Engestrom (2007) posits a form of learning without the presence of an expert, the kind of learning where the answer is not already known (he uses the term ‘knotworking’). Some of the key characteristics of this form of learning are that it is horizontal (without a predetermined hierarchy of authority and influence) and interested in ‘boundary crossing’ (p. 24); learning need not reaffirm something already known but, instead, learning results in the creation of new knowledge.
Another feature of Engestrom’s approach is that tools (a term broadly defined, and incorporating technology) do not need an instruction manual but, instead, usage should be discovered by the user. He employs the hammer as an example: ‘A hammer is typically used as a recognition device: It helps you to recognize what may be hammered, such as nails. But a hammer may also serve as a symbol of workers’ power…. In other words, the material form and shape of the artifact have only limited power to determine its epistemic use’ (pp. 34-35). This leads Engestrom to conclude, ‘In expansive learning… reconfiguration of given technologies by their users is essential’ (p. 35). Learners start with a problem or a common purpose, they have tools made available to them, and then they strive for and (ideally) arrive at a workable solution, using technologies in ways they may not have been used before.
The central distinction between expansive learning and the communities of practice theory is that there is no centre of authority in the former. However, both approaches agree that learning is tied-in with identity. Engestrom quotes Gee (2003) who argues that entrants to a learning community need ‘to see themselves as the kind of a person who can learn, use, and value the new semiotic domain’ (p. 36). However, Engestrom (following the work of Turkel [1995]) recognises that virtual identities are not stable; they can be adopted and discarded at will. That said, is this not at least partially true of identity per se? It is problematic to assume that identity is fixed and stable, not least because most people maintain different personae in different contexts. T.S. Eliot was onto this a long time ago: ‘prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.’
Regarding learning in the digital age, learners have a plethora of tools at their disposal. The tools come to mean whatever the learners do with them. If learners are given a goal or a dilemma, their use of the tools is axiomatically going to be less amorphous than it otherwise would be because an end is in mind, not configured as a result known a priori, but like a contest in play in which the outcome is shaped by the resourcefulness of the players within the frame of their activity. If they commit to the identity of a person or collective who can undertake the task, they are more likely to use the tools as they perceive that new identity would use them, and are therefore more likely to achieve the outcome they desire.
References
Engestrom, Y. (2007) ‘Enriching the Theory of Expansive Learning: Lessons From Journeys Toward Coconfiguration,’ Mind, Culture and Activity, vol. 14, nos. 1-2, pp. 23-39.
Gee, J. P. (2003) What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy, New York: Palgrave Macmilan.
Turkle, S. (1995) Life on the Screen, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
