Volume Two - Academic Conferences

Michael Flavin
labour” nodes) in order to enable enhanced learning. The analysis overlaps with Christensen’s
Disruptive Technology theory (1997) in the sense that a new technology can disrupt existing practices
(thereby risking rejection), but also that the new technology can go on to change the practice itself.
Rules
Tools
Subject Object Outcome
Community Division of Labour
Figure 2: Second generation activity system (based on Engestrom 1987)
A feature of Engestrom’s approach is that tools do not need an instruction manual: “A tool always
implies more possible uses than the original operations that have given birth to it” (1987), and “the
material form and shape of the artifact [sic] have only limited power to determine its epistemic use”
(2007a, pp. 34-35). This leads Engestrom to conclude, “In Expansive Learning… reconfiguration of
given technologies by their users is essential” (2007a, p. 35). Engestrom’s argument implies that
people establish the meanings of technologies through their uses of them. Meaning is not constrained
by design. Moreover, and in common with Wenger (1998, pp. 227, 233) Engestrom suggests learning
requires imagination, improvisation and innovation.
Expansive Learning and the Communities of Practice theory agree that learning involves identity
formation. Engestrom (2007b) further agrees with Wenger (1998) by arguing that the Communities of
Practice model sees learning as “an inevitable aspect of all productive practices, not a specific
process mainly or exclusively limited to schools and other institutions of formal learning” (2007b, p.
41). However, Engestrom sees a different model of learning emerging, one in which learning is
equally inevitable. He promotes knotworking, defined as collaborative work without clear rules or a
hierarchy (2007b, p. 44).
5. Research methodology
The main research question this study is focused on is to understand how H.E.I.s can engage
constructively with disruptive technologies for learning and teaching. In order to investigate this issue,
a pilot study with a sample size of 28 was designed. The purpose of the study was to explore the
following questions: (1) what technologies are participants aware of? (2) What do participants use
technologies for? (3) To what extent do participants use individual technologies for more than one
purpose? (4) To what extent do participants construct their own meanings for technologies? (5) To
what extent are technologies used disruptively? The questionnaires included tick box questions, and
longer questions inviting participants to be more reflective. Questionnaires were used for this study in
order to obtain base line data about the uses of technology for learning and teaching, and the uses of
technology for other purposes. Questionnaires also enabled the identification of particular
technologies that were used most widely, and for more than one purpose.
The sample comprised 13 undergraduates studying an Arts subject by distance learning. There were
also 4 postgraduate students (3 studying at campus universities, and 1 by distance learning) and 1
postgraduate researcher. The sample also included 6 lecturers working at a specialist H.E.I. teaching
a specific range of subjects (one of whom also teaches at a campus university), and 4 academic-
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