October 2007 Volume 10 Number 4 - Educational Technology ...

Hung and Chen’s (2001) design framework identifies four principles of learning (from a situated learning and
Vygotskian view) and derives from these four design considerations for e-learning: Situatedness i.e. e-learning
environments should be Internet based so that learners can access the learning environment in their situated contexts
and thereby being able to focus on tasks and projects, thus enabling learning through doing and reflection-in-action.
Commonality, i.e. e-learning environments should create a situation where there is continual interest and interaction
through the tools and capitalize on the social communicative and collaborative dimensions. E-learning environments
should also have scaffolding structures which contain the genres and common expressions used by the community.
Interdependency i.e. e-learning environments should create interdependencies between individuals where novices
need more capable peers capitalizing on the zone of proximal development and the diverse expertise in the
community. E-learning environments should be made personalized, with tasks that are meaningful to the learner in
their context and personalized strategies and content by tracking the learner’s history, profile, and progress.
Infrastructure i.e. e-learning environments should have structures and mechanisms set up to facilitate, in a flexible
way (anywhere and anytime), projects where learners’ are engaged in.
Genre theory
To some extent genre is an intuitive concept that points to typified and recognizable features of a phenomenon, but
the notion of Genre has also been frequently used as a theoretical construct for various purposes, and within different
theoretical traditions (Roberts, 1998; Ryan et al., 2002; Svensson, 2002; Shepherd et al., 2004; Saebø & Päivärinta,
2005). The primary strength of genres seems to be to provide tools to describe a phenomenon, but when resting on
supporting theories such as for instance structuration theory or social theories of learning the scope sometimes
stretches to understand the processes that put the genres in play. Orlikowski and Yates (1994) focus on how
electronic interaction within an organisational community is typified into genres with characteristic purpose,
structure and form. A genre is defined as:
Typified communicative act having a socially defined and recognised communicative purpose with
regard to its audience (Orlikowski & Yates, 1994).
In addition to the definition, Orlikowski and Yates (1994) make several clarifications that are helpful in order to
grasp the genre concept. Firstly, they emphasise that the purpose referred to in the definition should be recognised
and shared within the community/group/organisation, and not to be interpreted as the purpose of individual
community members. Secondly, they state that a stable substance and form should be connected to such a shared
purpose in order to constitute a genre. Substance refers to the topics and the discursive structure of the interaction,
and form has three sub-dimensions: structural features, communicative medium and language. In a similar manner,
Shepherd and Watters (1998) define a Cybergenre to be characterised by content, form and functionality.
Furthermore, Orlikowski and Yates (1994) states that a collection of genres can constitute a Genre Repertoire, i.e. the
complete set of genres used for interaction within a community. They say:
Both the composition as well as the frequency with which they are used are important aspects of a
repertoire. When genres are heavily intertwined and overlapping it may be useful to talk of a genre
system, where genres are enacted in a certain sequence with interdependent purpose and form
(Orlikowski & Yates, 1994).
Similar to the way Wenger (1998) sees the shared repertoire of a physical community as an important element in the
definition of that community, Orlikowski and Yates (1994) underscores how electronic communication genres
frames and indirectly defines the community space by serving as a "social template" for work. However, it is
important not to perceive genres as inherently static. Instead, genres evolve over time, partly as a result of technology
adaptation and innovation (Shepherd & Watters, 1998), and partly as a result of community negotiations (Wenger,
1998).
Since genres, represented by simple labels such as “western movie”, “mystery novel” or “academic seminar”, carry
so much detailed information of form, content and functionality for the audiences or communities that are familiar
with the genre, they could also be interesting with respect to design. In the context of distance educational practice it
is surprising to notice how few strong pedagogical ideas and constructs that are communicated across distance
educational institutions. Instead it is often the technology, the software and the medium that is at the centre of
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