Epistemology and conceptual resources for the development of learning technologies

when it detracts from more fundamental issues as to what is involved in learning. It is
generally appreciated that technology by itself is insufficient and that human
intervention in the process of learning is essential. But this general recognition does
not by itself resolve the problem of how the human and the technological should be
combined. In the case of Gibson’s original conception of affordance this problem is
dealt with by the addition of motives and needs:

affordances are properties taken with reference to the observer.

They are neither physical or phenomenal. The notion of
invariants that are related at one extreme to the motives and
needs of an observer and at the other extreme to the substances
and surfaces of the world provides a new approach to
psychology.

(Gibson, 1986, p.143)

But as far as learning was concerned, he recognised that problems arose:

If the affordances of a thing are perceived correctly, we say that
it looks like what it is. But we must of course learn what things
really are for example, that the innocent looking leaf is really a
nettle or that the helpful sounding politician is really a
demagogue. And this can be very difficult.

(Gibson, 1986, p. 142)

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