Background and academic interests
Professor Erstad is an internationally leading researcher with a focus on digital literacy, but firmly rooted in the wider social and cultural context of learning beyond the technological aspects. His areas of teaching expertise are learning, technology and education, children and youth in modern society.
Erstad's PhD (1997) is from the Department of Media and Communication’, University of Oslo. He became full professor in 2008. For several years (2006-2014) Erstad was the leader of the research group ‘TransAction’ at the Faculty of Education at the University of Oslo. From 2015 until present he has been Head of the Department of Education. From 2015 to 2018 he was Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee for Science Europe. He has been leading a Nordic network of researchers on ways of studying connections between formal and informal ways of learning and new models of education and schooling in the 21st century. From 2015 to the present he is Vice-Chair of a COST Action on ‘Digital literacy and multimodality in early childhood’. Erstad has also been member of several international networks, for example ‘Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills’ with large implications in many countries about developing frameworks on 21st century skills for changing labor markets and societal transformations. He is also a board member of several international journals.
Current position
- Professor, Department of Education, University of Oslo, Norway
Previous position
- Professor and Head of Department, Department of Education, University of Oslo, Norway (2015-2020).
- Associate Professor, Department of Education, University of Oslo, Norway, (2005-2008).
- Head of Research at the National Centre on Technology in Education (ITU), University of Oslo,
- Senior Researcher at Telenor, major telecom company Norway, unit ‘Users of the future’, (1997-1998)
- Associate Expert, basic education section, UNESCO Paris, (1994-1996).
Fellowships and awards
- One year Scholarship from the Norwegian Non-Fiction Writers and Translators Association, Visiting professor, Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, UC San Diego, US, (2009-2010).
Institutional responsibilities
- External Examiner at the University of Hong Kong, China, (2017-present).
- Scientific Director of national research school, NATED - Norwegian Research Council, (2013-2015).
- Guest Professor at the University of Southern-Denmark, Denmark (2014-2016).
- Leader research group ‘TransAction’, Faculty of Education, University of Oslo, Norway, (2006-2014).
Commisions of trust
- Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee for Science Europe, Brussels, http://www.scienceeurope.org/sac/, 2015-2018.
- Vice-Chair, COST Action of ‘The digital literacy and multimodal practices of young children’. http://digilitey.eu/, (2015-present).
- Member of core group of ‘Forward look’ on ‘digital literacy’, funded by the European Science Foundation, (2011-2013).
- Chair of assessment committee (‘Education and Social sciences’), Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), (2018-2020).
- Assessment of research proposals for research funding agencies in Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Austria, Germany, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Portugal, Spain, United States.
- Opponent of 23 PhD thesis’ in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Canada, Australia, Italy. On editorial board of nine international journals.
Memberships of scientific societies
- Scientific leader of a Nordic network of researchers (NordLAC) on ‘Learning Across Contexts’ funded by the Nordic Council, (2013-2015).
- Member of the steering committee at UC Berkeley, US), international project network ‘Space2cre8’, funded by the US Spencer Foundation, (2009-2012).
- National Research Coordinator for Norway in the International Study ‘Second Information Technology in Education Study-Module 2’ (SITES-M2), organized by IEA (International Educational Assessment Organization), (2000-2003).
- Member of the European network ‘Developing and Investigating Methodologies for Researching Connected Learning’ (DIMRCL), funded by the McArthur Foundation in the US, involving University of Oslo, London School of Economics, University of Southern Denmark, University of Helsinki and Catholic University in Milan, (2011-2013).
- Member of the ‘European Policy Network on Key Competences in School Education’, the European Schoolnet, funded by the European Commission, (2012-2014).
- Member of an international group of researchers, set up as a collaborative effort by Microsoft, Intel and Cisco to focus on research about assessment, called ‘Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills’, writing up one of the five White Papers (Griffin, McGaw & Care, 2012), (2009-2012).
- Member of the Knowledge Building Network International, set up by Marlene Scardamalia and Carl Bereiter at the University of Toronto, Canada, (2002-2012).
- Member of international expert committee on curriculum development for the future. Organized by Futurelab in the UK, led by Professor Ben Williamson, (2009-2010).
- Member of expert committee at Stanford Research International (SRI) on Performance assessment of digital literacy, (2003-2004).
- Member of a Nordic Expert Panel for PLS Ramboll, Denmark, on different large scale evaluation programs on ICT in education both in Denmark and Sweden, (2001-2004).
- Keynote presentations at 12 international conferences.
- Supervised 14 PhD candidates with success.