DISTRIBUTED COGNITION AT WORK

As we have seen in chapter 2, distributed cognition is one term that is used in that nexus of notions arising from the literature on situated cognition, activity theory, and socially-shared cognition. These are overlapping notions emerging from the same paradigm; however, at this point it is useful to separate out the notion of distributed cognition, and to probe it as a way of differentiating what happens in the classroom from what happens in the workplace. Specifically, this term highlights the degree to which, within specific activities, knowing and/or learning and/or thinking are often distributed among co-participants, as well as mediated through the cultural artifacts available-artifacts which include semiotic, technological, and organizational structures: the process is dynamic and interactive, within a delicate, subtle, constant interplay among participants and means as they operate in tandem (although often with friction) toward the object of the activity.