Technology as Tool: Activity Theory Approach [2]

Purpose: To draw on Activity Theory to interrogate uses to which technology is put in relation to Human-Computer Interaction.

References: 7, 46, 47, 49

1. Are pedagogical tools/instruments used for:
1. automating & reinforcing routines?
2. supporting transformative and manipulative actions?
3. making tools and procedures visible and comprehensible? [i.e. actions]
4. enabling the automation of a new routine or construction of a new tool?

2. Is the focus on interaction between user and computer or the larger context of interaction of human beings with their environment?

3. Are computer tools used by people to reach meaningful goals that usually exist beyond the situation of the human -computer interaction? [Often intermediate steps to higher-level goals.]

4. What is the hierarchical level of human-computer interaction within the structure of activity?
1. Does computer use correspond to the level of particular activities, to the level of actions, or to the level of operations?
2. Which tools, other than computerised tools, are available to the user?
3. What is the structure of social interactions surrounding the computer use?
4. What are the objectives of computer use by the user, and how are they related to the objectives of other people and the group or organization as a whole?

5. Which perspective is adopted on mediating between users and their surroundings:
1. A systems perspective (a bird’s-eye control perspective)?
2. The tool perspective (emphasising the production of outcome and the direct learning taking place by the material “speaking back” to its user)?
3. The media perspective (emphasising the human engagement with other human beings through the computer application (i.e., mediation between subject and community of practice))?

Figure 7.5 Characteristics of the system, tool, and media perspectives. (Bødker, 1996, p. 154)

6. Checklist for situation of computer applications in use:
1. Is the work and computer application situated historically?
2. Is the computer application situated in a web of activities where it is used?
3. Has the use been characterised according to systems, tools, and media distinctions?
4. What support is needed for the various activities going on around the computer application and the historical circumstances of the computer application?
5. Identify which objects worked on, in, or through the computer application.
6. Consider Engeström’s four kinds of contradictions with respect to activities for which the computer is used. [at each vertex inner conflict between exchange value and use value; between vertices, e.g. division of labour vs new technology; introduction of a culturally more advanced form of the central activity, e.g. play/study; neighbour activities [subject, object, tools, rules, community, division of labour] linked with the central activity which is the original object of our study, e.g. online.