Activity Theory

Discussion Questions

Questions prepared by

Neill A. Kipp,

Martha L. Haigler, and

Linda S. van Rens.

(table of contents)

1. Work Activity, Ethnography, Participatory Design, and CSCW

Presented on Day 4

• How do you use computers to support collaborative work?

• Are users able to determine their needs with regard to the requirements specification?

• How do you combine users' regular work demands versus the time they need to spend on participatory design?

• Does PICTIVE encourage premature focus on detailed user-interface design and drive the focus away from analysis of higher-level issues? How does this influence correct positioning for PICTIVE in the design process?

• If participatory design is where the users come into the designer's world, and ethnographic-based design is where the designers come into the user's world, under what conditions is each strategy best applicable?

• Given that ethnography gives designers a general understanding of the user's workplace, how can it be used in more concrete ways to influence the design process?

• Who determines that the ethnographer did a good ethnography? How?

• How can the ethnographer avoid affecting the culture that he or she is studying?

• How long before the ethnographic research is complete?

• Do you learn better in groups or by working alone?

• Besides social scaffolding, what are other ways a learner can achieve the zone of proximal development?

• What can go wrong in setting and achieving the zone? Which one is the most dangerous?

• How do we grow the circle of knowledge in Vygotskian terms?

• How does the path abstract synthesize symbolize understand grok incorporate into your own learning patterns?