A decade after the launch of the Digital Education Revolution in Australia, the debate around funding access to a computer for every high school student remains divisive. While figures suggest that the program has been largely successful in increasing access to digital technology resources, there is increasing criticism on the focus on devices over pedagogy and a backlash in the form of schools opting to reduce or eliminate the use of personal computing devices in the classroom. This suggests that implementation of digital technology in schools remains problematic and needs further investigation. Activity theory is a powerful and helpful tool in this endeavour as it is able to contextualise the use of digital technology rather than focus simply on instrumental uses. Moreover, researchers have argued that employing a multi-level approach to activity theory, which incorporates macro, meso and micro level activity systems, provides further insight into the complexities of the implementation process.

This project focused on the use of digital technology by teenagers both inside and outside of school in a rural Australian setting. Specifically, it examined the ways in which Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), home computer and mobile phone use was connected between school locations and out-of-school locations. To investigate this, a qualitative case study methodology was employed with 10 case study participants. A mixture of interviews, time use diaries and artefact collection was carried out and the data analysed using Engeström’s Activity Theory notions of activity systems and contradictions.

In terms of multi-level analysis use of activity theory, the findings focused on: the school leadership and school policies as the macro-level activity system, teachers as the meso-level activity system, and the participants as students as the micro-level activity system. By viewing the interacting activity systems in this manner, it showed how the policy decisions at the macro-level, particularly the BYOD Strategic Plan, were at times contradicted by the attitudes and pedagogical beliefs of teachers at the meso-level, specifically resistance to technology use and beliefs about the necessity of using computers with certain groups of students. Moreover, the micro-level experiences of the case study participants demonstrated how the contradictions at the macro and meso levels resulted in dissatisfaction and a lack of enthusiasm for the school’s BYOD program.

Overall, these contradictions within the various levels of activity systems demonstrated the obstacles and barriers to successfully implementing digital technology in a secondary school context. The use of a multi-level approach to activity theory helps to illuminate the ways in which school policies are enacted by teachers and experienced by students thus creating tensions that lead to dissatisfaction with the use of digital technology in general.