Enactment

** Pedagogical and learning strategies ** According to Biggs(1999) cited in Mayes & de Freitas (2004:5), a "good pedagogical design" ensures that there are "absolutely no inconsistencies between the curriculum we teach, the teaching methods we use, the learning environment we choose, and the assessment procedures we adopt". Dabbagh (2005:26) further suggests that, for e-learning to be effective for teaching and learning, must be rooted in epistemological frameworks. Bednar, Cunningham, Duffy, and Perry (1991) cited in Dabbagh (2005:26) expand on this by pointing out that "the importance of linking theory to practice in the design and development of any instructional system".

The epistemological assumption for this online learning intervention is constructivism. The learner is viewed as an active participant, constructing meaning from activity and experience, through mediated forms of interaction and enculuration into a community of practice. One of the features of my online learning intervention was to allow students to create a glossary of important terms and their definitions as they learn. This was considered to provide a scaffolding. Scaffolding is originally a Vygotskian concept of creating the zone of proximal development. Although it was started, I abandoned the instructions because I realised I was not going to have the prototype online after all. The pedagogical strategy adopted was exploratory, using asynchronous communication tools.

** Technological affordances and choices ** The concept of //affordance//, according to Bower (2008) and Gaver (1991) can be traced back to the work of a psychologist J J Gibson. To Gibson(1979) in Bower(2008), an affordance is not bestowed upon an object by a need or perception of it. Gibson’s description “focuses upon the fundamental characteristics of the object in relation to the user, which is a question of utility (Bower, 2008:5). Another proponent of affordance is Donald Norman cited in Bower(2008:5) emphasizes on “how an object is perceived, which relates to usability and not just utility”. For Dabbagh & Reo (2010:19), which I will adopt for this project, the theory of affordance [i]mplies possibilities or potentials for action and alerts us to how an object can be interacted with, or how an object can be specifically designed to enable a particular action.”

I have decided to develop an activity using moodle where the learners can learn a piece mathematical text and be assessed themselves with minimal instructor presence. I have used the affordance analysis e-learning design methodology as offered by Bower’s Figure 1 (2008:8). The stages suggested by this design are as follows:


 * 1) // Identify educational // goals – to be able to recognize, order and compare integers
 * 2) // Postulate suitable tasks // – In order to develop their understanding integers students needed to have minimal reading, receive immediate feedback, with short answers to questions
 * 3) // Determine the affordance requirements of the // tasks – Short answers with multiple choice questions that can be individualized. The main affordance requirements for students to represent their understanding were read-ability, write-ability and view-ability. Audio and video media affordances were not deemed necessary for this task. Synchronous-ability is also not necessary. Access-ability and permission-ability would be necessary, although in this case not implemented. Resize-ability and move-ability were not required. Browse-ability would be necessary, but link-ability and search-ability were not deemed necessary. Highlight-ability, focus-ability, combine-ability and integrate-ability were not necessary for the tasks.
 * 4) // Determine the affordances available // – As explained earlier in the project, the online designer’s experience and expertise was limited, this affected the affordances one could advocate. Also the choices one had to make due to an offline versus online processes did not allow for collaboration. This was not only because of the time factor, but also but the type of task one had to develop. Table 1, adapted from Bower(2008) maps out the available affordances for the technologies assumes (in this case Moodle and Google Docs). What is mapped is not what the technology can do but the designer’s affordances.

Table 1: View-ability Write-ability Access-ability Synchronous-ability <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Permission-ability ||  || <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">View-ability <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Write-ability <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Access-ability <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Synchronous-ability <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Permission-ability ||  || <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">View-ability <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Write-ability <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Access-ability <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Synchronous-ability <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Permission-ability ||  || <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">View-ability <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Write-ability <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Access-ability <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Synchronous-ability <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Permission-ability <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Data-manipulability || <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">View-ability <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Write-ability <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Access-ability <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Synchronous-ability <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Permission-ability <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Share-ability <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Data-manipulability ||
 * || <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">**Moodle** || <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">**Google Docs** ||
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Quizzes || <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Read-ability
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Glossaries || <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Read-ability
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Lessons/Assessment || <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Read-ability
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Evaluation ||  || <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Read-ability
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Surveys ||  || <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Read-ability

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">//5. E-learning task design// – Although I used Moodle and Google Docs to support my pedagogical and learning design strategies, the use of a Glossary was not pursued further due to developing the course offline, which meant that participants will have to work individually. Since, the course is now available online this could be developed further. So, the designer developed two modes, where the participants were sent the prototype link with username and password. When they indicated that they had completed the task, they were then sent a Google Form to evaluate the prototype. Two people were identified to complete the tasks.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">**References**
<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Bower, M. (2008) Affordance Analysis – matching learning tasks with learning technologies. //Educational Media International.// 45(1), pp3-15.

<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Dabbagh, N & Bannan-Ritland, B (2005) //Online Learnig: Concepts, Strategies, and Application.// Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Dabbagh, N & Reo, R (2010) Back to the Future. In MJW Lee & C McLoughlin (eds) //Web 2.0-Based e-learning: Applying Social Informatics to Tertiary Teaching.//

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">Gaver, W W (1991) Technology Affordances. In //Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: New Orleans,// pp79-84. United States: Louisiana.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;"> Mayes, T & de Freitas, S (2004) " Stage 2: Review of e-learning theories, frameworks and models." //JISC e-Learning Models Desk Study.// Bristol. Available <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;">[|http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/Stage%202%20Learning%20Models%20(Version%201).pdf] (Accessed 17 October 2011)