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Article of Volume 7, Issue 2, June 2012

Instrumental genesis in technology-mediated learning: From double stimulation to expansive knowledge practices.

Authors: Giuseppe Ritella, Kai Hakkarainen

Abstract: The purpose of the present paper is to examine the socio-cultural foundations of technology-mediated collaborative learning. Toward that end, we discuss the role of artifacts in knowledge-creating inquiry, relying on the theoretical ideas of Carl Bereiter, Merlin Donald, Pierre Rabardel, Keith Sawyer and L. S. Vygotsky. We argue that epistemic mediation triggers expanded inquiry and plays a crucial role in knowledge creation; such mediation involves using CSCL technologies to create epistemic artifacts for crystallizing cognitive processes, re-mediating subsequent activity, and building an evolving body of knowledge. Productive integration of CSCL technologies as instruments of learning and instruction is a developmental process: it requires iterative efforts across extended periods of time. Going through such a process of instrumental genesis requires transforming a cognitive-cultural operating system of activity, thus ‘reformatting’ the brain and the mind. Because of the required profound personal and social transformations, one sees that innovative knowledge-building practices emerge, socially, through extended expansive-learning cycles.

Keywords: Epistemic mediation, Chronotope, Knowledge practices, CSCL, Knowledge building, Expansiv e learning, Instrumental genesis, Double stimulation

Citation: Ritella, G. & Hakkarainen, K. (2012) Instrumental genesis in technology-mediated learning: From double stimulation to expansive knowledge practices.. ijcscl 7 (2), pp. 239-258

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-012-9144-1

Preprint: ritella_hakkarainen_7_2.pdf

About this article at link.springer.com [http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11412-012-9144-1] including a link to the official electronic version.