You do the Letters, I Take the Mouse." Accounts of Situated Cognition and Cooperation Through ICT use in Classrooms
Date Issued
2013-06-07
Author(s)
Abstract
Computers have become familiar tools for learning and instruction in classrooms. In my ethnographic study of two primary school classes in Switzerland I looked at how this technology is used by pupils and teachers alike. My focus here is on the how of PC practice in action and less on the why and what or even what for. A close reconstruction of observed practices with regard to computers yields an ever-recurring domain, which I call "situated repair work" (SRW). The SRW category as part of the handling of the interfaces of ICT equipment seems "natural" and is abundant when it comes to the use of electronic systems. Everyone is expecting SRW to take place all the time and it is handled on the routine grounds of social practice. But the difficulties of handling physical interfaces, semantic challenges of understanding the virtual, and the properties of a machine that "can think but nevertheless makes mistakes constantly" blend into a kind of regularly emerging test for the participants. This test is not usually solved by a single actor but rather by a joint and interactive effort following certain scripts. Analytically, SRW offers access to the question of how we learn by the use of ICT in classrooms: it focuses the situated and interactive part of cognition as a joint production by man and machine.
Language
English
Keywords
ICT
School
Children
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
HSG Profile Area
SHSS - Kulturen, Institutionen, Maerkte (KIM)
Refereed
No
Publisher
University of Barcelona Press
Publisher place
Barcelona
Official URL
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
223891