Wk 4 A 5 -Social theories of learning March 19, 2009

Compare the kind of learning that the two papers propose.

Where is the learning taking place?

In Situated learning, as the title suggests, learning should take place in the siutation that the knowledge will be used . An apprenticeship, learning from an expert within the community of practitioners in order to become enculturated into the community.

In Expansive learning, learning takes place outside activities, learning from communities and from activity.  He said that it’s like stepping back and getting a broader or different perspective on the activity system in order to gain a better understanding.

Both support the authentic activity and social view of learning, but expansive learning emphasises the point of questionning, deviance, contradictions and the environment changing the learning object.

At what level is the learning taking place? (Consider Engeström’s focus on organisations and contradictions in relation to an apprenticeship model.)

Using Bateson’s three levels of learning, Learning 1 and 2 are taking place in situated learning, but involves a specific learner and teacher/mentor.

Learning 3 is taking place in expansive learning, and involves anyone/think that has influence on the activity.

What is your view of social theories of learning?

My view, from just reading about situated and expansive learning is that social theories of learning vary in terms of foci on the individual, the group or the process.  Social theories are heaveily dependent on communities of practice and learning from and by experience.  I now understand the concept of enculturation better and feel that this has a very strong place in management education.  Social theories of learning reflect the participation metaphor.

What kinds of questions about learning would these accounts help you to understand?

How do we learn?

How does collaboration and community learning add value?

How does having practical experience of the community you’re going to practice in after the formal learning ends helps develop the learning you’re doing and develop your skills?

What weaknesses do these social accounts of learning have?

They seem to say that that there is no place for didactic education at all, that the only way to learn is through social networks. I feel that learning is best served as appropraite to the subject (ie topic), the learner, the situation, the purpose of their learning. As we discussed in the tutorial, many subjects need the basic acquisition of learning to happen before higher level learning can take place.

Expansive learning and the activity theory are more applicable towards informal learning, where the object can change. Where the learning outcomes and assessment methods are limited, one has to be careful how outside influences affect one’s studies.

Wk 4, A4 – Activity Theory & Expansive learning – notes March 19, 2009

Ok, so this was really annoying me – I wanted to grasp the concept, I couldn’t let it lie.

I watched video interview with Engström by Chris Jones for the University of Lancaster CSALT course from 2002 which helped explain Activity Theory and Expansive Learning very well. This video is here: http://csalt.lancs.ac.uk/alt/engestrom/.

I also read some of the other tutor groups to see if they could help, and I’d like to acknowledge Geertruida Duffy-Wigman and Diane Brown for helping me to understand this activity. The link to the video was also found in a few of the other forums, posted by other students.

Activity Theory (AT) was first developed by Soviet Russian theorists to revolutionise psychology of learning beyond behaviourism approaches. It brought culture into the understanding of human behaviour because it was deemed that humans actions/responses/etc are culturally mediated.

AT answers the question “who learns?” Answer: The activity system learns and therefore it is the whole system affects the learning. It helps us to understand how a wide range of factors work together to impact an activity.

Learning is understood as something that is distributed among individuals, colleagues, tools and symbolic resources.

AT enables us to “radically expand” our analyses of learning.

Expansive Learning

Learning has layers, and using Bateson’s theory of three layers of learning Engströmexplained that Learning I – is the curriculum, and learning through conditioning, reinforcement, punishment and is tacit and non-conscious.  Learning II – is the hidden curriculum, always exists when learning takes place, and that is where we learn the rules of the game, ie we learn how to be students, we learn how to be whatever community we’re in. This is implicit. The learner begins to learn to bend the rules and experiment with their role. Learning III is EXPANSIVE LEARNING, when learners question the sense and meaning of their learning. It’s where we go beyond the information given to construct a broader picture. It removes you from the constraints of that activity by constructing another activity, to help you achieve the goal of the other activity.

Learning by expanding. Learners distance themselves from the activity, in order to understand it better.

My understanding then is, for example, Action Learning Groups, where you have a problem (or activity) in your work/course whatever, and you go to another community to help you look at the problem from different viewpoints to help you reconstruct the activity to find the solution.

Engström explains that in Learning III people start to be aware of the demands and conflicting messages of what they’re doing and go into another “activity” to help them resolve those conflicts- distance oneself.

Learning I and II are happening all the time, and simultaneously in each activity. Learning III is rare because it’s basis is questioning and deviance, and deviance is often suppressed, though of as being weird and excluded.  Because of this, expansive learning, or learning III, requires a social network as it cannot exist as an individual process because it would be suppressed. It needs the nurturing and support of other people.

Technology Enhanced Learning

This video was from 2002, and the article we read is from 2001, so what Engström said about Technology and Expansive learning is a little bit out of date but from what he was implying and what I know about Web 2.0, I can say that because learning III require communities, Web 2.0 provides learners with those communities. He implies that Learning III is rare, so to find people comfortable with being deviant in this way is difficult, so web 2.0 enables this. Web 2.0 enables creating CoP (communities of practice), where objects are shared and you produce things together, rather than web “1.0″ which was very much a market place.

Engström uses the analogy of skateboarders to talk about how he thinks networked learning and AT/Ex Lg are linked, again 2002 so not enough information on Web 2.0 I suspect. He described the skateboarders as nomads, who don’t use the skate-park anymore, but travel around cities looking for new places to skate and send each other texts, photos, video by phone to invite others to that place. So in terms of Web 2.0 and networked learning, we are all nomads trawling the Internet, having our own experiences (activities) and web 2.0 is our platform for inviting others to share what we’ve found, which may then effect the recipients activity.

Engström warns networked learning developers to be aware of the boundaries between the closed virtual environment and the open physical life. He says it’s tempting to think of the virtual environment as a world in it’s own right – where you can have any identity, any role, share any information you wish. But the virtual worlds cannot exist alone, we still need to exist within the physical world with real people and real responsibilities and actions.

Wk 4 A4: Expansive Learning and Activity Theory – Tasks March 18, 2009

1. What kind of learning theory is offered by classic activity theory?

AT is basically a concept that shows us all the component parts and interactions of an activity/learning experience to help us to analyse and represent these processes.   It helps us to understand how a wide range of factors work together to impact an activity.

First generation AT is focused on the individual and the task and thus is task based learning, perhaps even the acquisition learning metaphor- maybe just doing enough to pass!  It consists of a subject (the learner), the object (-ive) and the tools which can be physical or symbolic.   Does the teacher come under the tools node?

Second generation is a social learning theory that helps us understand how learning takes place within culture. Second generation AT added the based of the triangle, adding rules – the limitations, strategies, systems; the community and the division of labour (who does what). The subject has to work towards an outcome and is effected by all these other things.

In 3^rd Gen. AT learning is seen as an activity that goes beyond the individual, their objective and the tools their using. It considers the effects of their environment in terms of rules, communities and who does what. It adds complexity to the interrelationships between the component parts of an activity system.

Third generation AT shows how 2 pyramids work alongside each other and affect each others’ outcomes.  The focus of 2^nd and 3^rd generation AT is that the organisation/environment is central, not the individual.

2. What are the five principles of current activity theory?

The five principles of the AT is that

1. The unit of analysis is the activity system

2. Activity system has multiple voices – because it deals with communities, not individuals. The teacher participates in the learning too (Opposite of apprenticeship where there is one voice, and the teaching is vertical; the teacher controls what is learned).

3. Activity systems develop and change over time which effect the processes within the system (historicity). Our lives and activities change over time with the success or failure of each activity. Teaching is horizontal.

4. Contradictions and conflicts are the sources of change – conflict creates innovation and that Activity systems are open systems.

5. Activity systems have the possibility of expansive transformation – outside of the system.

3.  What is the problem with the ’standard’ theories of learning that expansive learning addresses?

Learning by expanding:  Learners distance themselves from the activity, in order to understand it better. Bateson’s Learning III. When learners question the sense and meaning of their learning. For example, Action Learning Groups, where you have a problem (or activity) in your work/course whatever, and you go to another community to help you look at the problem from different viewpoints to help you reconstruct the activity to find the solution. Engestrom claims that participants of Learning III are rare and often suppressed, and need a community to exist successfully.

Standard vertical theories of learning, assume that there is a teacher and a learner, the teacher has all the knowledge to impart onto the learner. It assumes that the knowledge is also well defined  but people and organisations are all the time learning something that it not stable, not defined and not understood ahead of time (think of the current economic situation, no one knows what to do, so we are all learning together, and every solution that is implemented will have an unknown effect which then requires another unknown action).

Daniels and Warmington state that it is differs from traditional types of learning in that:

“• Contents and outcomes of learning emerge as new forms of practical activity and artifacts constructed by both students and teachers in the process of tackling real life projects and during problem solving.

• Learning is driven by genuine developmental needs in human practices and institutions, manifested by means of disturbances, breakdowns, problems, and episodes of questioning the existing practice.
• Learning proceeds through complex cycles of learning actions in which new objects and motives are created and implemented, opening up wider possibilities for participants involved in that activity”

Daniels, H. And Warmington, P. (2007) Analysing third generation activity systems: labour-power, subject position and personal transformation Journal of Workplace Learning Vol 19 No 6 pp.377-391  http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewPDF.jsp?contentType=Article&Filename=html/Output/Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Pdf/0860190604.pdf

“Engestrom suggests a horizontal / sideways learning and development which compliments the traditional learning view.” Keith Aquilina, H800 les6 09 W4 A2 4 5, 8 March 2009 09.21

4.  What is the criticism that Engeström makes of the apprenticeship model of learning?

The apprentice’s teacher cannot know everything as what there is to know is always changing.

“if the master does not have the answer, how can the apprentice learn from him apprenticeship model is vertical, presumes that humans are elevated to higher levels of competence; does not allow for horizontal/sideways learning and development” Frauke Constable, H800 les6 09 W4 A2 4 5, 6 March 2009 20:42

AM and PM Metaphors – my thoughts February 26, 2009

February 25, 2009

Having read about the Acquisition and Participation Metaphors and the Activity Theory I’ve got the following thoughts and key points

Sfard does not claim that AM and PM are muturally exclusive, in fact, PM rarely exists without some AM first. A combincation of AM and PM bring to forward the advantages of both and pushes back the limitations of each.

There should be more metaphors such as the knowledge-creation metaphor and to crudely categorise things as simply AM or PM was unsatisfactory.

Activity Theory – in elearning control is lost by the teacher to the student. In face to face practice teachers have control over their excellence in teaching. The outcome of the activity system is a change in the learner. In elearning technology the excellence in teaching is limited by the software, which is limited by the norms, skills, etc of the developers. The content developers become involved and have further norms and rules to follow.

However, this does not concur with the findings of Bayne where she found that students felt a lack of control and teachers felt more control over the learners from the perspective of cyber identities.

Activity Theory hlps us to understand how in elearning the activity control is lost by the teacher to the student. In face to face practice teachers have control over their excellence in teaching. The outcome of the activity system is a change in the learner. In elearning technology the excellence in teaching is limited by the software, which is limited by the norms, skills, etc of the developers. The content developers become involved and have further norms and rules to follow.

The author doesn’t mention the influence of the students. I feel that in discussion forums a lot of the control over how stable the objective remains is down to the students and the route that their discussion take. In H808 discussions were given more freedom and time to develop and explore different avenues, so far on H800 this has been difficult due to the overloaded nature of the activities. There is no time for deep learning.

Comparing the metaphors to my own learning experiences (from wk 1)

a) do all of my examples of learning refer to learning in terms of either acquisition or participation? Learning how to use captivate was acquisition because I just read the instructions, but it was participation in terms of action as in order to establish the learning I had to practice it.   Most have a combination of both AM and PM. Surely, how can you learn through PM if you don’t have the knowledge acquisition either before or during the Participatory period.

b) Any instances that do not fit into either AM or PM?No.

c) Is your learning process more oriented to you as an individual or to you within a social context? Social. I prefer to learn from doing, sharing and discussing than from reading/listening. It helps to reinforce my learning. Even blogging to me is PM, I’m participating with myself because I don’t have a class to “talk” to about what we’re learning. I’ve always learnt more from vocalising what I’m learning, eg explaining to others or simply discussing or sharing information.

Sfard was basically saying in Week 3 that learning is acquisition and learning is participation. On reflection, my thoughts are that acquisition is one of the “ends” of learning, and participation is one of the “means”. The other signifcant end to learning is application which takes us onto Brown’s article for Week 4 about authentic learning experiences and the enculturation of learning.

Week 3b – further thoughts in the Activity Theory and AM and PM February 26, 2009

I was having trouble grasping the concepts in the Sfard Articile and the Activity Theory that was introduced in the course notes and in preparation for the online tutorial we have tonight I’ve done some further research to try and develop my understanding better.

Articles found

James, M and Brown, S(2005)’Grasping the TLRP nettle: preliminary analysis and some enduring issues surrounding the improvement of learning outcomes’,Curriculum Journal,16:1,7 — 30  URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0958517042000336782

and

Robertson, I. (2007) “E-Learning Practices: Exploring the Potential of Pedagogic Space, Activity Theory and the Pedagogic Device,” Learning and Socio-cultural Theory: Exploring Modern Vygotskian Perspectives International Workshop 2007: Vol. 1: Iss. 1, Article 5.  Available at: http://ro.uow.edu.au/llrg/vol1/iss1/5

J&B state that it’s important to think in terms of relationships between teaching input and learning output.

They state how metaphors are used in how people theorize about learning and learning processes.  They explain  Sfard’s Acquisition and Participation metaphors more. Learning as acquisition is the dominant view. The PM is a “linguistic turn” where the dynamic activity of doing gives way to the static concept of having.  Sfard suggests that “the learner should be viewed as a person interested in participation in activities” as opposed to just collecting possessions of knowledge.

Learning activities are “embedded in contexts” so learning is about “situatedness, cultural embeddedness and social mediation”. The emphasis of PM is on discussion, activity, interaction and being part of a community.

In J&B’s research, the AM was more prevalent that the PM metaphor, in most cases there were dual approaches and in only 1 was there PM only.

J&B suggest that there should be more metaphors such as the knowledge-creation metaphor and to crudely categorise things as simply AM or PM was unsatisfactory. The theoreiical perspectives that fitted into the AM were extremely varied – constructivist as well as social-constructivist views.

Part of Robertson’s article looked at the Activity Theory in relation to elearning and compared how it can be used for F2F and e-teaching.

It has helped me to understand the Activity Theory (AT) better. “Activity is seen as dynamic, contextually bound and the based unit of analysis. Activities are distinguished from one another by the tangible or intangible objects achieved. If the object changes then so does the activity.” Tools… mediate between the subject and object… such as physical tools, language and symbols which are created or transformed in the course of the activity”  The tools and other factors in the AT are both enabling and limited.

Em’s Comment: So we can use the AT to look at what parts of the learning process we need to do an assessment of when reviewing or writing elearning activities.

2nd generation Activity Theory diagram showing the different elements. This shows the theory at a collective level, rules may be explicit or implicit; division of labour refers to the explicit and implicit organisation of the community.  Third generation Activity Theory brings in the concept of boundaries and where two of more activity systems come into contact there may be tensions.

In f2f teaching the teacher is mostly responsible for the development and delievery of the teaching programme and it is adapted to some extent based on the responses of the learners behaviours and is adapted by the teacher. The teaching is influenced by the text books used and the cultural norms of the institution and the discipline they work in.

F2F annotated AT diagram

In elearning activities control is shared by many groups involved in design and delivery of the teaching. The norms and behaviours of the software developers is influential and that of content developers. The division of labour in elearning activities is divided between many people.  Here is the diagram annotated with the elearning activity.

 

Based on the elements of generation two Activity Theory Mwanza and Engestrom (2003) describe an eight step model to guide researchers using Activity Theory.
1. Activity: What sort of activity am I interested in?
2. Object(ive): Why is the activity taking place?
3. Subjects: Who is involved in carrying out the activity?
4. Tools: By what means are the subjects performing the activity?
5. Rules and regulations: Are there any cultural norms, rules or regulations governing the performance of the activity?
6. Division of labour: Who are responsible for what, when carrying out activity and how are those roles organised?
7. Community: What is the environment in which this activity is being carried out?
8. Outcomes: What is the desired outcome from carrying out this activity? (Mwanza & Engestrom, 2003)

The author helps us to understand how in elearning the activity control is lost by the teacher to the student. In face to face practice teachers have control over their excellence in teaching. The outcome of the activity system is a change in the learner. In elearning technology the excellence in teaching is limited by the software, which is limited by the norms, skills, etc of the developers. The content developers become involved and have further norms and rules to follow.

Em’s Comment: the author doesn’t mention the influence of the students. I feel that in discussion forums a lot of the control over how stable the objective remains is down to the students and the route that their discussion take. In H808 discussions were given more freedom and time to develop and explore different avenues, so far on H800 this has been difficult due to the overloaded nature of the activities. There is no time for deep learning

Week 3b – activity 5 Vicarious Learning February 26, 2009

Vicarious Learning as defined by Cox “is the notion that people can and will learn through being given access to the learning experiences of others”. In other words, while one student has the direct attention of the tutor or is practising the skills in front of other students, the observing students will also learn. So those students who are too shy to talk up in class, learn from those who do talk up so that is why it’s important for people to say when they’re stuck so that everyone learns from it (ie discussion forums!)

Cox, R. (2006) Vicarious Learning and Case-based Teaching of Clinical Reasoning Skills (2004-2006) [online], http://routes.open.ac.uk/ ixbin/ hixclient.exe?_IXDB_=routes&_IXSPFX_=g&submit-button=summary&%24+with+res_id+is+res18635 (accessed 26 February 2009).

Vicarious reinforcement (Bandura 1977) occurs when one person sees another person postiveily reinforced or punished for a behaviour and responds positively to that reinforcement/punishment- learning from that person’s experiences about the consequences of those actions/behaviours. It’s linked to imitation where complex skills acquisition is through observational learning.

Many researchers found that the experience of over-hearing is also useful, students who listened to tutor-student dialogues – asked more deep-level questions than those who listened to tutorial discourse. Vicariously overhearing dialogue that included questioning resulted in higher quality student engagement with the learning materials.

A prerequisite of VL is that the observer must identify with the person they are observing – they must be representative of their community of similar to themselves so peers can be more effective learning models than experts.

Students working collaboratively tends to focus on mental states of each other, such as “I don’t know what to do” and it is reassuring to others to know that they are not alone in having knowledge gaps or feelings of uncertainty. (Refleciton – This is happening on our course, I was the first to show a level of uncertainty but others are coming out of the woodwork, ok I’ve not learnt anything from them but it gives me the confidence to continue trying to understand. I think if we had more elluminate sessions or other realtime discussions we could help each other ceonceptualise the module, if nothing else talking something through even if you don’t get any tangible outcomes, helps your thought processes).

Mayes (1995) propsed a 3 stage learning model for VL in educational contexts- 1. expository materials is absorbed and conceptualised. 2. interactive learning environments such as simulations support activity and mental reconstruction 3. discussions with peers and tutors about issues that have arisen in stages 1 and 2. (This is certainly a model that this course seems to be taking, especially now with the elluminate discussions to enhance the asynchronous forums) A learner confronted by his misconceptions in stage 3, may revisit stages 1 and 2.
Studies by Lee et al (1998) found that students exposed to online notes and video/audio clips of VL material did better than those with course notes alone.

PATsy – an established online learning resource for use in conjuntion with more traditional methods of clinical training, professional education and academic teaching about medical disorders. The multimedia database contains video, audio and pictures . Students can see virtual patient information, videos, assessments and medical histories. Students can administer various tests to the virtual patients – students can practice clinical reasoning and gives them practice with a far wider range of cases than they would in their placements. PATsy enables students to repeatedly address the same case and share experiences with students across the sector as this is used by many universities, which is unlike real patient contact. PATsy can also be used for inter-professional practice.

PATsy can help students acquire a crtical mass of case experience and it is difficult to teach clinical reasoning by instruction so professions are turning towards case based teaching.
Logs of student activities and decisions made in PATsy can be used in future tutorials. PATsy’s features are said to embody all of Maye’s 3 stages – exposition, interactive simulation and educational dialogue.

Results showed that online interactions with PATsy were positively correlated with end of term assessments.

PATsy included videos of students interacting with each other on task-directed discussion. They showed students explaining to each other, explaining to themselves, and collaborative learning (The Participation Metaphor linking very closely with the Acquisition Metaphor)
Students who took part knew they were being filmed so they did alter their approach to consider the audience and the future use of the resources but this would help them to develop their professional language that they would need in practice. (Identity change). This awareness encouraged them to engage in other directed explaining.

These videos would be incorporated into the PATsy database to help other students when they meet an impasse.
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This article shows how there is distinct blurring between AM, PM and IC. The individual learner learns and participates vicariously in the learning of others – this kind of learning combines social, individual, participatory and acquisitive learning.

As the students learn vicariously they get better at their profession and therefore changing their identity.

Activity Theory: Division of labour Who is the role of the teacher? The students are the teachers of each other, but the tutor is required to create the tasks and select suitable examples for others to learn from. Everyone using PATsy is part of a wider community as the results of individual reasoning tests can be used to help tutors frame future tutorials.

Week 3b Students’ Conceptions of Lear… February 24, 2009

Week 3b Students’ Conceptions of Learning

My thoughts on this activity

I have found these articles and theories very hard to understand. They are written in a very academic language which I do not understand. We are expected have an understanding of these theories in time for an online discussion on Wednesday night. I am hoping that the elluminate session will illuminate me.

———-

Research shown that students’ conceptions of learning as they develop as students changes , and at the end of their studies they were different people to what they were at the start. Being more or being different.

Learning involves identity.

The activity theory framework is helpful for TEL, it embeds tools within the activity relationships rather than as an add on.

Pedagogy and technogy are intertwined, even the flip chart – what came first the flip chart or the pedagogy of brainstorming, Powerpoint or the pedagogy of bullet points (revealing point by point). (Cousin 2005)

A3 Identity in Cyberspace – Bayne

Sian Bayne writes about identity in cyberspace and differences in power between students and teachers in the online environment. The possibility of presenting oneselve to others differently to the f2f you.

The students interviewed in this research felt that cyber identities left them dangerous, personality split and deceitful.

Danger – to a student it feels like self betrayal. Danger that you create a picture of tyourself and then find it hard to maintain the gap between the virtual and real persona. Loss of control – the constructed persona gains control over the real self.

Personality Split – People say things they wouldn’t normally say f2f.

Deceit and perversion – virtual identities – lying about oneself, and depends on perceptions of others over which you have no control.

Students felt that there is a tensio between their real self that goes to f2f tutorials and their less authentic selves which emerge online.

The teachers found the online environment as a chance to have more time and space to be a better teacher, to prepare responses, be more authoritarian and remain in control (in direct opposite to the student’s fears). However some teachers expressed concerns that the real them doesn’t come across online, for example their fun side, they felt them came across stuffy in the online environment.

1. Are your views similar? Yes I would agree from both viewpoints. As a student (web user) i want to be honest, I do not want to pretend to be something I am not however saying that I do find that the online working environment allows me to be me even more than my real self. I am someone who is happy to talk up in class but I do find that I am more willing to put myself out of my comfort zone and say contentious things or things that might make me look stupid online. As someone who supports students I also concur with the teachers’ views, the online environment and email messages give me more time to create a better response for students and as they never meet me or see me my actions aren’t effected by my perception of what other peoples’ perceptions of me are.

2. Do you feel uneasy around the uncertainties in relation to how you project your own identity online, or interpret that of others? Having read this I may now be more aware of possible deceit. I am honest so I expect others to be honest too, I can’t relate to the need to be different (perversly different at all).

3. By contrast, have you found it liberating to experience with your own identity online? I have been dabbling in twitter recently, and now have a public blog and it is odd knowing that anyone can read and access your thoughts. It is liberating as one of the students said, you might say things you wouldn’t normally say face to face and as a result you may learn stuff you wouldn’t say face to face.

4. Have your own reactions to the mutable subject online changed with experience in using online interaction? (mutable means prone to change). I don’t think I’ve had any experience I can draw upon for this.

5. Do you now feel differently about your own identity relationships? No

6. Why do you think Bayne found differences between students and teachers? Mainly because teachers are used to performing and taking on different roles as teachers; the students have only been students and children and are mabybe more concerned about what others think. At WBS lecturers are nervous about lecturing using the virtual classroom or through recorded videos – this is akin to what the teachers said in this article about their online identity motivating them to be a better teacher – are our lecturers fearful that delivering teaching through video or video conferencing makes them susceptible to critique more than in a lecture theatre. The teachers seem to care about being good at their jobs when devliering online, whereas the students are more concerned about being themselves.

7. Can you draw upon the activity theory model to help interpret these differences? Taking the explanation of Engrestrom’s activity theory below, we can interpret these differences because the students and teachers have diffrent motives (objects) they are different subjects, using different tools to reach the outcomes. The effects of rules and community and division of labour effects how they practice. As Rajkumar says beloe, as all the parts in the theory are constantly changing, the outcomes and beliefs will also be changing.

Notes:

“An activity is undertaken by a human agent (subject) who is motivated toward the solution of a problem or purpose (object), and mediated by tools (artifacts) in collaboration with others (community). The structure of the activity is shaped and constrained by cultural factors including conventions (rules) and social divisions (division of labor) within the context. Engeström emphasizes the mediational role of the community and that of social structures including the division of labor and established procedures.

All the elements of this system are continuously changing. The human beings not only use instruments, they also continuously adapt them, consciously or otherwise. They obey rules, but also transform them. They follow rules of division of labor but in doing so constantly help evolve them as well. Transformation is then crucial to this model – and the interplay between the various elements constantly leads to the various new outcomes being created. ” Rajkumar, S (no date) Activity Theory http://mcs.open.ac.uk/yr258/act_theory/ accessed 24th February 2009

8. Would the different subject positions of teachers in the learning activity system help to explain their reactions and feelings of control? The teacher is part of the community or even one of the instruments in helping the subject get to their outcome so they can influence the other subjects.

9. Does a teacher’s position in authority within the community mean that they feel more confidently able to exert a particular teacherly persona using online contributions?> Yes