conference

Mike Cole (mcole who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu)
Tue, 24 Sep 1996 08:34:22 -0700 (PDT)

Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 13:57:00 -0800
>From: Helen Hasan <hasan who-is-at PCMAIL-BLD40.UOW.EDU.AU>
Subject: Activity Theory and IS Workshop
Sender: ISWORLD Information Systems World Network <ISWORLD who-is-at LISTSERV.HEA.IE>
To: Multiple recipients of list ISWORLD <ISWORLD who-is-at LISTSERV.HEA.IE>
Reply-to: Helen Hasan <hasan who-is-at PCMAIL-BLD40.UOW.EDU.AU>
Encoding: 99 TEXT
Comments: To: ISWORLD POST <ISWORLD who-is-at IRLEARN.UCD.IE>

Call for Expressions of Interest
Workshop on Activity Theory and Information Systems
Tuesday December 3, 1996
University of Wollongong, Australia

The objective of this workshop is to bring together researchers and
practitioners interested in using Activity Theory (from the
Vygotskian cultural-historical psychology) to understand the
development of computerised information systems. Prominent
researchers of the international HCI community have recognised the
limitation of cognitive psychology in understanding the human users
of computer systems and are turning to alternatives such as Activity
Theory. We are fortunate that several of these researchers, listed
below, will be in Wollongong for the Workshop.

The Workshop will include presentations from our international guests
as well as panel and group discussions. There will be ample
opportunity for workshop participants to interact and learn from each
other.

Areas of the cultural-historical approach to be covered include:

o contextual analysis
o activity systems
o structure of activities
o tool mediation
o hierarchy of motives

Speakers:

Bonnie A. Nardi, ( Advanced Technology Group, Apple Computer Inc, USA)
http://www.atg.apple.com/personal/Bonnie_Nardi/

Bonnie Nardi is an anthropologist in the Apple Research Laboratories
at Apple Computer in Cupertino, California. She has studied Samoan
villagers, spreadsheet users, brain surgeons, reference librarians
and American teenagers, among others. She is interested in
intelligent agents, end user programming, and theoretical approaches
to the study of human-computer interaction, especially activity
theory. She is the author of A Small Matter of Programming:
Perspectives on End User Computing, MIT Press, 1993, and the editor
of Context and Consciousness: Activity Theory and Human-Computer
Interaction, MIT Press, 1996. Her career goals are to promote
reflection about technology and its role in human life and to extend
computing power to ordinary people.

Kari Kuutti, Department of Information Processing Science, University
of Oulu, Finland.

Kari holds a PhD in Information Systems from the University of Oulu
and worked for some time as the principle researcher of the Finnish
part of a multinational European Union project ('COMIC') on CSCW. He
is on the board of the Activity Theory and Developmental Work
research Unit in the University of Helsinki and head the User
Interface and Group Technology Laboratory in the Department of
Information Processing Science, University of Oulu. he is heavily
influenced by the "Finnish variant of AT, developed by Y Englestrom
and his co-workers.

Monique Linnard, CNRS-IRPEACS, France

Irina Verenikina, Institute of Psychology, Russian Academy of
Sciences, Moscow

Irina Verenikina is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of
Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. She graduated from the
Department of Psychology at Moscow State University, where she
studied Activity theory from it's originators. She holds a Ph.D. in
psychology from the Russian Academy of Education. During the last
seven years she has worked within a joint Russian-American computer
tele-communication project based theoretically on the Vygotskian
approach and Activity theory. Her research interests relate to the
use of new technologies for child development and how they are
embedded in different kinds of childrens' activities. For the last
two years she has been working with the Department of Business
Systems at Wollongong University on aspects of the application of
Activity theory to human-computer interaction.

Organisers:

Ted Gould
Helen Hasan
Peter Hyland

Please contact us for information:

Email: e.gould who-is-at uow.edu.au or h.hasan@uow.edu.au or
p.hyland who-is-at ouw.edu.au
Phone: 61 42 213755 (Ted) 61 42 213757 (Helen) 61 42
213759 (Peter)
Fax: 61 42 214474
Department of Business Systems
University of Wollongong
Wollongong 2522, Australia