Tolmie, Crook and Dymott

While Tolmie seemed to take a psychological stand on learning taking place through a constructivist perspective ('in the head'), and looking at how this learning was achieved through technology, the issues raised appeared to lie more strongly with a socio-cultural perspective. I saw this through the issues of differences raised, which were culturally determined, such as gender and background, as well as being set within a pre-existing educational framework. Crook and Dymott appeared to be more transparent in their context setting and stated that the research has its roots in activity theory, where the complex relationship of person, system and culture determine the learning and how it may be achieved. It was clear that one could not view the technology and the various ways in which it might be used, as separate from the society and culture to which it is a part.
The Tolmie reading certainly made allowances for differences and while this may be seen as 'good practice', it led to research evidence which was 'unseen' and this meant it was difficult to draw any solid conclusions - just build awareness of differences. Crook and Dymott appeared to have more visible and recordable evidence, but there still appeared to be an assumption that technology was changing the writing activities, with little input from other aspects of changes in society.
The style of the Tolmie research would be appropriate when there may be identifiable differences between groups to be included in a project, but the measuring tools would need to be reviewed to clarify exactly what is being measured. Crook and Dymott's methods could be realistically used to review other applications, such as the use of software in the financial sector of learning; their narrative style seemed very appropriate for this type of observational study.