Variations of Symbolic Power and Control in the One-to-One Computing Classroom: Swedish Teachers’ Enacted Didactical Design Decisions

This study provides new insights into Swedish teachers' didactical designs when handling two contemporary challenges regarding the new national curriculum and the increasing digitalisation of schools through one-to-one computing initiatives. The research questions consider how teachers organise physical and digital resources in their classrooms as well as variations in teachers' pedagogical communication. From a study of 23 one-to-one computing classrooms (using tablets), some ethnographic-inspired methods were applied based on classroom observation and recordings of teachers' teaching. The findings show two distinct forms of teachers' classroom organisation that indicate different didactical designs used by teachers to integrate one-to-one computing into the classroom. Variations in teaching resulted in a shift of symbolic power and control from teachers to students, which exploit the potential of using one-to-one computing in the classroom.

"[T]his study made visible great differences in the teachers’ didactical designs in the one-to-one computing classrooms. For teachers who dislocated symbolic power and control to the students, it is not merely a matter of adopting one-to-one computing; it involves how they organise the whole classroom space, where one-to-one computing is one design element among others. The teachers who integrated the potential of the tablets, used formulations and expressions from the new national curriculum as a frame for their didactical designs." (Authors, 50)