Learning Across Sites: New tools, infrastructures and practices - Earli

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8 S. Ludvigsen et al.
Engeström and Toiviainen, in Chapter 3, examine how we need to reconceptualize
how we think about problems that arise when technologies are implemented
in work settings. This reconceptualization implies understanding the development
of professional expertise as horizontal movements. The central questions in this
context are how to integrate theoretical principles of productive learning, the
local user requirements, and technological solutions in the local institutions and
their practices, in one and the same process. They investigate this problem area
within three empirical settings: in research, in an engineering company, and in the
context of software design.
Lahn’s work gives an overview of how the notion of trajectory is conceptualized
in different theoretical stances within a sociocultural tradition. This overview
shows how different stances deal with learning over long periods of time. In addition,
Lahn discusses how the concept of knowledge object can be understood in
professional learning. He illustrates how the knowledge objects that are used for
professional development vary between different professions.
Hakkarainen, Lallimo, Toikka, and White also address the role of knowledge
networks in innovation and knowledge creation in Chapter 5. They argue that
human expertise is collective in nature. The implication of this is that innovation
in the knowledge society needs to be understood as development and formation
within the context of networks of innovative knowledge- practices. The empirical
settings studied are located in the fields of telecommunication and mechanical
engineering.
In the study reported by Perret- Clermont and Perret in Chapter 6, the issue
addressed is how a technical innovation changes the relationship between the
industry and the technical- vocational educational system. In the watch and musicbox
industry in a village in Switzerland, the whole economic life was threatened by a
new automatic system. The industry and the educational system urgently needed to
change, but in which direction What kind of knowledge and skills become relevant
when implementing the new technologies The interdependence between humans
and artifacts are crucial to understanding such technological change. Managing
such interdependence is typical of current and future professional expertise.
Unpacking collaboration and trajectories of participation
The concept of collaboration has been the subject of innumerable empirical studies
and theoretical approaches. What emerges is that behind the term we see a
plethora of configurations, where humans, tools, and spatio- temporal resources
form object- oriented communities. In the contributions listed below, there are
a number of such diverse collaborative configurations. Together they illuminate
and problematize this crucial concept, and, thus, the chapters make a substantial
contribution to our understanding of what collaboration entails and what learning
implies in collaborative practices.
In Chapter 7, concepts such as timescales, intersecting trajectories of participation,
learning and multiplicity are discussed by Ludvigsen, Rasmussen, Krange,