Opening up #learning: Simpler does not mean better

This is a continuation from my last blog post on the affordances of learning technology. In the last post, Access to Knowledge, I wrote about how technology has made access to content - and thus to knowledge - easier and open to all. Of course, the caveat is that access to content that is open requires users to be able to discern good from bad content. There are further caveats when we use technology to learn. The post was based on the first of the four levels of affordances model proposed by Putnam, whose second level relates to automating, simplifying and transforming tasks. Although these three facets are in no way synonymous, Putnam nevertheless places them together. Let's deconstruct this trio of affordances.

Automation of tasks relieves the user of having to spend cognitive energy on (or thinking about) mundane tasks. Spreadsheets and calculators can perform a range of mathematical operations obviating the need to add, multiply, divide, subtract or work out mean averages. Is this a desirable affordance? If you are a graduate researcher working to tight deadlines and needing to complete complex calculations, it is probably essential. On the other hand, if you are a primary school student who needs to understand how to perform these mathematical operations, then the spell checker probably does more harm than good.

The same applies to simplifying tasks. Word processors afford spell checking, which can be a valuable tool for those who do a lot of writing. New iterations can be achieved instantly through continuous editing and polishing of text (known as provisionality), and the spell checker accompanies this, simplifying the normally tedious and time consuming function of proof reading. If however, you are a school student who has learnt to use the spell checker without fully considering what a sentence comprises, or that certain words can be bypassed by the spell checker and still be spelt wrongly (out of context) then it is probably a mistake to use one.

The ability to transform a task, to advance it beyond what would normally have been achievable without the technology, is excellent. Using an interactive whiteboard (IWB) to transform the learning experiences of your students is great pedagogy.  IWBs can display multimedia and multiple pages can be accessed instantly. It has a number of other features such as the capability to transform sizes and shapes of content through touch gestures, and it can of course record an entire teaching session, which can be saved as a file and sent as an e-mail attachment to students who may have been absent from that session. Better still, when students are allowed to use the IWB to develop their thinking, create new understanding, and interact with diverse content, transformation of learning can occur. Yet when the IWB is used in much the same way as a traditional white board, it is often a failure in pedagogy. At the very least, it is an abdication of the affordances of the IWB, which does a disservice to the students who then are deprived of an interactive experience to support their learning.

In the final analysis, we can echo Putnam's view that the consequences of automating, simplifying and transforming tasks through technology are not always desirable, and in some cases, are best avoided. However, when used appropriately and thoughtfully, teaching and learning can be transformed for the better, and our learning experiences improved beyond recognition.

Image by Agsandrew on Deviant Art


Opening up learning: Simpler does not mean better by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.