Web Pedagogies Week 4: Theory of Affordances

Schedule Review of last week Web-based research: some practical examples and hands- on searches Theory of Affordances: lecture and discussion Break Lab: Appropriate technology for the course websites – Demonstration and discussion

Web-based research Conducting Research – Example: parental involvement and homework –You can find both general and discipline specific resources – Academic Search Premier JSTOR –Look at different ways of delimiting your search

Web-based research Conducting Research (cont.) –You can find education specific resources – – bases.htmlhttp://gseweb.harvard.edu/library/books/eddata bases.html Go to ERIC via the Syracuse link Can you find the item on the Web?

What do you do if you don’t have access to Harvard e-resources Go to Grossman Library. You can use the databases there. Check to see what the state (provincial) library system has to offer –State university libraries or state libraries –Login access? –Interlibrary loan? Limited backdoor solutions Get citations via ERIC or other search engines Use Web or interlibrary loan searches to see if your item is available

Introduction to the Readings What is the problem? What are the approaches? –Key examples –Key concepts [Work on the board]

Gibson’s Theory: Value and Meaning in things is directly perceived Affordances: how do we measure these? Surfaces Objects afford manipulation Other animals afford inter-actions

Claim:A niche is a set of Affordances An affordance cuts across the dichotomy of subjective-objective and helps use understand its inadequacy” (p. 129) Different from “subjective” because the organism depends on the environment, but the environment does not depend on the organism Humans alter the natural environment to change what it affords us

Affordances of Terrestial Environment The medium- air afford breathing The substances- water affords drinking, pouring, Clay affords molding, especially for organism with hands Surfaces and their layout Objects: detached and attached Other persons and animals Places and hiding places

Objects have dynamic relationship with the Self Mailbox Example

“The awareness of the world and one’s complementary relationships are not separable”

Misinformation for Affordances Sheet of glass, a smile Each thing says what it is, but it may lie

Perceived Affordances (Norman) A place for everything and everything in it’s places -- the case of the Wooton patent desk -- the Filing cabinet: why revolutionary? Organizing one’s work space: tools and processes

Organizing Knowledge Alphabetic versus Functional organizations The case of the Hardware Store Computer’s capacity to search revolutionizes our “cognitive tools” Affordances of an “the electronic library”

What is lost? G.Torenliet and Defined Affordances as “The perceived and actual properties of the thing. Primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could properly be used” The psychology of Everyday Things Reduced to “purely cognitive” looses connection to the actual environment

So What? This definition separates usability studies from ecological psychology If people use it in different ways and confusion spreads Gibson: Don’t ask if something looks like a door, but instead should a door be there? (p17) Suggestion: Come up with a different term

Affordances in Interfase design (Gaver) Complementarity of Action Inter-referntiality vs need for mediational representation Nested Affordances

Dynamic Affordances (Cook and Brown) For human groups, the source of new knowledge and knowing lies in the use of knowledge as a tool of knowing within situated interaction with the social and physical world. It is this that we call the generative dance Focus on his examples riding a bicycle, flutemakers, paper handling

Affordances of the Printing Press (Eisenstadt) From manuscripts to the printing press

The Affordance Lense in E-104 projects- Community Level Challenge (Describe) Propose Solution Web Affordance? (Explain)

Next Week’s Pre-view Teaching for Understanding –Readings –Websites –Biographic perspective Lab