Mari-Ann Letnes

Mari-Ann Letnes serves as Associate Professor of Pedagogy at the Department of Teacher Education within the Faculty of Social and Educational Sciences at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). She leads the New Technologies and Educational Design Research Group (NTED) and coordinates Norway's participation in the international KiDiCoTi project examining children's digital experiences during the pandemic. Her work spans three interconnected thematic areas: children's encounters with digital technology, digital technology in teacher education, and art-pedagogical approaches to play and learning.

Her research focuses on creative applications of digital technology in educational contexts rather than consumption patterns, with particular emphasis on how children and youth engage with digital tools in school and kindergarten settings. She investigates socio-digital divides, professional digital competence development among teachers, and multimodal media production as meaning-making processes. Her recent work analyzes how variations in parental mediation and pedagogical approaches affected remote schooling experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Letnes participates in multiple European research projects including NOTELEB (No Teacher Educator Left Behind), which aims to improve teacher education quality through digital competence development. Her publication trends reveal consistent focus on digital pedagogy in early childhood education, art education, and teacher professional development, with increasing attention to pandemic-related educational challenges since 2020.

She teaches courses including 'Professional Digital Competence for School' and 'Pedagogy and Pupil-related Skills 3 (5-10)', drawing on extensive teaching experience from primary school, art school, upper secondary school, and teacher education. Her grant portfolio includes leadership roles in DigSkoleForsk (examining co-created change through school-university partnerships) and the KiDiCoTi international study on children's digital lives during coronavirus times.

Letnes directs the NTED research group exploring how digital technologies can enhance learning and teaching in schools. Her team collaborates with schools, school owners, and other stakeholders to increase teachers' professional digital competence through the DigSkoleForsk development project. She also contributes to the NOTELEB Erasmus+ project focused on quality development in teacher education.