A draft of Nikko, A., Muukkonen, H., & Hakkarainen, K. (in preparation). Technology-mediated collaborative learning and transformation of shared knowledge practices. This is a draft, please do not quote without permission from the authors Technology-mediated collaborative learning and transformation of shared knowledge practices Nikko Anna 1 , Muukkonen Hanni 2 , & Hakkarainen Kai 3 1 Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki 2 Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Helsinki 3 Department of Education, University of Helsinki Abstract. The purpose of the present investigation was to examine epistemic agency and intensity of participation in a partially virtual, technology-mediated study course. The participants represent- ed 30 students from University of Aalto and Helsinki; they worked in six 5-student teams for ana- lyzing future tax behavior for an external customer. The 9-week course was structured in four stag- es, i.e., defining, planning, implementation, and reporting. Each team worked according to a cus- tomer-accepted plan for examining future challenges of citizens’ tax behavior. Result of the study revealed extremely large variation concerning intensity of using the course’s virtual learning envi- ronment, the Knowledge Practice Environment (KPE). While two teams engaged in hundreds of KPE events and produced tens of KPE artifacts, the three others used the environment hardly at all, only uploading compulsory deliverables to the system. In the context of three teams, a further anal- ysis revealed how teams used email to support regulation of their activity as well as pursuit of epis- temic activities. The importance of socializing students to collaborative use of CSCL environments is discussed as well as the centrality of examining relations between task-completion and knowledge-building goals. Although it is necessary to structure challenging project work with pre- defined tasks (with milestones and deliverable), there is a danger of participants reducing their epis- temic activity to completion of the tasks. Keywords: epistemic agency, knowledge artifact, knowledge building, knowledge practice, Knowledge Practice Environment (KPE), social emergence 1. Introduction A central pedagogical objective of Knowledge-Practices Laboratory (www.KP-Lab.org) project is to promote the transformation of prevailing educational practices that facilitate the development of skills and competencies of deliberate creation and building of knowledge from the beginning of higher education studies (Hakkarainen et al., 2006; Muukkonen, Lakkala, Kaistinen, & Nyman, 2010). Despite the fact that our ideas of learning and knowledge have drastically changed, universi- ty education in many European countries has remained the same for centuries (Muukkonen, Lakka- la, & Hakkarainen, 2004); students of higher education arguably take too many years exclusively in acquisition-oriented and teacher-centred studies without their own undertakings in genuine ad- vancement of knowledge (Vermunt & van Rijswijk, 1988; Mandl, Grüber, & Renkl, 1996). Suc- cessful achievement in traditional higher education studies often fails, by itself, to provide students with competencies to solve the complex and ill-defined problems of professional life. In order to overcome these challenges, the pedagogy of KP-Lab is designed to bring cultures of schooling into a closer contact with professional cultures and, thereby, engage students in expert-like knowledge