Despite extraordinary advances in digital and communication technology over recent years, we know very little about the way these complex systems affect everyday work and interaction. This book seeks to explore these issues through a series of video-based field studies that look at the introduction of basic information systems in general medical practice, news production, the control rooms of the London Underground and computer aided design in architectural practice. It focuses in particular on social interaction and the way video-based field studies can inform the design, development and...

Traditionally, human cognition has been seen and studied as existing solely "inside" a person, irrelevant to the social, physical, and artifactual context in which cognition takes place. This book reexamines the nature of cognition and proposes that a clearer understanding of human cognition would be achieved if it were conceptualized and studied as distributed among individuals; knowledge is socially constructed through collaborative efforts toward shared objectives within cultural surroundings, and that information is processed among individuals and the tools and artifacts provided by...

This 1998 book addresses current issues in the teaching and learning of maths by looking at the processes of formulating, interpreting and solving problems.

For more than a quarter century, the polemics surrounding educational reform have centered on two points of view: those that favor a "progressive" child-centered form of education, and those that would prefer a return to a more structured, teacher-directed curriculum that emphasizes basic knowledge and skills. Vygotsky's social constructivist theory offers an alternative solution, placing stress on coconstruction of knowledge by more and less mature participants engaging in joint activity. This theory offers semiotic mediation as the primary means of obtaining knowledge, whereby the less...

The authors in this collection use Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory of human development to frame their analyses of schooling, with particular emphasis on the ways in which literacy practices are mediated by social interaction and cultural artifacts. This volume extends Vygotsky's cultural-historical theoretical framework to embrace nuances of learning and development that are influenced by culture as instantiated through the experiences of race, ethnicity, and language variation. This collection serves as a form of collaborative inquiry that itself will stimulate further consideration...

This volume explores the theoretical, design, learning, and methodological questions relevant to designing for and researching web-based communities to support the learning process. Coming from diverse academic backgrounds, the authors examine what we do and do not know about the processes and practices of designing communities to support educational processes. Taken as a collection, the chapters point to the challenges and complex tensions that emerge when designing for a web-supported community, especially when the focal practice of the community is learning.

Innovative ideas in educational psychology, learning, and instruction, originally formulated by Russian psychologist and educator Lev Vygotsky, are currently enjoying unprecedented popularity in the U.S., Latin America, Europe, and Russia. An international team of scholarly contributors provides comprehensive coverage of all the main concepts of Vygotsky's sociocultural theory. They emphasize its importance for the understanding of child development, and propose specific classroom applications.

In recent years, evidence-based medicine (EBM), clinical governance and professional accountability have become increasingly significant in shaping the organization and delivery of healthcare. However, these notions all build upon and exemplify the idea of human-centred, individual action. In this book, Dawn Goodwin suggests that such models of practice exaggerate the extent to which practitioners are able to predict and control the circumstances and contingencies of healthcare. Drawing on ethnographic material, Goodwin explores the way that action unfolds in a series of empirical cases of...

The first book to tell in detail the story of the maverick filmmaker who worked outside the studio system.