This is an admirable attempt to contextualize PLENK2010 even though I think it ultimately fails. The author uses activity theory to compare our course with NIE (New Interactive Environments). "Activity theory provides us a means to analyze the dynamics of an application or environment as it distinguishes between motives, goals and conditions." Fair enough. But what it shows is that activity theory, as described here, is not really a good frame to describe a connectivist course. For example, the analysis begins by distinguishing between the subject (which would be the students and to some degree the instructors) and the object ("to perfect the concept of PLENK and to establish a valid base on which to build future development in the field"). But that object varies among participants, and from the point of view of the facilitators, the subjects are the objects. The mediating artifact is thus the content of the course, which makes the artifacts in the course part of the subject. And so around we go.
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