Activity Theory: A Foundation for Designing Learning Technology?

Abstract

Illuminating the codevelopment of practice and designed artifact is the central aim of Context and Consciousness: Activity Theory and Human-Computer Interaction. Nardi and her colleagues present activity theory (AT) as a method of organizing observations and a source of explanation. The book represents a successful East-West dialogue inspired by tenets of Soviet psychology, and seeks to interpret AT to the broader human-computer interaction (HCI) community. The concepts of this theory cluster around activity (conscious, practical, goal-directed human endeavors) and mediation (acts produce effects only through the help of culturally constructed tools). The concepts of activity and mediation provide insight into the codevelopment of practice and technology through researcher's narrative accounts of the connections between purposeful activity and computer interfaces. The authors of the introductory chapters of this book were ambitious. They predicted the ascension of AT, readily overcoming a current crisis in HCI. The crisis was portrayed as a malaise induced by the impotence of HCI in actual design. HCI has been on the sidelines for most user breakthroughs, often offering only a running commentary on why the winners won and losers lost. HCI has been unable to penetrate the human side of the interface (p. 19). HCI is afflicted by a