actually gets done, especially how people involve each other in their work. In particular, a model of practice reveals how people accomplish a collaboration through multiple and alternative means of communication, such as meetings, computer tools, and written documents. Choices of what and how to communicate are dependent upon social beliefs and behaviors---what people know about each other's activities, intentions, and capabilities and their understanding of the norms of the group. As a result, Brahms models can help human---computer system designers to understand how tasks and information actually flow between people and machines, what work is required to synchronize individual contributions, and how tools hinder or help this process. In particular, workflow diagrams generated by Brahms are the emergent product of local interactions between agents and representational artifacts, not pre-ordained, end-to-end p

This study explores the premise that knowledge in new product development proves both a barrier to and a source of innovation. To understand the problematic nature of knowledge and the boundaries that result, an ethnographic study was used to understand how knowledge is structured differently across the four primary functions that are dependent on each other in the creation and production of a high-volume product. A pragmatic view of “knowledge in practice ” is developed, describing knowledge as localized, embedded, and invested within a function and how, when working across functions, consequences often arise that generate problematic knowledge boundaries. The use of a boundary object is then described as a means of representing, learning about, and transforming knowledge to resolve the consequences that exist at a given boundary. Finally, this pragmatic view of knowledge and boundaries is proposed as a framework to revisit the differentiation and integration of knowledge.

Traditional activities change in surprising ways when computermediated communication becomes a component of the activity system. In this descriptive study, we leverage two perspectives on social activity to understand the experiences of individuals who became active collaborators in Wikipedia, a prolific, cooperatively-authored online encyclopedia. Legitimate peripheral participation provides a lens for understanding participation in a community as an adaptable process that evolves over time. We use ideas from activity theory as a framework to describe our results. Finally, we describe how activity on the Wikipedia stands in striking contrast to traditional publishing and suggests a new paradigm for collaborative systems.

In writing this chapter, we (a constructivist and a situativity theorist) struggled with the distinction between situativity and constructivism. and the implications in terms of the design of learning contexts. In clarifying (and justifying) our two sides, we created straw man and pOinted fingers with respect to the limitations of each other's perspectives. We found that although discussions of situativity and of constructivism draw on different references and clearly have specialized languages, actual interpretations of situativity and of constructivism share many underlying similarities. Further, when it came to the design of learning contexts predicated on our respective theories, we found ourselves continuously forwarding similar principles and advocating for similar learning contexts. We are dealing with evolving concepts-and people use new terms to include and extend old ones. Constructivism was the label used for the departure from objectivism; however, even among those who call themselves constructivists there are different perspectives and different sets of assumptions (see Cobb, 1994, 1995; Phillips, 1995). Now the term more commonly used is situated, reflecting the key proposal from both the constructivist and situativity perspective that knowledge is situated through experience. In the context of this chapter, we found it trivial to distinguish among those learning theories and principles related to constructivism and those related to situativity theory. Rather, we discuss the various learning theories that have informed our understanding all unde ~ the heading of situativity learning theories. This term, and its associated assumptions and current interpretations, seemed to better capture the essence of the learning contexts we are forwarding as useful. However, even within the context of situativity theories we found it necessary to make distinctions, and it was these distinctions (not the distinction between constructivist and situativity views) that best captured the essence of this chapter.

In order to capture current educational practices in eLearning courses, more advanced `learning design' capabilities are needed than are provided by the open eLearning specifications hitherto available. Specifically, these fall short in terms of multi-role workflows, collaborative peer-interaction, personalization and support for learning services. We present a new specification that both extends and integrates current specifications to support the portable representation of units of learning (e.g. lessons, learning events) that have advanced learning designs. This is the Learning Design specification. It enables the creation of a complete, abstract and portable description of the pedagogical approach taken in a course, which can then be realized by a conforming system. It can model multi-role teaching-learning processes and supports personalization of learning routes. The underlying generic pedagogical modelling language has been translated into a specification (a standard developed and agreed upon by domain and industry experts) that was developed in the context of IMS, one of the major bodies involved in the development of interoperability specifications in the field of eLearning. The IMS Learning Design specification is discussed in this article in the context of its current status, its limitations and its future development.

A computer network is a social network The network revolution We find community in networks, not groups. Although people often view the world in terms of groups (Freeman, 1992), they function in networks. In networked societies: boundaries are permeable, interactions are with diverse others, connections switch between multiple networks, and hierarchies can be flatter and recursive. The change from groups to networks can be seen at many levels. Trading and political blocs have lost their monolithic character in the world system. Organizations form complex networks of alliance and exchange rather than cartels, and workers report to multiple peers and superiors. Management by multiply-connected network is replacing management by hierarchal tree and management by two-dimensional matrix (Berkowitz, 1982; Wellman, 1988; Castells, 1996). Communities are far-flung, loosely-bounded, sparsely-knit and fragmentary. Most people operate in multiple, thinly-connected, partial communities as they deal with networks of kin, neighbours, friends, workmates and organizational ties. Rather than fitting into the same group as those around them, each person has his/her own

In this paper, we review and analyze the emerging network paradigm in organizational research. We begin with a conventional review of recent research organized around recognized research streams. Next, we analyze this research, developing a set of dimensions along which network studies vary, including direction of causality, levels of analysis, explanatory goals, and explanatory mechanisms. We use the latter two dimensions to construct a 2-by-2 table cross-classifying studies of network consequences into four canonical types: structural social capital, social access to resources, contagion, and environmental shaping. We note the rise in popularity of studies with a greater sense of agency than was traditional in network research.

Activities are located behaviors, taking time, conceived as socially meaningful, and usually involving interaction with tools and the environment. In modeling human cognition as a form of problem solving (goal-directed search and operator sequencing), cognitive science researchers have not adequately studied "off-task" activities (e.g., waiting), non-intellectual motives (e.g., hunger), sustaining a goal state (e.g., playful interaction), and coupled perceptual-motor dynamics (e.g., following someone). These aspects of human behavior have been considered in bits and pieces in past research, identified as scripts, human factors, behavior settings, ensemble, flow experience, and situated action. More broadly, activity theory provides a comprehensive framework relating motives, goals, and operations. This paper ties these ideas together, using examples from work life in a Canadian High Arctic research station. The emphasis is on simulating human behavior as it naturally occurs, such that "working" is understood as an aspect of living. The result is a synthesis of previously unrelated analytic perspectives and a broader appreciation of the nature of human cognition. Simulating activities in this comprehensive way is useful for understanding work practice, promoting learning, and designing better tools, including human-robot systems.

This paper reports an interpretive study of three cross-functional teams in a single company. The teams were virtual because each was composed of workers located in a small southern U.S. town and a cosmopolitan northern U.S. city. The conceptual framework of situated learning within communities of practice guided the interpretation of transcripts of interviews with 22 managers and team members. The results suggest that virtual teamwork creates special demands, which require workers to devise local practices for coordinating their work with remote team members. Through different combinations of remote and face-to-face communication, using a variety of communication media, the learning of work practices becomes situated in the virtual community rather than imposed by managers or specially designed coordinating technologies. 3

Abstract: The broad field of “computers in education ” includes a diversity of approaches to using computers for learning. Each approach is based on an epistemology: a theory of how knowledge is gained. In this presentation, I will characterize the uses of technology and their corresponding epistemologies. I will single out intersubjective epistemologies as timely for research and practice, and call for development of technologies that offer social affordances and resources for meaning-making. The study of intersubjective meaning-making requires interactional analyses, but in new forms that transcend some of the assumptions and limitations of microanalysis and that can be coupled with other methodologies. The presentation illustrates these ideas with my research program on representational affordances for collaborative learning.