ABSTRACT
This chapter considers what general principles can be developed from theories of how people learn and how these can be applied to learning with digital technologies in particular. Learning activity is offered as a helpful focus for educational design, and Activity Theory is used to develop a model of design practice which focuses on different aspects of activity. A learning outcome is an identifiable change that is anticipated in the learner. An outcomes-based approach to learning tends to assume that learners will respond to task demands in similar ways. The chapter also considers how digital technologies change the activities available to learners, the social environment in which they learn, and the kinds of learning outcome it makes sense for them to pursue, showing how the use of digital technologies changes the meaning of a learning activity, subtly or profoundly. It looks directly at the digital artefacts that are used in learning.
