My Teacher's Lens

This week we read an article entitled  "Affordance analysis – matching learning tasks with learning technologies".  The word affordances refer to the perceived and actual properties of the thing, primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be used (Bower, 2008, p.5). In this article I learned about  Affordance Analysis Design Methodology. It is a step by step process which serves as a guide in matching educational goals to appropriate technology in order to construct e-learning designs (Bower, 2008, p.8). The steps include (a) Identifying educational goal/s, (b) postulating suitable tasks, (c) determining affordance requirements of the tasks / determining the affordances available, and (d) e-learning task design. These steps require solid understanding of pedagogy, content area as well as of the technological affordances available. This process is a really helpful for me as a designer. Learning how to execute this methodology...

"Similarly, television was expected to improve education, reduce social isolation, and enhance democracy. Nuclear power was supposed to usher in an age of plenty where electricity would be "too cheap to meter." The optimistic claims now being made about the Internet are merely the most recent examples in a tradition of technological utopianism that goes back to the first transatlantic telegraph cables, 150 years ago."  (Standage, 1998, p.211) The Victorian Internet is an interesting account of the history of telegraph and all the people involved in its creation. The book also tells a parallel story of how science, politics and society have played their roles in the development of telegraph. I learned that since the beginning of time, people have been obsessed with speeding up the communication process. Today we have so many ways to share information to a big audience with one-click. Along with the evolution of the communication technology is the hope that life ...