Distributed Cognitions in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning

Distributed cognition refers to a way of thinking about cognitions as being distributed across the human brain and body, communications among individuals, and interactions with others and artifacts in external social and physical environments. Early in the 20th century, Hugo Münsterburg provided examples of distributed [Page 234]cognitions by focusing attention on the roles of books, newspaper articles, and personal letters as mediators of human communications and understandings of chronicled events and ideas for social groups and in influencing future social actions and thought. In parallel developments, Alexei Leont’ev and Lev Vygotsky put forward the notion of cognition as being distributed across cultural-historical activity systems, and John Dewey argued that individual experiences were distributed not only across an individual’s mind and body, but also shaped by ...