17 November 2006 (week 7)
Cultural psychology has generated a fashionable vocabulary for theorising learning and for helping design its technologies. This talk expresses reservations about some popular appropriations of sociocultural vocabulary in this area. Yet the talk will also argue the considerable potential of a "cultural practice" approach to the study (and support) of learning. The case is developed through summarising a number of studies involving the design and implementation of eductional technology for undergraduates. In each example a well-intentioned intervention delivers disappointing results. These outcomes are interpreted from a "cultural stance". Implications for future design and implementation are thereby drawn.