The main ambition of the project is to study how practices of learning and remembering are transformed through the use of technologies. In a historical perspective, the uses of text and textually mediated information (such as graphs, images etc.) implied that information could be stored outside the human body. In text cultures, learning and remembering are divided between people and texts (and other external tools). People who can read have capabilities for accessing and retrieving past experiences of their society. Digital technologies allow for the building up of a huge collective memory. The challenge for society is to make people competent in using such resources and in expressing themselves and exerting agency in a world of digitized information.

The generative theoretical interest behind our application is to study the relationship between human meaning-making, remembering and the use of external, digital tools. To learn and remember in a socio-cultural perspective is to be able to understand and reason by means of technological tools and various communicative genres. Learning and remembering in the context of digital resources go beyond the abilities of memorizing and reproducing what is already given.

The project is organized as a multidisciplinary, national activity with partners from University of Gothenburg, Linköping University, Stockholm University and Uppsala University. It will be carried out in close connection with basic and advanced teacher training and in the context of in-service training in the education sector.