Abstract

At the 2008 Ed-Media conference, a list of most often cited papers in Ed-Media 2004-2008 was revealed (Ochoa, Mendez & Duval, 2009). Vygotsky’s theoretical work, originally published in Russia in the 1930s, came top of the list by a large margin. This paper examines why, and how this theory still can be relevant to twenty-first-century research. It is argued that an effective use of modern educational technologies calls for the use of advanced pedagogies. Vygotsky’s theory provides a profound understanding of teaching and learning that reflect the complexity of social and cultural contexts in the modern learner. The most frequently used concepts of Vygotsky’s theory are re-visited in relation to the research into new educational technologies. Additionally, the potential of some lesser known aspects of his theory, particularly in relation to educational technology, is explored. The inextricable connections between the Vygotskian approach and activity theory is discussed.

Citation

Verenikina, I. (2010). Vygotsky in Twenty-First-Century Research. In J. Herrington & C. Montgomerie (Eds.), Proceedings of ED-MEDIA 2010--World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications (pp. 16-25). Toronto, Canada: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved April 1, 2025 from https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/34614/.

© 2010 Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)

Keywords

• autism