.

I will move on to a problematization of the scenarios and examples mentioned above, by focusing 1) the concept of ”Broken Technology”, as it has been discussed by Fernando Flores (2008), and 2) some issues on convergence culture and learning (as it has been outlined by Henry Jenkins, among others).

My presentation will be structured from an openminded approach, and I do hope I can raise some intriguing questions and get some interesting discussions started on digital media and higher education (especially in the field of humanities).

Keywords:

Broken Technology, convergence culture, Higher Education, humanities, digital media, Arts, Cultural Sciences, Lund University.