Learning Technologies for Communication and Collaboration

What is it?

Affordances of technology

The word ‘affordance’ was coined by Gibson (1979). Gibson was particularly interested in exploring the interaction between animals and the attributes of the physical environment that could be used to support animal practices and behaviours. The theory has since been extended into the field of teaching and learning (Conole and Dyke, 2004) and it is a very influential theory that is used to support a pedagogy-first approach in the use tools in education. The affordances of a tool, in other words, relate to its possible uses in a teaching and learning context and not its necessary use. The possibilities for the use of online tools to communication, collaborate and share are key examples of the affordances of technology in educational contexts.

How do I do it?

Technologies for communication, collaboration and sharing

There is a wide range of tools that can be used. vUWS provides a range of options and there are there a whole host of others that are commonly used such as Google docs, Padlet etc. These tools can be broken down into tools that can be used in synchronous and asynchronous settings.

Asynchronous tools

In vUWS, the most commonly used asynchronous tool for collaboration and sharing is the discussion forum. The forum tool provides a useful way to communicate with your students but the announcement tool is more effective at communicating specific learning events or key dates related to assessment tasks, for example. Consider the discussion forum as a place for sharing knowledge and ideas, and the announcement tool as a way to communicate events. Wikis are also a useful tool for group work and to encourage collaborative learning practices. There are guides in the use of these tools associated with this article.

Additionally, Panopto-based videos in vUWS represent the main channel through which you can communicate and share knowledge. Consider using Panopto videos as more than the transmission of content and utilise the note taking features that are available as well as the quizzes that can be embedded in Panopto. There are tutorials in the use of Panopto related to this article.

Synchronous tools

The main synchronous tool that is used at the University is Zoom. There are numerous guides for the effective use of Zoom in teaching and learning and a guide can be found related to this article.

References

Conole, Grainne and Dyke, Martin (2004). What are the affordances of information and communication technologies? ALT-J: Research in Learning Technology , 12(2) pp. 113–124.

Gibson, J. (1979) The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.