Welcome Students Near & Far Instructors Catalina Laserna, DPhil Patricia Craig, PhD to EDUC E-104 Theory and Practice of Web Pedagogies

Agenda Introduction of teaching team The Four Elements BREAK Course Overview Assignments Readings Preview

Sam Halpert How to post your Bios Distance students

First Element: A sociological lens on Technology Structure and Agency Technology-in-practice

Socio-historical perspective Theory of Structuration –Social scientists love the concept of ‘structure’, a powerful but somewhat elusive term –Problem with over reliance on structures is the lack of focus on human agency and lack of account of how structure can change or be modified

Structuration Theory “ Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given and transmitted by history” This is the essential duality of structure that Giddens attempts to illuminate in his theory of structurationGiddensof structuration Structures shape people’s actions and practices but those in turn make up and replicate the structures themselves. Stru

Structure and agency Structure Human action This means that structures are mutable and that human actions can reshape the very structures that gave them the ability to act in the first place.

Technology in Practice Within the field of technology, insights from organizational theory and social theory being brought to bear to understand how innovation and improvisation occur. Structuration models see technology as embodying structures that users interact with when using the technology

Technology in practice However, some criticism of this approach as insufficient, particularly as technology is made to be reconfigured rwhelmed_by_all_this_technology_shorter.movhttp://sagan.fas.harvard.edu/dl/try_not_to_be_ove rwhelmed_by_all_this_technology_shorter.mov

Orlikowski’s view of the Practice Lens Rejects idea that technologies embody specific and stable structures –Clearly not stable –Implies that structures exist within the artifact itself Instead, she sees the structure as the set of rules and resources in recurrent social practice Only as people interact with the technology over and over and thereby shape the rules and resources around its use which in turn shapes future interactions do we get structure.

cont. Don’t focus on embodied structures but rather the emergent ones thereby framing the activity of users as enactment This affords a practice lens through which we can analyze specific technologies and their uses.

Learning Communties Culture of learning Model is collective understanding Diversity is valued and utilized Learning belongs to a community of practice In education, learning communities is the culmination of community of practice concept

Second Element: Theory of Affordances WHAT IS THIS?

Theory of Affordances We perceive the typewriter as: Write-able with? Sit-able? Throw-able? Paint-able?

According to Gibson, Affordances are… Not in the object Not in the subject “Affordances” conceptualizes the relationship between the two

What’s the Key? It en-ables The verb “afford” existed Gibson made it a noun: –“Affordance”

Affordances in this Course Learn to analyze technological tools terms of affordances Use the analysis to deepen transformative designs

MODES AND MEANS OF COMMUNICATION Primary Orality Learning by doing, talking Literacy Use of different kinds of “literacy” media “Cybercy” We made it up! Use of digital media

Permanency of message O L C Talk vanishes Words on Paper= immutable mobiles Dynamic environments Digital encoding

Transactional Distance O L C Face-to-faceType-faceInter-face

Storage of Information Distributed system O L C Burden on Human Memory Collective memory “frees” human memory (Paradox of Rote Memorization) Simulates RL (Real life) Affords mixing of Symbolic Representations

Grand Social Theories O L C The Advent of Language makes Culture Possible -> Humans as Cultural Creatures Writing affords the beginnings of -> Human History then Printing press -> The Gutenberg Revolution Digital Media and Computers “Artificial Intelligence” -> The Cybercy Revolution… What is going on?

About the O/L/C Matrix O/L/C vs o -l-c Technology needs to be situated in individual & collective practices O/L/C is a very broad analytic construct O/L/C should “afford” good thinking Add value and impact to each other

How Does O/L/C Relate to This Course? The Web? Collaboration practices Private/Public spaces and modes of communication ( , blogs, facebook, uTube) Tools such as “I’m confused” “I have a questions” button O-> C Reflect back on the course’s process as an example of the practice of Web-Pedagogies.

Third Element: Teaching for Understanding Snapshots from the past Rote Memorization: the paradox of literacy in school Memorable Teachers What is understanding? Aim of the Project: practice and theory together

What is understanding? Two quotes from Piaget: “To Understand is to Invent” and “Thinking is internalized action”

How can we make these insights shape educational reform?

Teaching for Understanding with New Technologies In what ways does the Web afford new ways of teaching for understanding? … the Generative Topic for this course

The Teaching for Understanding Framework Throughlines Generative Topic Understanding Goals Understanding Performances Ongoing Assessment

Fourth Element: A Systems View A Systems Perspective –Big picture –Interrelated aspects of the environment –Unintended consequences –The policy view

A systems approach: Distance education DesignSources Delivery Interaction Learning Environment Student needs Organization History Philosophy Instructional design Media Program Evaluation Print Audio/video Radio/TV Software Video conference Comp. networks From Moore and Kearsley, Distance Education: A Systems View, Wadsworth Publishing Co, 1996, p.9. Instructors Tutors Counselors Admin staff Other students Workplace Home Classroom Learning Cntr

10 Minute BREAK!

Course Overview Go to the syllabus section of the Course Website

Assignments Go to the Assignments section of the Course Website /Assignments/

Readings Preview for “A Practice Lens” and “Through the Supermarket” Orlikowski draws on Lave’s insights about the difference between cognition in practice and cognition in the head to think about technology in a similar way. (Read Lave 1 st ) Questions: –Can you think of some technologies where people use them in different ways than the designers may have envisioned? –Think of some places where you’ve seen the introduction (or attempt to introduce) technology: How would you fit that into the Types of Enactment table? (p.422 of Orlikowski)

Sam