The Means Principle and Affordance Analysis
Have
you ever used the back-end of a flashlight to nail up a picture hanger? Or
maybe you’ve tried using a coin to loosen or tighten a screw? In a pinch I
have, with mixed results. It may take you three times as long to get that screw
out or you may smash your finger and scratch up a decent flashlight in the
process, but it gets the job done. Yes in a rush we can make do with what’s
laying around, but is it best practice? It doesn’t really matter in our day to
day affairs around the house whether or not we find the right tool for such
trivial dabblings, but when we look at our jobs of educating our youth I think
it is beneficial to take our time to find the right tool to use in our learning
goal. This week we learned our fifth design principle which is the Means
principle. This principle is: Good learning designs reflect technologies chosen
after mindful consideration of the cognitive and societal consequences as well
as a clear and appropriate connection with content and learning activities. To
help us implement this principle in our own teaching designs we also learned
the design process of the Affordance analysis. To help us hone our Affordance
analysis skills we worked with a ‘considering affordance’ worksheet which
helped us choose the right technologies for the learning outcomes we were
seeking. We also worked through another sheet which allowed us to match the
learning goal to the right tool (technology). These, for me helped synthesize
what our fifth design principle is about. It not only forced me to take in the
mindful consideration of which technology to use but it also helped me to
crystalize what my final learning goal will be before I even start with
planning a lesson. Both extremely helpful.
On
paper I’m the ‘Technology teacher’ at my school. I fill a couple of other rolls
there as well, but when it comes to direct interactions with our students I’m
the ‘technology teacher.’ They all come to the Tech lab, my room, to “learn
technology.” Which after going through the first six of this course makes
saying what I do that way seem silly. We are always learning and absorbing the
content of the culture we are situated in, especially children. They’re such
brilliant little detectives that most times if you hand them a new ‘technology’
they’ll figure it out before you do. So going through this course is teaching
me that I’m not teaching technology, but that technology is there as a tool to
help our students learn, not just how to use that technology, but to learn
content, processes, theories, conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, and
what it means to know something. In six weeks, in this first class I’ve used an
iPad to search a database, I’ve used my phone to take pictures and merge those
pictures into a Word doc, I’ve created an online Kahoot quiz, I’ve used a QR
code reader, collaboratively written poetry and a comprehensive treatment for a
promotional video, played with and explored uses of an Ozobot as well as the Osmos,
and I have created and kept this blog page going as well. The learning of the
technologies involved I just mentioned just happened. We weren’t tasked with
‘today you will learn how to create a Kahoot quiz’, our goal for this whole
course of ‘Designing for Information Using’ is driving the use of these great
tools. The tools are situated in a way that we’re using them and learning them
all the while we’re driving to our overall learning goal for this course. It
really has been eye opening to me. It’s making me rethink and redesign my role
as ‘technology teacher’ at my school and will hopefully open the door to me
bringing this information to our classroom teachers to benefit all of the
learners at our school.
We
are learning how to be designers, teachers as designers. Learning this fifth
design principle of the Means Principle was important for me to see that
technology is a very useful tool, but that we must carefully consider which
technology we use depending on what our overall learning goal is. We shouldn’t
just use what’s laying around, but have a learning purpose for the technologies
we use.
You mentioned the affordance analysis sheets forced you to consider the goal and multiple technologies - I totally agree! At first I thought, "why can't we just have a discussion about this instead of filling out a worksheet?" but I realized writing things down in pen made me think about it more, and it saved time.
ReplyDeleteLast week I was trying to put together shelves from Ikea I tried like four different things in place of a Phillips head screwdriver because I thought I could manage and didn't want to walk downstairs to get one. Very unsuccessful.
Ikea. (total sidebar here) I have found that using wood glue to put together pieces from Ikea really does help boost it's overall sturdiness... just don't expect to take the piece apart if you ever do move!
DeleteJim, your tool analogy was a good one. As I read the first paragraph, I found my head nodding and saying to myself, "Yes. I've done that!" I have attempted to hammer in a metal pin into the laminating machine with the back side of a stappler with very little success. Your statement, "I’m not teaching technology, but that technology is there as a tool to help our students learn, not just how to use that technology, but to learn content, processes, theories, conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, and what it means to know something." caught my attention because sometimes it is both. You go through the design principles to design a lesson, make careful selection of which technology best fits with the learning goal, but sometimes you do need to teach students, especially elementary aged students or teachers how to use the technology chosen. I find it can be a struggle when teachers ask us to introduce or teach their students about an online database, writing citations, how to create and save a word document, etc. when we have not been part of the design process. It makes it more difficult to situate the learning in an authentic way if we do not know the content knowledge or learning outcome that the teacher has in mind. Do you have time to co-plan with teachers in your building?
ReplyDeleteYes, I should've worded that "I'm not just teaching...tech is also there..." It's more like do the teachers have the time, I would like to see more collaboration with teachers at my school and I recently suggested hosting a 'smartboard workshop' in our tech lab for our teachers - as a way for them to learn more about the smartboard and smart notebook. I'm hoping to get that up and running soon!
DeleteHi Jim! Your post really resonated with me. Thank you for your thoughtful entry. I like this quote
ReplyDeleteThe tools are situated in a way that we’re using them and learning them all the while we’re driving to our overall learning goal for this course.
I think that's an awesome goal for you as the "technology teacher". :)
Thank you. This course really has made me look at things differently...which is a good thing!
DeleteJim, I think it's interesting that we're at a point of tech integration where we still have "technology teachers". I like what you said about yourself being a teacher of tools. The students in my intro video production class at Schweinfurt American HS used iMovie to edit their creations, but I never taught a unit on iMovie. That was just a tool I chose to help students arrive at the desired end. I think in the future we may get to a point where we don't "teach" technology as a separate class, per se, but it will be thoroughly integrated into every class and every discipline, because we'll realize, as you have, that tech just is the tools, the "means" to our learning ends.
ReplyDelete