Affordances in TEL short introduction with an example

Learning & Educational Technology Research UnitJari Laru, university teacher

Literature: http://www.mendeley.com/groups/1439453/let-opinnot-let-courses-learning-educational-technology-research-unit-university-of-oulu/papers/added/0/tag/affordances/

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Affordances

McGrenere, Joanna and Ho, Wayne (2000): Affordances: Clarifying and Evolving a Concept. Proceedings of Graphics Interface 2000 May 15-17, 2000, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. pp. 179-186. In Soegaard, Mads (2010). Affordances. Retrieved 28 September 2011 from Interaction-Design.org: http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/affordances.html

Norman’s affordances: placebo thermostat

In a survey conducted in 2003 by the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration News, 72 percent of respondents admitted to installing dummy thermostats.http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/02/10/placebo-buttons/

Gibson’s affordances: chair

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GENERIC MODEL OF LEARNINGAffordances in TEL

Generic model of learning 1/2 (Wang, 2008)

Figure 1. Key components of the generic model. Wang, Q. (2008). A generic model for guiding the integration of ICT into teaching and learning. Innovations in Education & Teaching International, 45(4), 411-419. Retrieved from http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article&doi=10.1080/14703290802377307&magic=crossref

The generic model consists of three key components: pedagogy, social interaction andtechnology. An educational system is a unique combination of pedagogical, social, andtechnological components (Kirschner, Strijbos, Kreijns, & Beers, 2004).

Generic model of learning 2/2 (Wang, 2008)

Figure 2. Relationship between the model components and interaction. Wang, Q. (2008). A generic model for guiding the integration of ICT into teaching and learning. Innovations in Education & Teaching International, 45(4), 411-419. Retrieved from http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article&doi=10.1080/14703290802377307&magic=crossref

“As a practical guideline, the design of the three components of the model can focus on learner–content, learner–people, and learner–interface interaction, respectively. For instance, the pedagogical design of an interactive learning environment can (1) make content meaningful, authentic, and relevant to learners and (2) allow learners to add further resources to share in addition to those suggested by a teacher. The social design of a learning environment ought to (1) involve more authentic tasks, group work, or project-based learning to promote interaction with peers, teachers and other experts, and (2) involve both synchronous and asynchronous communication, which can be implemented in forms of text, verbal chat or visual exchange. The technological design of a learning environment cannot ignore interface design, for both interaction with content and interaction with people are implemented through the interaction with the interface” (Wang, 2008, p. 414)

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USEFULLNESSAffordances in TEL: Educational, Technological & Social affordances

Usefulness: Affordances & Generic model of learning

Pedagogy & interaction with content

Social interaction & interaction with people

Technology & interaction with interface

Generic model of learning (Wang, 2008)

Various types of affordances

Figure 3. Usefulness is determined by various types of affordances.Kirschner, P., Strijbos, J.-W., Kreijns, K., & Beers, P. J. (2004). Designing electronic collaborative learning environments. Educational Technology Research & Development, 52(3), 47-66. Springer. Retrieved from http://www.springerlink.com/index/10.1007/BF02504675

Technological affordances

Mcloughlin, C., & Lee, M. J. W. (2007). Social software and participatory learning: Pedagogical choices with technology affordances in the Web 2.0 era. Current (Vol. 2007, pp. 664-675). Ascilite Singapore 2007. Retrieved from http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/referral/advsearch/http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/singapore07/procs/mcloughlin.pdf

Figure. Kono, T. (2009). Social affordances and the possibility of ecological linguistics. Integrative psychological & behavioral science, 43(4), 356-73. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19609627

http://www.slideshare.net/TravisNoakes/affordances-in-social-media-for-education

Educational affordances

Figure. Framework of the educational affordances of blogs. Robertson, J. (2011). The educational affordances of blogs for self-directed learning. Computers & Education, 57(2), 1628-1644. Elsevier Ltd. Retrieved from http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0360131511000649

Table. Illustrative examples from blog corpus

“Educational affordances are those characteristics of an artifact (e.g., how a chosen educational paradigm is implemented) that determine if and how a particular learning behavior could possibly be enacted within a given context (e.g., project team, distributed learning community). Educational affordances can be defined - analogous to social affordances - as the relationships between the properties of an educational intervention and the characteristics of the learner (for CSCL: learner and learning group) that enable particular kinds of learning by him/her (for CSCL: members of the group too). ” (Kirchner, 2002)

(Technological changes create) social affordances

Figure. Kono, T. (2009). Social affordances and the possibility of ecological linguistics. Integrative psychological & behavioral science, 43(4), 356-73. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19609627

”Social affordances are properties of CSCL environment that act as social-contextual facilitators relevant for the learner’s social interactions. When they are perceptible, they invite the learner to act in accordance with the perceived affordances, i.e., start a task or non-task related interaction or communication. This definition of social affordance is inspired by the term technological affordance. Both are specializations of the general term ‘affordance’ described by Gibson (1986).” (K Kreijns & P. A. Kirschner, 2002)

http://www.slideshare.net/TravisNoakes/affordances-in-social-media-for-education

EXAMPLE OF SOCIO-TECHNOLOGICAL DESIGN

Example: EDUFEED experiment

EduFeed 2007 – socio-technological design

Educational affordances

Social affordances

Technological affordances

Figure 4. Socio-technological design of the course. The idea of making use of each others’knowledge was operationalized in socio-technical design. It consisted of recurrent individual and collective phases in which students used multiple Web 2.0 tools and mobile phones in concert to perform designed tasks. Retrieved from: Jari Laru, Piia Näykki, Sanna Järvelä, Supporting small-group learning using multiple Web 2.0 tools: A case study in the higher education context, The Internet and Higher Education, Available online 28 August 2011, ISSN 1096-7516, 10.1016/j.iheduc.2011.08.004.

Edufeed 2007 – Pedagogical design

Educational affordances

Social affordances Figure 5. Pedagogical design of the course. Groups were required to complete a wiki project by the end of the semester. In order to complete the wiki project, students needed to participate in recurrent solo and collective phases mediated by the use of social software tools and face-to-face discussions in their respective phases. Jari Laru, Piia Näykki, Sanna Järvelä, Supporting small-group learning using multiple Web 2.0 tools: A case study in the higher education context, The Internet and Higher Education, Available online 28 August 2011, ISSN 1096-7516, 10.1016/j.iheduc.2011.08.004.