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About tools
The integration of the use of ICT into the day-to-day practices of any workplace is a complex activity involving contributions from many parties. In essence it requires the development, deployment and adoption of tools based on ICT. Practitioners must use these new tools is in order to achieve their purposes and in this changes the workplace, its purposes and means.
Introducing new tools changes the context.
The introduction of new tools into any activity effectively changes the context in which the activities are being undertaken. This is so because
- Tools mediate the activities being undertaken by their users: they frequently change actions, purposes, roles and hence the expectations placed on the users
- Undertaking the same task with different tools requires different cognitive capabilities
- New tools usually create new opportunities and these opportunities may also be integrated into the workplace: indeed it is common for ICT based tools to be introduced for this very reason.
- To a greater or lesser extent the workplace and the ICT-based tools introduced into the workplace, interact in ways that both enable and/or constrain each other
- In a sense ICT can be understood as tools for the creation of tools. The prime factors determining the extent to which ICT enables and/or constrains practitioners are firstly, extent to which the tools deployed are open to adjustment by the users, and secondly the capacity of the users to adjust the tools,
There are many challenges involved including
- Developing tools that match the practices in which they will be used
- Adjusting practices to match the potential of newly available tools
- Deploying the tools consistently across busy organizations
- Minimising the inevitable disruption arising from the introduction of new tools
- Adjusting the practices in response to the demands and opportunities arising from the availability of new tools
- Embedding a new culture when the introduction of such tools changes the organization’s purposes even more than its practices
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