Ubiquitous computing integrates the mobility of users and pervasive technologies (Lyytinen and Yoo, 2002). Ubiquitous computing provides the possibilities of embedding the service in the user’s physical and social contexts. These embeddings can offer new challenges when it comes to design interaction models. Embedding learning activities into the user’s physical and social context is consistent with the core ideas of situated learning. Designing technology enhanced situated learning is a challenging task, since the technology tends to shift the learning environment to a more computer based representation that can divert the learning from authentic situations (Hummel, 1993). However, ubiquitous computing opens new dimensions to avoid this diversion, by providing means to trustfully representation of users’ contexts by placing them back into the authentic. Understanding the role of context in ubiquitous computing for learning is an important factor in the design and analysis of these systems. It is the workshop organizers’ belief that Activity Theory can provide a framework for the design and evaluation of these learning environments. Activity Theory has been used successfully in designing human-computer interactions for collaborative learning environments (Jonassen & Rohrer-Murphy, 1999) and more recently used in the design of mobile learning (Sharples et al., 2005 and Uden, 2007).
Broadly described Activity Theory provides a framework for studying different forms of human practices as development processes both individual and social levels simultaneously interlinked (Kuutti, 1995). When analyzing human activity, we must examine not only kinds of activities that people engage in, but also who is engaging in the activity, what their goals are intentions are, what objects or products result from the activity, the rules and norms that circumscribe that activity, and the larger community in which the activity occurs (Jonassen & Rohrer-Murphy 1999). In this framework, activity is defined as basic unit of analysis.
The question we put forward is how to best use Activity Theory as design method, while it has a simple form to represent concepts such as role, rules, and tools, which have important impacts on users’ activities. Moreover, Activity Theory also maps the relationships amongst the elements that it identifies as having influence on human activity (Kaenampornpan & O’Neill 2005). How can we use these relationships and influences to designing and analyze ubiquitous computing in addition to utilizing sensors and new technologies like RFID, GPS, and others.
