Activity analysis: The use of online communities as activity systems that can facilitate learning (Análisis de actividad: El uso de comunidades en línea como sistemas de actividad para facilitar el aprendizaje)

LAURA MARINA COLOMBO

Washington, D.C.

Conferencia; Lilly Conference College and University Teaching and Learning (Conferencia Lilly sobre enseñanza a nivel terciario y universitario); 2010

Lilly Conference on College and University Teaching

  Conceptualizing human action in the cultural-historical framework offered by Cole and Engeström (1993) can allow better understand the negotiation process that graduate students go through when producing papers for their classes. By applying Cole and Engeström´s postulates, I offer an activity analysis that describes how graduate students participate concurrently in several activity systems when producing texts in U.S. academia. Then, I propose the creation of a new activity system in which online communities serve as a mediating artifact that can facilitate academic writing especially for international students. Participants will be encouraged to apply this theory in their own disciplinary fields.