Task 9 NIE - Activity theory

I will try to explain what Activity theory is for me. I could list some definitions from researchers, psychologists or AI analysts, but I think it would be much more useful to try to explain it in my own words, after I have read several articles and used Google search to find out more where and how Activity theory is used.

Reaching the goal by Activity theory. Leontjev

Historically activity theory started in the beginning of 20th century in Russia. Today one of the most important activity theory centers is in Helsinki. A lot of different researches come from there. Most of them are from IT fields, where human action and computer (mediated) actions are analysed.

While Pavlov explained a lot of animal behavior through instincts, then it couldn't explain everything. Võgotsky and Leontjev took pavlov's instincts based theory further and it started activity theory. The idea is, animals and people do things because we plan and know we need or have to to get something else - for example fulfill our needs. When we talk about only humans then activity theory is based on knowingly doing things, taking and handling the reality, which has also been called activity.

In psychology Activity theory is important in learning theories. This is what it's taken to IT fields as well - it's important to understand how people learn, to be able to make some AI learn from it's activities. By activity theory learning is done through the actions that form a system and make sensible organizational base. Later we can use learned things to decide what to do, or act in a certain way. Activity theory is continuos, everything can change based on new experience and actions that are done.


* this overview is written based on different articles, wikipedia and definitions.