The role of visualizations in the development of digital learning design

This paper presents a study where the use of visualizations among university students in different phases of their digital learning design project were investigated. The aim was to investigate what kind of visualizations were produced and used and how they functioned in different phases of the design. The purpose was to identify different uses of visualizations in order to illuminate the learning potentials and thereby be of relevance for all who works with e-learning and digital learning design. Visualizations are part of many learning practices and occur in various forms such as data in scientific practices, to ‘make a point’ on a Power Point or to elaborate subject specific content. The practical frame of the study was a problem based and project oriented group work on a case in higher education. The theoretical framework of the visualization study draws on current discussions that problematizes the concept of representations claiming that visualisations can be translated into words. Inspired by Burri and Domit’s focus on the “social life of images” (2008), the concept of visualizations is used to emphasize the imaging practices in the design process as a social knowledge practice of producing and negotiating meaning. Visualization in the particular study covers practices with e.g. drawings, digital images, graphs and models produced and performed during different development phases of a digital learning design i.e. digital and analog sketching of ideas, interim mock-ups, and prototypes for presentation. The empirical data consisted of student produced visualisations and six group interviews, and were analyzed drawing on Ledin and Machin’s (2018) approach that focus on what visuals were used to accomplish - in the particular study - the various phases of a digital learning design. The study revealed that the students use visualizations to concretise and discuss brainstorming ideas, and as an argument to support and convince each other about the usability of a draft for a design. Furthermore, the visualizations serve as boundary objects for the groups' elaboration of design solutions. Finally, previous visualization drafts serve as recollection and revitalization of former design phases.