Post #3: Affordance Analysis & How it Enables Us to Meet the 2nd Design Principle
In the 2nd Design Principle covered in class, we learned to be mindful in consideration of the social and societal consequences of technologies chosen as part of the design. Affordance Analysis gives a methodology to properly match learning tasks with learning technologies in a constructive design.
This means that to match learning goals to techniques and tools constructively and effectively, a study of each technique or tool is necessary to see how well it is suited to those goals. Taking a two-headed approach, with Learning Goals and The Tools at the top of each prong, the analysis "boils" down to the essential qualities of each header, and how they can come together to be used effectively.
As part of the discussion I mentioned in class, we as teachers are presented by our administration with a short list of applications to be used in assisting how our teaching is delivered to students. Administration wants us to use these applications as they are paying for them, so we are obligated to use them. Teachers have a choice of Content Management Systems (CMS) to use from in Loudoun County Public Schools, including a Native CMS on the Intranet, Edmodo, and VISION. There may be others that I'm not aware of but these are the main ones provided.
The Affordance Analysis I performed incorporates the discriminating affordances of "Temporal", "Navigational", "Emphasis", "Synthesis", and "Access-Control". The "Spatial" and "Media" affordances are the same for all of the CMS. The Learning Goals of the CMS is to provide an accessible repository of supporting educational materials to support the needs of students. From the Learning Goals side of the Affordance Analysis, the Products and Activities include delivery of class notes, hyperlinks to online lab activities, and supportive materials for students to self-assess themselves on materials covered in class. The required affordances that fall out of this are mainly in the following affordances: "Media" for reading, viewing, printing and watching; "Temporal" for accessibility; and "Navigational" for linkability to other activities.
Out of the three CMS choices, the tool I use is VISION because in addition to meeting the "Required" affordances, it provides more extensive user-customization ability, and is easier to use than the native CMS. The affordances provided by Edmodo might also work, but from observations of other teacher usage of it, I do not see enough of a discrimination in it that warrants "re-inventing the wheel", when I have already gone over the learning curve with VISION. VISION provides a constructive interaction, accessible over the internet with tablets, pcs or smart phones providing students with a supportive learning tool to assist them with the content learning goals.
I like your terminology of the "two-headed approach." I too agree that it is important to consider the social/community impact a chosen technology will have on your classroom. When setting up a lesson, it is always important to think about the tools your are going to use, and how you are going to use them. In the elementary school, most of our studies take place within the classroom. With your students, it is important to have the access to the materials outside of the school. In my case, we are still working on learning how to write our homework correctly in our agendas. That is not to say my students do not have access to items outside the school. I too set up websites for them to visit to reinforce concepts taught in class. I am also slowly learning how to use Phoenix as a means of sharing materials to the students and their parents. My tools for teaching can be vastly different than yours at times, but in the end, our goal of teaching a specific skill/technique tend to be within the same realm.
ReplyDeleteThe best thing I like about Phoenix is the communication tool. You can send a message to the whole class or select students and/or parent/guardians. Now that they took away our desktop pcs, the laptops don't have a numeric pad and only 2 USB ports, one of which is used by a mouse and the other by the Promethean board. So if you have lessons on a USB, you are out of luck, no affordance analysis done there.
DeleteThe learning goals at the elementary level are definitely different than at the high school. I would be curious to know what they are in regards to using technology.
I agree that there needs to be a lot more done in terms of training on the technologies that are given to us. I see all the time teachers in Technology & Engineering Education use our equipment in a manner that it shouldn't be used. Things like... using band saws when a miter saw should be used. Or using the 3d printer to create a rod when a simple wooden dowel rod could be used to do the same thing.
ReplyDeleteWithout the Affordance Analysis, chances are a tool never realizes it's full potential, because of that point of lack of training. Most teachers find a niche application but don't have time to fully explore the other features that the tool might offer.
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