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Children, on-line learning and authentic teaching skills in primary education |
Tools & Artefacts |
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Main Topics
More information ...
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About Tools and Artefacts Our activities are mediated by the tools we use and the artefacts that impact on our thinking and experience during our activity (Vygotsky). An aspect of the mediation involved is that the tools and artefacts may help scaffold our activities making it easier for the activities to be undertaken and for the resulting outputs to be more significant in terms of range, content, quality, value....
An alternative view is to view tools as part or extensions of ourselves (Andy Clark). Clark proposes that we incorporate our environment as we undertake activities: a hammer is a fist, a sticky note part of our memory, a microscope an eye... In this sense ICT based tools are potentially an extension of ourselves as we process information and communicate. Hence we talk about online identities, meeting in cyber space...
In educational activities the objects of the activities (intended outputs) typically include knowledge, experience and products. The products are often as evidence of, or to enhance, the knowledge and experience involved
In addition tools may be used to create artefacts. But they may also be used to create new tools. For example
A word processor (tool) may be used to produce a simple document such as a report (artefact)
A word processor (tool) may also be used to produce a form or template (tool)
Perhaps we should consider tools that are used for creating tools (tool -> tool) as metatools. Common examples of metatools include spreadsheets and databases (or perhaps more technically accurately database management systems)
ICT tools and artefacts It is widely understood that ICT provides people with potentially useful tools. However errors of judgement are frequently made when it comes to appreciating the products of activities using ICT. It is easy for organisations to provide metatools as if they were simply tools. This may explain, at least in part, why the use of tools based on spreadsheets and databases has been so limited in schools despite the fact that the software has been available: the process is an extended one:
Empowering tools ICT provides potentially powerful and tools that help the user produce tools and artefacts that would otherwise be beyond their unmediated capacity. Indeed ICT based publishing technology enables young students to produce very useful and well presented artefacts. As an example project B in the Fairview case study.
Tools, artefacts and problems Problem solving may be mediated by available tools and artefacts, for example, a street maps may mediate the problems associated with the task of moving from one location to another within a town. Handheld computers with suitable software and connections may also be used to solve the problems associated with the same task. While the task is common to both methods (based on the tools: street map & handheld) the cognitive problems associated with use of the tools are actually different...
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