Understanding the task: How is agency distributed between tools, students and teachers in technology-rich learning environments?

Ingvill Rasmussen (1) , Ingeborg Krange (1) , Sten Ludvigsen (1)

1 InterMedia

In this paper we explore how students' agency relates to openness and structure within technology-rich, student-centred learning environments. This is done by analysing how students' understandings of tasks evolve through their activities in relation to the representations in the learning environments. In our interpretation of the sociocultural approach, we emphasise human activity as mediated by artefacts, where the output of the activity has to be understood by including human action and artefacts in the unit of analysis. We conclude by arguing that the relation between openness and structure is not a fixed point in spite of the level of structure and the agents' achievement in their interaction. The process of understanding a task is often complex and not transparent.

Domains: Technology for Human Learning

Ingvill Rasmussen, Ingeborg Krange, Sten Ludvigsen. Understanding the task: How is agency distributed between tools, students and teachers in technology-rich learning environments?. ISCRAT 2002, 2002, Amsterdam, Netherlands. pp.22. ⟨hal-00190526⟩