On Affordances

I always enjoy reading published debates, as it is interesting to see what people draw out of a particular work and deem necessary for comment. Conole and Dyke (2004a) present and discuss the affordances of new technologies for educational practice. While the opening of the paper references a Gibsonian definition of affordances (p. 114), the second section references Salomon (1993, p. 51) and presents a clear definition of what is meant by "affordances." Because of this definition, I did not take issue with their characterization of affordances or their description of the kind of technological affordances they promote. Boyle and Cook (2004), however, take issue with the later definition, and therefore take a fundamental issue with the claims and projections Conole and Dyke make in their paper. As a response, Conole and Dyke (2004b) clarify their definition of affordance, pushing back against Boyle and Cook's insistence that they use a broader Gibsonian definition of affordance, and stating that their discussion of affordances is limited to "the intended, prescribed or designed function of technology" (p. 301).

While Boyle and Cook believe that a discussion on affordances could be productive, they take issue with the way in which Conole and Doyle unfold their taxonomy, stating that their broad claims are not theoretically sound. They also contend with Conole and Dyke's definition of affordances as "the percieved and actual properties of a thing ... that determine how the thing" is used (p. 115). Boyle and Cook define them as exiting "[independent] in the environment, and [they] are discovered rather that [sic] constructed by the human (or animal) actor. This fundamental difference in definition yields different ways in which affordances of technologies can be understood and a taxonomy can be drawn.

I appreciate  Boyle and Cook's argument, as I too was surprised when Conole and Dkye presented affordances as the central argument of the paper and presented a taxonomy with very little discussion of what affordances are, and why this would be a needed and productive discussion. In their response, Conole and Dyke state that space limitations prevented them from going into the discussion in detail, but it seems like the central argument in one's paper should be supported prior to laying out their taxonomy.

However, while reading the paper in question, I did not (after my initial surprise at jumping right in) take issue with their definition or conjectures about possible affordances, mainly because they end their discussion asking whether affordances are the right framing and invited critique. While some of their claims are broad or sweeping, as Boyle and Cook point out (p. 297), I generally liked that they addressed these particular affordances.

Three of the affordances stood out to me as ones to discuss further. The affordance of accessibility is really important, and I appreciate their statement that a consequence of increased accessibility is the need to build "learning information and analysing skills," but I think they need to expand on this. First of all, their assumption that one could teach something so broad and abstract as "learning skills" reveals their constructivist theoretical underpinning; I'd like to know how one goes about teaching such skills They begin to discuss the important subject of the shift from learning pieces of information to learning how to ask questions (Collins and Hanverson, 2010), but they leave it at one sentence, which is insufficient and minimizes the point they are trying to make.

When discussing the communication and collaboration affordance, the authors state that increased communication and collaboration, they state that this could lead to "individuals being 'spead too thinly'" and "lack of identity and peripheral engagement" (p. 117), with only a citation to a metaphor to explain why they think that might happen. On the contrary, much of the work I've read (e.g. Jenkins, 2009; Ito et al 2013) states that networked engagement brings opportunities to form identities, learn from others, and contribute meaningfully to a group when a person feels ready (but relieves the pressure of feeling like one must contribute if they do not want to). This paired with my own experience teaching, learning, and interacting in networked communities makes me want them to explain their claim.

Finally, their claim that technologies can afford opportunities for reflection is an important one, and I agree with much of what they stated. But they again provide few citations for claims that it supports reflection, and then go into ways it may halt reflection. The way they treat the affordances of technology - and that they refer to technology broadly - makes me think they are in the second or third phase of the continuum I posted on Wednesday. They are not as accepting - and may not be as knowledgeable - about new technologies as they are positioning themselves to be. There is a heavy air of caution, and "affordances" is used broadly, whereas literature in the Learning Sciences clarifies points by using "affordances and constraints" (Greeno, 1998).


As a side note, all of these papers had a lot of typos, and the typos became progressively worse in each paper. I'm not sure if this is an issue with the editor, but this kind of sloppiness in published work makes it difficult for me to focus on the arguments, and gives a sense that they were not careful in their work. I guess it is the English teacher in me (my sister complains about these effects often), but I expect published work by experts to be error-free.