ABSTRACT
In the following chapter we will report experiences and insights from an intensive, three-year-long study in a vocational school (École Technique de Sainte-Croix), situated in the northwest of Switzerland, in a moment of change. The arrival of a new artifact – a computer-supported manufacturing system – was at the origin of the study. For us, readers of activity theory (Scribner, 1984; Lave, 1988; Säljö, 1999; Engeström and Miettinen, 1999), this has proven a wonderful event to observe: humans and non-humans, resistances, discourses, actions, conflicts, institutional changes, and perhaps learning. Transformations occur not only at the level of the individual and inter-individual action and thinking. Concomitant and consequential changes of the “event” (this entrance of a complex new artifact in a learning environment) will also be observed at the social, institutional, political and economical levels. Yet, in the school, these changes were not always reflected upon or even noticed by learners and teachers. This resulted in diffuse and sometimes strong anxiety in these persons. It has offered researchers a unique opportunity to perceive the interdependence between artifacts and people; to observe the resistance to or search for the transformation of the activities, and the explicit and implicit learning that was occurring. The potentially complex transformative effects of the introduction of this new technology into the teaching of small-scale precision engineering had not been expected by the partners.
