Jon Olav Sørhaug

I am a lecturer in Norwegian didactics and a researcher on reading and writing with digital technologies in education. Currently, I am involved in several writing development projects within the national initiative "Dekomp" (decentralized arrangement for competence development in schools). In this initiative, I collaborate with teachers and school leaders at various schools to enhance competence in reading and writing with digital technologies.

My research primarily focuses on language, writing, and technology. Drawing on sociomaterial theories and methods, I aim to investigate how humans, machines, and software interact and collaborate to solve various tasks in schools, such as writing texts. In the autumn of 2023, I initiated a writing research project exploring early adopters' use of chatbots in educational settings. This project is currently in its initial phase, where I collaborate with master's students and teachers to collect screen recordings from elementary, middle, and high schools for further analysis.

In December 2022, I defended my doctorate in linguistics with the thesis On the trail of actors who write: a study of two digital collaborative writing cases in a Norwegian secondary school class (in Norwegian, abstract available in English). In this project I have utilized socio-material theory and qualitative-quantitative methods to examine students' digital text creation. Applying theory and methods from actor-network theory (ANT), I have explored how students write school essays in close collaboration with software, texts from the internet and other digital actors. The study points to the importance digital actors have for adolecents' text creation. In many of the situations observed, it is the digital actors that seem to have the greatest negotiating ability and impact. The purpose of the study is to contribute with more knowledge about digital writing, in order to have a conscious involvement of technology in school.

Additionally, I am engaged as a textbook author in the subjects of Norwegian, religion, and ethics. Previously, I have worked as a high school teacher, in educational roles within the Norwegian Church, on project work for the oil service company HMH, and in literary writing.