Forum Teaching with LAMS - experiences: Re: Literature review

By: Alfred Low

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Confusion with the term: 'activity'

I see learning design in LAMS as a collection of activities that the teacher is predisposed to use.

Human and Computer interaction (HCI) researchers Kaptelinin and Nardi (2006, p. 62) provides a conceptual framework of an activity as an hierarchical structure organised into three layers (Figure 5). “The top layer is the activity itself, which is oriented towards a motive. The motive is the object, which stimulates and excites the subject. It is the object that the subject ultimately needs to attain.” Kaptelinin & Nardi asserts that “human activities are typically not directed straight at their motives, and that “socially distributed activities are characterised by dissociation between their motivating and directing objects.” And then, Engestrom mediational triangle puts another face to activity. Sigh...that's something I have to try to understand.

But unlike, Kaptelinin & Nardi, Beetham (2007, p. 29) use the term task instead of action as a constituent of activity, but Beetham was referring to activities for learning or interaction that a teacher plans for in E-learning design, not activity in a generic sense per se. Anyone?

Posted by Alfred Low