Cyborgs’ collaborative writing in Virtual Learning Environments

In this article, collaborative writing in Virtual Learning Environments is studiedthrough the cyborg metaphor. The cyborg is a hybrid, it is not online or offline,it is not human or machine, it is a mixture or a fragment. Technologies are seenas our partners and we are as much formed by them as they are by us. The cyborgmetaphor is examined through interviews with thirteen Finnish upper secondaryschool students. Digital spaces and collaborative writing enhance and disruptwhat students do and how they interact while embedded in complex materialworlds. Online collaborative writing can dissolve and establish boundariesempowering students to write better texts or restraining student agency. It isunderstood as weaving a digital tapestry of new coding practices while living onthe edge of an information explosion where information and identities are fluid.