The affordances and constraints of group work

One of the first bits of jargon I learned in the MET program was ‘affordance’. I was taught swiftly and deeply that an affordance was not a tool, not a convention, nor something that could be done. Rather, an affordance was an “actionable propert[y] between the world and an actor” (Gibson, 1977, as cited in Norman, 1999, p.39.)  Affordances can be both perceived and real, are a function of design, and  “reflect the possible relationships among actors and objects: they are properties of the world” (Norman, 1999, p.42).

Group work involves relationships. It asks colleagues to connect with one another, to extend one’s ideas and thoughts towards a goal, and to trust that others have your best interests at heart. When everything goes smoothly, group work affords many wonderful properties to learning. Group work affords improved brainstorming and idea generation. Group work affords relationship building. Finally, group work affords a wonderful sense of belonging in the co-creation of knowledge. These were all the very tangible results of my group work in the development of our Introductory Module. Members were each committed to the goal of the assignment and to its logical production and presentation. They were thoughtful and clever as they tried to navigate new systems. We constantly helped one another to figure out features, tips and tricks along the way.

Of course, group work can also have its downsides and in this particular case scheduling, timetables, and time management threatened to do us in. With four people across three time zones, a variety of professional obligations that ramped up for some while others were just getting into the summer and some personal tendencies (mine at the fore) to procrastinate, we required a significant push close to the end to complete the project properly.

Technologically, I found this project to be incredibly useful. I moved towards some of the goals initially listed in my Flight Path. Specifically, I became more aware of the affordances and constraints of online LMS’s. I worked to integrate many Google Apps For Education into those frameworks. This helped me to see what is possible in an online course shell, to see how to use HTML to build some of these features, and to come to recognize what should be possible, whether or not I can figure out how to do it. By activating and embedding Google Hangouts, Google Documents and a Google Calendar, I moved one step closer to being a better Google user, which is relevant to my GAFE-based school board.

However, it does also highlight my woeful inadequacy in the world of coding and HTML. I am capable of searching online for some generic code, and then specifying it to my needs. But I know that this isn’t the most thorough, nor ‘clean’ way, to solve these dilemmas. My interest in using edX edge stemmed from enrolling in (and subsequently abandoning, for the most part) a variety of MOOC’s in edX. Seeing how the system performs at its best is inspiring, even if it is difficult to reach that same level of integration of features, course content, content and affordances.

I am looking forward to building out our Content Modules next, but first I will take a short moment to look up from my computer and see the beauty of summer around me. This should hopefully inspire more poetic words as we take on teaching poetry to students in grade 8.

References

Norman, D.  (1999). Affordances, Conventions and Design. Interactions, 6 (3), 38-41.

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