What is Post-Compulsory Education

This chapter uses activity theory to construct a framework for the design and deployment of pedagogic planning tools. It starts by noting the impact of digital technology on teachers’ practice, particularly the role of planning in the creation of effective technology-mediated learning. It espouses the reconceptualization of planning as design for learning and identifies a key role for the emergent genre of pedagogic planning tools in stimulating practitioners’ engagement in this reconceptualized practice. Drawing on activity theory, the chapter then characterizes the principal elements and relationships in design for learning. From the insights gained, it analyzes research data from two projects to pinpoint the enabling factors and tensions in current practice that might be conducive to (or, conversely, impede) the effective design and deployment of pedagogic planning tools. It then synthesizes these into a framework in which software developers and policy makers can explore their own contexts for implementing such tools.