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The contextualized nature of learning with technology is widely acknowledged in research, but there remains a lack of sound social theorization to conceptualize and understand this contextualization. Giddens' structuration theory has been proposed as an appropriate tool for analysing and understanding human interactions with technologies. Drawing on Archer's critique of structuration theory, this paper critically analyses some of its recent uses in relation to e-learning and discusses their explanatory limitations. As an alternative, the paper proposes the use of Archer's morphogenetic approach and illustrates how it overcomes some of the major analytical weaknesses of structuration theory by enabling engagement with the powers of both structure and human agency without conflating them in a process of ‘mutual constitution’. It suggests that Archer's approach provides central analytical and explanatory significance to the multiple specific social contexts within which any e-learning course exists and the specific social interactions that take place amongst those engaged in it. Although based in e-learning for illustrative purposes, the conclusions drawn from comparison between structuration and morphogenetic approaches have application in the enhanced understanding and theorization of learning situations more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the development ofScienceKit, a mobile, social media application to promote children's scientific inquiry. We deployedScienceKitinKitchen Chemistry(KC), an informal science program where children learn about scientific inquiry through cooking. By iteratively integrating design and implementation, this study highlights the affordances of social media that facilitate children's trajectories of disposition development in science learning. We illuminate how the technological and curricular design decisions made inScienceKitandKCconstrain or expand the types of data we can collect and the actionable insights about learning we can recognize as both educators and researchers. This study offers suggestions for how information gleaned from social media tools can be employed to strengthen our understanding oflearning in practice, and help educators better recognize the rich actions that learners undertake, which may be easily overlooked in face-to-face situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]