Design of Computer-Based Cognitive Tools

Abstract

Human cognitive activities are characterized by effort toward making sense of one’s world. This effort entails actively constructing hypotheses about the world, conducting inquiries to test hypotheses, interacting with the environment, reflecting upon experience and constructing and restructuring structures of thought that constitute one’s understanding (Bruner and Haste, 1987; Glaser and Bassok, 1989). Making sense takes place in a social world where language, interaction and cognition are interwoven in developing intersubjective meaning through negotiations of individual understandings (Bruner and Haste, 1987).