ABSTRACT
Technology is often viewed as a carrier of an interaction that would otherwise happen face-to-face and unmediated. This assumes that the primary reality is the physically present interaction and that a virtual version of that reality can be delivered using digital technologies. This formulation tends to lead to analyzing technology-mediated learning contexts by reference to their ability to deliver the supposed key features of the face-to-face. In their analysis of the use of networked study bedrooms in a university context, for example, Crook and Light (2002) locate the challenge to technology-mediated learning in terms of how to replicate the combination of informal and formal discourse opportunities that characterize the face-to-face campus.
