Future skills or 21st century skills (Ananiadou & Claro, 2009) are discussed both nationally in a Swedish context, and international, and skills such as creativity and innovation, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking become increasingly central when discussing school issues. Both future skills and digital capabilities are highlighted as necessary for citizens in a future society and legitimacy in various policy documents (Davidsen & Vanderlinde, 2016). In Sweden has a revised curriculum with clearly outlined requirements regarding digitization implementation, both in terms of teaching strategy and the infrastructure of artifacts in the classroom. To respond to new policy writings, more and more schools are investing in 1:1, which means that every student and teachers have access to their own computer or tablet. By implementing digital tools in education, however, the student-centered teaching is reinforced (Holmberg, 2018), which also tends to lead to a form of pedagogy where students learn from each other and collaborate through various collaborative and communicative methods. Against the background of the agenda set out in policy the teaching profession is expected to change its teaching based on ICT, that the digital the strategies must enable a form of learning that would not be conceivable without ICT (Holmberg, Fransson & Fors, 2018) and therefore create increased added value in teaching. Overall, this requires greater flexibility in the teaching environment. In addition, the demands on primary school teachers to know themselves are increasing familiar with various digital tools and resources to develop innovative learning environments where both a new teaching role, new strategies and new knowledge may be needed in teaching (Willermark, 2018).
New pedagogical ideas, working methods and student views have a great influence on the school's architecture, as well view of the school's mission, which contributes to working away from a more traditional one teaching (Dovey & Fisher, 2014). Martin (2002, cited in Bøjer, 2019) believes that the classroom layout reflects the pedagogical practice in the room. For example, it came out more teacher-centered the teaching from an arrangement where the students sit in rows or in the shape of a horseshoe, while it learner-centred takes place in more flexible environments. ICT and a more digitized teaching can be seen as a change agent where you go from more teacher-centered teaching to more student-centered (Holmberg, 2018).
The purpose of the study is to investigate how teachers say they
design their teaching to promote students’ collaborative work through digital units in school years 1–6 and through the teachers’ statements see what influencing factors, abilities, subject content, and technology support a design of digital teaching for the benefit of collaboration and student-to-student interaction in digital arenas.
Previous research in the subject has been based on student collaboration and digital learning environments; then have one investigated design and students' collaborative learning with a focus on collaborating face-to-face. This means that the students sit next to each other, around the digital and collaborate on different tasks (Davidsen & Vanderlinde, 2016). In my survey, the questions partly refer to side-by-side cooperation but above all on teachers' design for collaboration where students collaborate and communicate through the tablet or the computer. Considering this reasoning, it becomes appropriate to examine how teachers report using technology to support students' work with future key competencies, such as collaboration and communication, where the digital unit in a 1:1-systems can promote added value and new opportunities. At the same time, one should examine the methods and didactic choices that the teachers say they use in the pedagogical practice.