Web 2.0 supported collaborative learning activities: Towards an affordance perspective

Web 2.0 provides social software that is intuitively appealing for supporting collaborative learning. However, as revealed in our pilot case study, simply making Web 2.0 tools available or even mandating their usage does not guarantee that students will use the tools for collaborative learning. Even the use of a framework such as Activity Theory to guide the design of the unit did not ensure collaborative learning mediated by the technology. We propose that an affordances perspective may offer the guidance needed.