ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses particular configurations whereby computers enter into learning activities, developing the term 'collaboration' as an organising concept. It explains the prospect of computers simulating social processes in the tutorial sense. It must be decided whether interactions with computers can capture the social quality of traditional guided instruction. The chapter reviews the analysis of instructional talk that has been emerging within cultural psychological theory. The concept of internalisation has been much appealed to by researchers sympathetic to cultural theorising or – more generally – seeking some socially grounded account of cognitive change. The chapter also discusses the ways in which intersubjectivity saturates orthodox instructional talk. It also reviews three varieties of instructional talk that have been identified by psychologists of a socio-cultural persuasion: internalization, semiotic mediation, and appropriation. The chapter also summarises cultural approaches to systematising instructional talk.
