Analyzing Mediated-Action with Activity Theory in a Digital Learning Community

Abstract

As promising benefits of online collaborative learning are evidenced, a digital learning community is taking its place as a popular learning environment. Despite the many benefits of collaborative learning, learners experience ambivalence. The promising benefits of a learning community cannot be obtained without purposeful facilitation. The primary goal of this study is to see if activity theory is useful to analyze and explain the learning process in a digital learning community. The secondary agenda is to capture the conflicts or contradictions manifested in the activity system. As a pilot study, this paper examines the applicability of activity theory to collaborative e-learning scenarios.