Computers & Education 59 (2012) 785792

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Computers & Education

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compedu

Virtual learning environments as sociomaterial agents in the network of teaching

practice
Monica Johannesen a, *, Ola Erstad b, Laurence Habib c
a

Faculty of Education, Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, P.O. Box 4, St Olavsplass, 0130 Oslo, Norway
Institute of Educational Research, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1161, Blindern, 0318 Oslo, Norway
c
Faculty of Technology, Art and Design, Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences P.O. Box 4, St Olavsplass, 0130 Oslo, Norway
b

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 20 October 2011
Received in revised form
29 February 2012
Accepted 27 March 2012

This article presents ndings related to the sociomaterial agency of educators and their practice in
Norwegian education. Using actor-network theory, we ask how Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs)
negotiate the agency of educators and how they shape their teaching practice. Since the same kinds of
VLE tools have been widely implemented throughout Norwegian education, it is interesting to study how
practices are formed in different parts of the educational system. This research is therefore designed as
a case study of two different teaching contexts representing lecturers from a higher education institution
and teachers from primary schools. Data are collected by means of interviews, online logging of VLE
activities and self-reported personal logs. From the analysis of the data, three main networks of aligned
interests can be identied. In each of those, the sociomaterial agency of the teaching practice with VLE is
crucial in shaping and consolidating the network.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Virtual learning environment
Agency
Actor-network theory
Sociomaterial

1. Introduction
To what extent digital technologies have an impact on the social practice of teaching is still an evolving eld of research (Sutherland,
Robertson, & John, 2008). A key issue is how educators dene their teaching practice, what Schn (1983) describes as knowledge-inaction, the knowledge that is embedded in the skilled action of the professional. In many ways, educators may be described as the
archetype of an autonomous professional, exercising professional agency (Turnbull, 2005) based on the heuristics of the professional code of
practice. Such a code seems to be more important than the rules and regulations implemented in their institutions formal systems
(Johannesen & Habib, 2010).
A sociomaterial perspective, as argued for in this article, places a special focus on the interrelationship between technologies as material
tools and their social framings (Latour, 2005). In particular, the literature on sociomateriality highlights the importance of recognizing the
constitutive entanglement of the social and the material in everyday life (Orlikowski, 2007, p. 1435). Westergren (2011), using an example
from Coyne (2010), explicates how technologies can be seen as: outcome of a tuning process (as in tuning a radio), where technology is
positioned within a ow of material agency that is harnessed, directed and domesticated, this interactively stabilizing both material and
human agency toward a human goal (p. 27).
Our focus is on teaching practices, which are normally strongly inscribed with a denite pattern of action, i.e. a specic idea of what needs
it addresses, whose needs those are, and what the end-result of the teaching process is meant to be. At the same time, educators have
preconceptions, norms and values that come into play when they use learning technologies, which have an impact on their interpretations
and translations of those technologies into practice. We narrow down our analysis to the use of virtual learning environments (VLE) within
teaching practices. The existing literature on VLEs in educational settings gives relatively little attention to sociomaterial power relations in
general, and to the agency of educators in particular, i.e. to their ability to act according to their pedagogical beliefs. Analysis of sociomaterial
agency (Suchman, 2007, p. 261) implies an interest in studying the autonomy or boundedness of educators when using VLE as part of their
teaching practices.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 4722452881, 4790528162 (mobile).

E-mail addresses: monica.johannesen@hioa.no (M. Johannesen), ola.erstad@ped.uio.no (O. Erstad), laurence.habib@hioa.no (L. Habib).
0360-1315/$ see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2012.03.023

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In this article we aim to investigate the negotiation processes that occur between VLE technologies and the agency of teaching staff
members, with a particular focus on how VLEs may contribute to shaping teaching practices. We rst attempt to provide a denition of the
concept of VLE based on existing research. We then outline our conceptual framework grounded in Actor-Network Theory (ANT). We
subsequently present the methods and data from a study that spans across different educational levels in the Norwegian education system.
Finally, we describe three network constructions that may be delineated within the data presented.
2. Virtual learning environment
Technology development has spawned a signicant interest in what virtual learning environments are and their implications for
teaching and learning. Scholars in the eld of education, in addition to those in e.g. anthropology, media, and computer science have made
contributions to the notion of virtual worlds. However, Weiss (2006) considers that the notion of virtual learning environment is still
unclear and requires further investigation. As learning technologies are becoming more mainstream, he argues, there is a real concern that
the expectations of what they can do to support learning are speculative, as the existence of an application does not necessarily guarantee
success as intended (Weiss, 2006, p. 4). Furthermore, he assumes a broad understanding of the notion of VLEs and makes a distinction
between virtual learning and learning virtually: virtual learning is reserved for computer-based learning environments, while learning
virtually can be done without technology, with analogue artefacts such as paintings, music, theatre, etc. The two terms do merge in contexts
where the digital representation of learning environments uses procedures that existed prior to computer age, such as sending mails and
writing essays.
However, the term virtual learning environments has evolved over the last couple of decades (Mueller & Strohmeier, 2011) and is now
used to refer to software packages that include a number of applications aiming to support course administration (for example student
statistics and information dissemination through news and bulletin boards), communication (for example online discussion fora), online
publishing (for example uploading documents) and assessment (for example student portfolios) (Becta ICT Research, 2004; Britain & Liber,
1999).
Most research in the eld of virtual learning environments concerns the benets of using VLE tools in teaching and learning (see for
example Lazakidou & Retalis, 2010; Limniou & Smith, 2010; Weiss, Nolan, Hunsinger, & Trifonas, 2006). However, less is known about the
processes that take place in the daily practice of teaching staff when using VLEs, with a few notable exceptions. Alvarez, Guasch, and Espasa
(2009) present a theoretical analysis of the roles and competences of teaching staff when online learning environments are used in higher
education. On the basis of an extensive review of the literature, they suggest that teaching staff in universities hold at least ve different
roles, which can be referred to as 1) the designer/planning role, 2) the social role, 3) the cognitive role, 4) a role in operating the technological domain and 5) one in handling the managerial domain. Lonn and Teasley (2009) have investigated how the use of VLE supports
traditional classroom teaching by examining user log data and survey data reported by instructors and students. The data from their
research suggest that the main added value of VLEs as educational tools seems to be their power in making teaching more efcient. One
possible contribution to understanding teaching practice is to investigate them through the lens of sociomaterial agency, i.e. the mutual
shaping of human action and technological constraints and affordances.
3. Conceptual framework
The notion of agency is described by Castor and Cooren (2006) as the capacity to make a difference (p. 573). Human capacity for selfobjectication and self-direction is shaped by both social relations of power and their possibilities for liberation from these forces (Holland,
Lachicotte Jr., Skinner, & Cain, 1998). Hence, in a study of pedagogical practice, it is necessary to understand the processes of negotiation,
conguration and reconguration that are a part of teaching practice, and in particular the capacity for undertaking these negotiations in
relation to the use of technological artefacts.
Nespor (1994) suggests that in order to achieve an understanding of knowledge acquisition processes, it is necessary to study practice in
specic pedagogical settings as well as the networks that are formed together with the artefacts in use. Several theoretical positions,
including situated learning, activity theory and actor-network theory, have been used to explore learning contexts as practically and
discursively performative, emerging from and shaped by actions in networks (Edwards, 2009).
When technology is implemented to support pedagogical processes, it affects and is affected by a number of stakeholders that are linked
with each other either in the form of a network of aligned interests or, in some cases, a number of divergent networks. Actor-network
theory (ANT) has been described as being a theory of knowledge, agency and machines (Law, 1992), originally emerging from the eld
of science and technology studies. Although ANT has been used as an epistemological basis for research studies in a large spectre of
disciplines, including epidemiology (e.g. Young, Borland, & Coghill, 2010), management (e.g. Mulcahy & Perillo, 2011), human geography
(e.g. Hitchings, 2003; Ruming, 2009), environment studies (e.g. Holield, 2009; Murdoch, 2001) and design studies (Yaneva, 2009), it has
not traditionally been a central approach within the eld of education (Fenwick & Edwards, 2010). The few ANT-informed scholarly works
within the realm of education studies (among which gure Nespor (1994) and Fox (2009)) are typically wide-ranging investigations of
teaching and learning processes. The topic of VLE use in higher education has rarely been investigated from an ANT perspective with the
notable exception of Samarawickrema and Stacey (2007).
From an ANT perspective, agency is equally distributed between humans and non-humans (Fox, 2009). Although the concept of power
relations, in particular as the capacity to inscribe, negotiate and translate knowledge in a network is central in the ANT literature, there does
not seem to be a signicant focus on agency in the early literature on ANT. Nevertheless, as early as 1992, Law (1992) presented agency as
network and insisted that social agents are never located in bodies and bodies alone,. but rather as a patterned network of heterogeneous
relations, or an effect produced by such a network (p. 4).
One of the distinctive elements of ANT is that it questions the dominant position of the social in the theorisation of the social systems,
and proposes the principle of generalized symmetry, i.e. that human and non-human actors ought to be treated symmetrically (Callon,
1986a; Callon, Law, & Rip, 1986; Latour, 1993), with similar analytical devices. The use of a single concept, that of actant (Callon, 1986b;
Latour, 1988), to describe both human and non-human actors, epitomizes the principle of generalized symmetry. Actants can be dened

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simply as entities that do things (Latour, 1992, p. 241) or entities that bring about action. In that sense, human and non-human actants are
assigned agency of similar importance.
A brief survey on more recent ANT literature (Edwards, 2009; Fenwick, 2010; Fenwick & Edwards, 2010; Latour, 2005) reveals a greater
attention towards the notion of agency. Two distinct conceptions of agency emerge from those works. The rst conception of agency focuses
on the existence of agency among non-humans, and thereby the necessity of treating humans and non-humans with the same analytical
framework. The second conception of agency is centred on a network effect, i.e. an effect of different forces interconnected within
a network (Fenwick, 2010; Fenwick & Edwards, 2010). Framing ANT as a learning theory assumes that learning takes place between people
and materials as part of social practices, which are networked together, acting as one. When a tool or another type of artefact is designed, its
properties play an active role in the negotiation of practice.
We therefore propose to use some concepts from ANT to describe the complex constellation of associations between humans and nonhumans that underlie teaching and learning processes. ANT offers a framework that allows us to look at identity and practice as functions of
on-going interaction with distant elements (animate and inanimate) of networks that have been mobilized along intersecting trajectories
(Nespor, 1994, p. 13). The theory thereby puts a special emphasis on drawing a picture of the processes of creation, development and
sometimes dissolution of hybrid networks, i.e. networks consisting of human and non-human actors.
Our discussion will be based on a number of core ANT concepts, such as negotiation, enrolment, alignment, black boxing and obligatory
point of passage. We see networks as created and sustained through inter-relational processes where various actants discuss, bargain and
negotiate to resolve matters of dispute and come to a mutual agreement (Callon, 1986a). From this perspective, we propose to shed light
on how actants that are already in a network enrol i.e. recruit, or co-opt new actants that will help them consolidate their network.
Successful networks of aligned interests are created through the enrolment of a sufcient body of allies, and the translation of their
interests so that they are willing to participate in particular ways of thinking and acting which maintain the network (Walsham, 1997).
Actants that are part of the same network are said to be aligned, i.e. to have aligned their interests with that of the rest of the network
(Callon, 1986a). A black box is an actant (that may be, e.g. a physical artefact, a computer system, a human grouping or a concept), which
other actants relate to without needing to understand or even be aware of its internal workings. Actants are typically being blackboxed
when they are considered to be overly complex, or when they have become so essential to the running of the network that they are taken
for granted (Callon & Latour, 1981). Obligatory points of passage are typically actants that have become indispensable to the smooth
functioning or the very existence of the network. They may act as intermediaries between networks or mediating elements between
network components (Law & Callon, 1992).
While the notion of agency usually is associated with human agency (Giddens, 1984), ANT and other post-humanist approaches call
attention to the sociomaterial nature of agency (Latour, 1987, 2005). Agency is not an inherent human quality, but a capacity realized
through the associations of actors (whether human or non-human), and thus relational, emergent and shifting (Orlikowski, 2007, p. 1438).
Suchman (2007, p. 267) goes one step further and proposes to respecify sociomaterial agency from a capacity intrinsic to singular actors to
an effect of practices that are multiply distributed and contingently enacted. In that sense, the core notions of ANT as outlined above are
supporting a sociomaterial investigation of agency. Enrolment and alignment take place between humans and non-humans when they
negotiate the purposes of networks of practice, and collaborate in creating, designing and developing those networks. Black-boxing and
obligatory points of passage encapsulate those elements in agency that relate to making artefacts and processes that have become so
established that they are perceived as immutable.
4. Method and sampling
In this study, we use an interpretive ethno-methodological approach, framing studies of work as a social activity (Maynard & Clayman,
1991; Psathas, 1995). The study has been designed as an explorative case study, i.e. a detailed examination of a particular context for
teaching practices (Yin, 1989). It is to be noted that commercial VLEs in Norway have been widely implemented all through the Norwegian
educational system and thereby becoming a ubiquitous tool (ITU monitor, 2009; Norway Opening Universities, 2009). We have therefore
included two sets of data, collected in the contexts of, respectively, primary schools and higher education, looking both at similarities and
differences when using the same kind of VLE (Fronter).
The rst dataset includes teaching staff in higher education, referred to as lecturers. The second dataset represents teaching staff in
primary schools, referred to as teachers. Interviews were conducted with teachers at three primary schools and lecturers at ve faculties
within an institution of higher education. We chose primary schools and higher education because they represent two widely different user
groups of VLE.
The primary school teachers were purposely selected from a governmental project called Learning networks1 whereby members of staff
at various state schools were given the opportunity to follow courses at a nearby college aiming at enhancing their ICT prociency. All three
schools are located in small municipalities close to a larger city and can be characterized as having limited experience in the didactic use of
ICT in classrooms. The strategy for selection of study participants was based on purposive selection criteria (Miles & Huberman, 1994;
Patton, 1990), by asking representatives of the academic management at each school to suggest teachers of diverse levels of ICT prociency
and engagement in VLE as actual candidates for interviews. A total of eight primary school teachers participated in the study. The eleven
informants from the higher education faculties were selected via recommendation (8 out of 11) or through response to an advert on the
institutions webpage (3 out of 11). The goal was to recruit educators that were involved in core teaching activities within their faculties and
were active VLE users, although some of them had relatively little interest in technology per se. All the teachers and lecturers approached for
this study accepted to participate, but two informants only participated in the rst interview and the log taking due to a heavy workload.

1
The national project Learning Networks was set up in order to strengthen the implementation of ICT in primary schools through communities of practice. The project
brings together teachers, school management, school district management and teacher education institutions.

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The study was conducted over a period of one academic year. For each informant, data were gathered in three phases. In a rst phase, an
initial semi-structured interview based on an interview guide2 was conducted. The intention of this interview was to get insights into the
informants thoughts and attitudes with a minimal amount of predened questions. This rst interview lasted on average 1 h and was
followed up by self-reported personal log3 on activities and practices with VLE. The third phase consisted of a follow-up 1-h interview about
the documented experience from the log and the changes that occurred since the rst phase. The two interviews and the logging of teaching
practice were typically collected within a time span of three to six months, depending on the availability of the informants for a second
interview. A total of nineteen informants were interviewed for this study, eight primary school teachers (seven females and one male), and
eleven lecturers in higher education (six females and ve males). In addition, activities on the VLE at the three participating schools and the
ve faculties (Teacher Education, Engineering, Nursing, Social Studies and Health Sciences) were logged. The online logging activities were
performed by two of the three authors of this article. Those consisted of logging in to the VLE in use at the informants institutions, and
recording in detail what was done in terms of pedagogical activities, who participated in them (teachers/lecturers as well as students), how
long they lasted and how they were documented.
The interviews were all transcribed and coded with the computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software HyperRESEARCH
(ResearchWare Inc., Randolph, MA, USA). A list of codes was developed as the analysis went along, based on both the original research
question and the core notions of ANT, i.e. negotiation, enrolment, alignment, black boxing and obligatory point of passage. To retrieve and
categorize data, searches were carried out on the basis of terms that were considered relevant to the research question. The nal list of codes
entailed new, emerging, themes such as governance, efciency, and supporting professional practice, which appeared as recurrent in the
analysis of the data. The extracts from the interviews and the personal logs, that were located through those searches, formed the main basis
of the analysis.
5. Data analysis
In this section, we describe and discuss the ndings emerging from the data analysis. The data collected allowed us to identify a number
of teaching practices that had been developed over time with the use of the VLE. Some of those practices have been introduced deliberately,
while others have emerged unintentionally. With the help of a computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software, we identied a number
of key concepts that appeared to be of signicance to shed light on our research question. We then worked at gathering them in subgroups,
and three general themes emerged from this process: educational governance, teaching efciency and the professional practice.
5.1. The inuence of educational authorities and school management (governance)
In many cases the informants mention that the introduction of the VLE is the result of a managerial decision, both in higher education and
in primary schools. The top-down implementation of new technologies such as VLE seems to generally foster resistance among the staff, as
illustrated in the quote below:
There was much resistance [on my part]. Because I thought: argh!, one more thing one has to learn. And soon its out, and well be introduced to
something else again, and thats how it goes all the time. So I most of all want to postpone it as long as I can, and hope it will be gone before [I
start using it]. because then something else pops up, and then I would have managed to jump over one link in the chain.. [Lecturer 1]
Some informants report that the reason why they accepted to use the VLE is that they were encouraged or coerced by either students,
colleagues or managers, as the following quote exemplies:
I feel a strong pressure here. A strong pressure. [.]. Oh, and Im not one of those who say: yes, this is going to be fun!. No, well, Im not like
that. I have a computer at home, but no, isnt there anything else to do? [Teacher 9]
A story told by the same teacher illustrates how the management at her school expects constant online availability through the VLE.
Yesterday, for example, the principal came to me and said: Oh, didnt you know? One of your students is sick today. But you obviously havent
logged in and checked your mail. No, I hadnt and it was, like, 8:35 a.m. I try to be diligent [with checking my email regularly], but you dont
always [manage]. [Teacher 9]
In this case, we observe that a teacher encounters indirect pressure from a hierarchical superior, which she experiences as unjustied.
However, it is to be noted that some informants report having realized after a while that the VLE was more useful to their work than what
they had rst expected. In this sense the teachers consider the managerial pressure as a useful means to achieving appropriate and efcient
teaching and can see the relevance of the positive pressure to implement systems that bring about new teaching practice.
5.2. Managing students, parents and co-teachers (efciency)
Another key nding was the teachers and lecturers experience of empowerment vis--vis their own teaching tasks as being facilitated
by the VLE. Agency is particularly visible as far as improved communication and collaboration are concerned. Agency is also experienced as
the result of new work processes allowing increased exibility in terms of time and space and a closer follow-up of the students, especially
as far as response speed is concerned.

2
The interview guide covered the following topics: the informants actual use of VLEs, their attitudes towards VLEs, their former experience with VLEs, as well as the
pedagogical beliefs that they consider as fundamental for their teaching.
3
The informants were provided a standard form to register their actual use of the VLE as well as their reections on their own use of this technology. In particular, they
were asked to report the date and time of their activities on the VLE, a detailed description of those activities, and their own reections on whether they experienced the VLE
as supporting/encumbering existing teaching practice or inspiring them to implement new work practices.

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One lecturer mentions that using the e-mail and news functions of the VLE provides her with a higher level of certainty as to what
information the students have received and when. Another lecturer highlights the systems capacity to follow closely students progress and
react when some appear to be on the verge of not completing their module. One of the lecturer reports that she uses the statistics function
of VLE to gain an overview of who among the students have accessed the online information and when, thereby rapidly getting an overview
of who has not performed the required assignments on time.
In a similar way, teachers at two of the three primary schools also report that they enjoy using multiple-choice questions (MCQs)
assignment tools for getting instant snapshots of students knowledge in a certain subject areas. Some higher education lecturers reports
that MCQs are used among students for efcient learning of a large and time-consuming curriculum as reported in earlier research from the
authors (Johannesen & Habib, 2010).
In the studied primary schools, the VLE is used to ensure that the parents get the information they need from the school at the right time
and to engage them in their childs learning. For example, one primary school teacher expresses that the VLE tool used to create digital
portfolios makes it easier to involve parents in their childrens learning processes:
The digital portfolios, just to give you an example from the class that I have, they go in all directions. Some put in very much and some put in very
little [into the portfolio]. [..] But the portfolio is denitely a source of inspiration, since it inspires the learners to be more active in their
conversations with the parents. [Teacher 5]
Informants from primary schools express that they appreciate the support that VLEs give to collegial collaboration, as stated by one teacher:
It is kind of making the work of the contact teacher easier. Because, earlier we got a sheet from one teacher and one from another, you know, and
then you [as a contact teacher] have to sit down and write it all down, or you have to collect them all [the sheets]. Now you have everything in
one document. And the subject-area teachers have to ll it in themselves. [Teacher 3]
Such VLE use supports independent production and distribution of the written evaluation form thereby reducing the workload of the
contact teacher. These practices all emphasize the ways the VLE support teachers/lecturers in making parts of their teaching more efcient
than they may have done without the VLE.

5.3. Supporting professional practice

The informants describe a range of pedagogical methods that reect their view of the required or preferred teaching philosophy at their
workplace. Issues of exibility and creativity, student collaboration and adaptive teaching are recurring themes in the data.
5.3.1. Flexibility and creative practice
Some lecturers consider the VLE to be a exible tool, which supports a creative approach towards designing and adjusting teaching and
learning tasks:
. half-way [through the lecture], if you take a 15-minute break, you can go in[to the VLE] and modify some of what you have in there, so when
you show it to the class on the whiteboard after the break, something else will appear. [You then can say:] A propos what we talked about
during the rst hour.. This I think is kind of fun. [Lecturer 10]
Another instance of VLE-supported creative practice may be found in the initiative taken at one of the faculties of the studied higher education
institution allow students to create multiple-choice tests for each other, thereby promoting a novel and somewhat entertaining approach to getting
familiar with the curriculum. In addition, some primary school teachers use the VLE to create questionnaires about a subject that is to be covered at
a later date, so as to increase the students awareness of the issues at hand and motivate them to learn more about them.
5.3.2. Student collaboration
The lecturers in higher education attribute several instances of increased student collaboration to the implementation of the VLE. A number of
lecturers express a wish to get their students to discuss online, and describe that they only partly succeed in creating satisfactory VLE-based
discussions. In addition, the VLE is used to support other modes of student collaboration. For example, the students are encouraged to create
and post questions for their co-students that will allow them to get a deeper understanding of curriculum content. Also, several courses are
organized in such a way that students provide written feedback to each others work. This type of peer assessment is popular both among lecturers
and students since it normally reduces the workload of the lecturers without reducing the amount of feedback the students get. Collaborative work
within the VLE is generally seen as increasing the students motivation and thereby the quality of their learning. For example, as described by one of
the lecturer, who introduced compulsory feedback activities that paved the road for new arenas for peer-student learning.
The students get a bit more curious. When they for example have an assignment they very often think thats the way it is, thats the way it
should be. But if they get to read some of the answers produced by some of their co-students, they realize that it doesnt need to be like this, it
can also be like that. The students share more with each other when they in a way are forced to, because otherwise, most people hang on tight to
their work. Theyd rather not give their own products to others. [.] The good thing is that I see that the students can more easily nd use in each
others knowledge and can thus develop further. [Lecturer 10]
5.3.3. Adaptive teaching
Most informants both in primary schools and higher education mention that their VLE allows for a closer student follow-up. In higher
education, this follow-up seems mainly to have administrative purposes. Conversely, primary school informants report that the VLE allows
them to create new, more individualized ways of teaching, that are adapted to the students needs in terms of pace or level. Examples of such
new ways of teaching may be a series of assignments that are meant to be solved in a particular order, where the students only reach
a higher level after having answered correctly all the questions from the previous level.

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We design the tests in such a way that you [the learner] can have several attempts at them. We do want them to learn. We dont just give them
one chance, but we give them several chances. [Teacher 5]
Both in higher education and in primary schools, VLEs have been used to support the implementation of digital portfolios. In higher
education, portfolio assessment is one of many methods which aim to increase the quality of learning by promoting continuous feedback
from faculty members and co-students. In primary schools, national regulations on assessment have resulted in an overall implementation
of digital portfolio assessment, as expressed by one teacher;
It is the school that has decided that everyone is going to have a portfolio, a selection of works in the portfolio, which we then use actively when
we have the teacher-student-parent conference. [Teacher 5]
It appears from the interviews that although most primary school teachers take this way of assessment for granted (Johannesen, in press)
they rarely express any deep reection about why it is used. Most informants present the use of digital portfolios as a desirable element, but
say little about why it is benecial to learning. In that sense, it may be suggested that they generally see the implementation of portfolio
assessment as a goal in itself rather than a necessary step to achieve something else.
6. Discussion
Our data analysis has helped us identify a set of core stakeholders and a set of core artefacts, which may all be referred to as actants and
which are interrelated within webs of sociomaterial assemblages. Issues of governance, efciency and supporting professional practices
point towards the importance of studying the dynamic interrelationship between teaching practices and the use of VLEs as new spaces for
teaching and learning. As presented above there are both similarities and differences in the ways VLEs are integrated as part of teaching
practices in primary schools and in higher education, where new practices are more evident among primary school teachers. To understand
how such dynamic interrelationships between technology and human practices evolve, the concept of network is essential. Our analysis
shows that three main actor-networks emerge from the categories presented above, giving a more contextual understanding of the ndings
presented. In each of these networks, the agency of the teachers and lecturers is crucial in shaping and consolidating the network they form
together with other human and non-human actants. A rst actor-network is built around the educational expectations placed on teaching,
embedded in structures ranging from national policies to institutional routines. A second actor-network is assembled around the concern of
teaching and learning strategies. In this network the dominant idea is that pedagogical practice has to optimise the use of time and resources
for both the teachers/lecturers and for the students so as to bring about the best possible learning. A third actor-network can be found
around the pedagogical values and beliefs of educators, in particular those beliefs that are inspired by a socio-cultural perspective on learning.
The rst network nds its main anchor within the national and local expectations of how education is supposed to be organized. As noted
in the above subsection on The inuence of educational authorities and school management, the use of VLEs in primary schools is strongly
encouraged by the school owner (which governs all the state schools in the region). Similarly, as presented in the same subsection, it is the
central administration of the higher education institution that decided to implement the VLE throughout the organisation. In ANT terms, we
can say that a certain amount of negotiation and purposive breakdown of the existing pockets of resistance have accompanied the VLE
implementations. Adaptive teaching and portfolio assessment gure among the national requirements that all primary schools have to full.
The Norwegian Quality Reform of Higher Education aimed at unifying educational procedures, making the educational system more efcient and giving a central place to student learning. Both in primary school and in higher education, the ndings reveal that the VLE acts as
an allied to the governing body as it enrols the teachers and lecturers into adhering to the governing bodys general policies. However, there
are no signs of negotiation in primary schools, uncovering a lack of questioning of the national and local policies in terms of whether they
represent good teaching practices. In particular, the ndings suggest that the idea of digital portfolio assessment as supporting good
teaching practices has somewhat been blackboxed, i.e. none of the informants seem to feel the need to cross-examine its well-foundedness.
In other words, their relational agency is primarily shaped by technological and organisational matters.
As presented in the above subsection on Managing students, parents and co-teachers, efciency has been a key motivation for the
introduction and implementation of VLEs. In one instance, the school management explicitly enrolled the VLE in their quest to build a more
effective parent-teacher dialogue, for example when formalizing constant online availability via the VLE. It can be suggested that such an
expectation is a central element in a process of setting up an obligatory point of passage for the teachers, presumably in such a way that it
becomes blackboxed. However, one of the teachers questions the necessity of such a practice, thereby opening the black box and destabilizing the actor-network, at least to some extent.
In this network the educators act in relation to national and local governance and the VLE emerges as an enrolling sociomaterial agent for
educational authorities. The procedures that are implemented in the VLE, such as time schedules, daily news, e-mail and evaluation forms,
constitute a new sociomaterial network. The educators practice with VLE technology, albeit more or less reluctant, generates a network
effect that can be described as a reication of these procedures. As in the case where a school principal expected the teacher to have read the
e-mail before class, the sociomaterial nature of using the VLE enrols educators into a standardized practice that is set by political and
managerial objectives. There are, however, also indications that this new sociomaterial network brings the educators and the inscribed
features of the VLE into a state of alignment, at least when the educators happen to experience VLE use as benecial. We might say that the
educators practice is materially recongured, and enrolled into a network promoting standardized practice (Murdoch, 1998).
The second network is formed around the idea that VLEs can support good learning and teaching strategies. In particular, VLEs act as
allies in the educators strategies to convey information efciently and accurately to the students. They also full a role as allied in that they
allow the teachers/lecturers to control how much and when their students access the information that they have published online. A VLE is
a crucial actant in enrolling the students into various kinds of study practices that are deemed to be both efcient in terms of resource use
and advantageous to the students, for example when promoting self-supported learning. In addition, in primary schools, the teachers use
VLEs to support behaviouristic-oriented training, for example when using multiple-choice questionnaires to repeat the curriculum. In this
network educators and students experience the VLE as an allied in striving to manage their daily workload. Herein, the educators needs
essentially correspond to what the technology can afford, thereby creating an environment with a largely balanced sociomaterial agency.

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791

The efcacy dimension of the VLE use increases the educators capacity to carry out their teaching duties in a manner that fulls their
overall educational goals. The material structures of the VLE that allow educators to efciently reach students and parents, and that ensure
that the information provided is timely and appropriate are strongly aligned with the daily struggle of tting teaching practice into an
acceptable temporal and nancial framework. The educators statements on how they use MCQs for peer-student training and knowledgemapping indicate an emerging sociomaterial agency. The tools at hand generate new practice that is the effect of specic conguration of
human and non-human entities, striving to improve teaching and learning processes and their outcomes.
Another instance of sociomaterial agency is the teachers capacity to enrol parents into student learning. The VLE as a tool for
communication independent of time and space nds its place in the long-lasting endeavour of engaging parents into their childrens
schooling. This is an example of how agency is supported by non-humans. The VLE as a collaborative tool also meets the new requirements
for assessment (Johannesen, in press). As stated by several informants, the simplication of the process of making and communicating
written evaluations exemplies how the sociomateriality of VLE use is constitutive, shaping the possibilities of everyday organizing.
The third network can be seen as encompassing various actors around the idea of student-oriented teaching and learning and is strongly
inuenced by commonly accepted pedagogical values and beliefs. As indicated in the above subsection on Supporting professional practice,
most higher education informants mention student collaboration as a central teaching and learning strategy. They use the VLE as an allied to
design more engaging teaching practices and thereby enrol the students into a socio-cultural approach to learning. In primary schools, the
focus is not on collaboration but on individualized student-oriented approaches, including portfolio assessment. It is interesting to note that
the idea of portfolio assessment is somewhat blackboxed, as the informants do not mention any particular reason to use this way of
assessment other than it has been decided from higher places. It seems that the agency of educators is strongly negotiated through the
various functionalities of the VLE as a tool, thereby bringing about a sociomaterial network effect dominated by the technology. In this
network of professional practice, the educators and the VLE go through processes of mutual negotiation and those on-going processes
contribute to shaping the underlying pedagogical values and beliefs inscribed in teaching practice.
Another interesting nding from the data is that lecturers report increased student collaboration and improved opportunities to perform
adaptive teaching. The case of students that design their own questions for exams or give each other feedback on written assignments
exemplies how people, in tandem with material objects, are constantly transforming their social world and material environment,
creating and learning new knowledge as they go (Fox, 2009, p. 42). In the case of portfolio use, the higher education data indicate a high
degree of implementation of those educational principles that further collaboration as central to learning. Those principles are inscribed into
the system. Primary school practice reveals a transformation towards another network, namely that of educational governance on
assessment. Among the heterogeneous networks at play the inscribed materiality of digital portfolios as formative assessment tools seems
to be losing in negotiation with networks dominated by educational standards (governance) and efciency of teaching activities. This
indicates that there is a difference between stabilization within a network, and stabilization between networks (Star, 1991).
In this discussion section, we have seen that sociomaterial agency is at the core of the forming and development of actor-networks in
primary schools and higher education, but with various degrees of balance. The ndings support Suchmans (2007, p. 267) claim that [t]he
capacity for action is relational, dynamic and collective rather than inherent in specic network elements is of particular relevance to the
study of learning and teaching practices with VLE.
7. Conclusion
In this article, we have identied three major types of actor-networks that are relevant to processes of agency in the pedagogical practice
of teachers and lecturers using VLEs. Within those networks we can distinguish two recurrent and overlapping themes. The rst theme is
that of the very sociomateriality of teaching practice with VLEs. The second is that of power relations that may be intensied by the use of
VLEs, which are presumably signicantly related to the ubiquitous nature of VLEs as both material and social. Within those two themes, the
concept of agency emerges as a central one, both because VLEs allow teachers and lecturers to enact their pedagogical beliefs into their daily
practice and because they nd themselves in situations that are dictated by VLE use and that have major consequences onto their practice.
Our data suggest that we can describe a wide spectre of practices, ranging from those that are explicitly unwanted and resisted to those that
are explicitly accepted. Between those two extremes, we have identied a large number of nuances, including all the practices that have
been implicitly accepted and those that were simply not resisted when they emerged. As argued for in this article, we also believe that it is
important to compare and contrast practices of using digital technologies on different levels of the education system to better plan future
strategies of implementation and use at national, regional and local levels.
Common to all the identied practices are the more or less explicit sociomaterial network effects. The same tool and, to some extent, the
same functionalities of these tools support and challenge the agency of teaching practice. The inuence on the network of teaching practice
is dependent on the actors capacity to express in ones own language what others say and want, why they act in the way they do and how
they associate with each other; it is to establish oneself as a spokesman (Callon, 1986a, p. 223), whether the actor is human or non-human.
At the end of the process, if it is successful, only voices speaking in unison will be heard (ibid).
Due to the substantial role that VLEs have within the educational systems of a wide range of countries, it is necessary to increase our
understanding of how such tools inuence the pedagogical practices of teachers and lecturers. As discussed in this article the use of VLEs in
Norwegian education is embedded in different ways in educational practices, and interwoven within a complex web of regulations and
more or less explicit expectations from higher education management and school owners. The existence and ubiquitous nature of those
tools in the educational landscape has consequences that, from what the data presented in the article indicates, is often undercommunicated, presumably due to a tradition of tacit acceptance of a certain type of pedagogical philosophy and practices in educational
settings. In particular, many primary school teachers feel ambivalent and insecure in their use of such technological tools (Erstad & Quale,
2009), which can potentially be detrimental to their feeling of ownership of the pedagogical practice developed with and around those tools.
As expressed in this article, we believe sociomaterial approaches to technology-based and technology-supported educational practices are
important in moving this eld of research forward.
This research has been conducted within the realm of a particular national landscape, and in a limited number of institutions. It is also
explorative of qualitative in nature with a focus on trying to make sense of a complex eld with a large number of stakeholders. It has

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M. Johannesen et al. / Computers & Education 59 (2012) 785792

therefore no intention to provide universal or general claims on the topic of VLE use in teaching practice. The insights it provides into the
research area may be enriched through further research, for example including other types of stakeholders, e.g. students, technical staff,
software developers. Such additional insights will nd their natural place in an ANT-informed approach.
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