Epistemology and conceptual resources for the development of learning technologies

the perceiver and the perceived’. However, they do attempt to delimit how the term
might be applied: „We may like to think that a lecture affords learning, but the only
affordances we can be sure of are those constituting its definition - it is a vocal
presentation, and thereby at least affords listening’ (Laurillard et al 2000, p. 3).
Following Gibson, it might be more accurate to say that all that the lecture involves
(by way of affordance) is a cacophony of sound albeit expressive sound. Listening
involves an intelligent engagement on the part of the audience.

Had the term affordance been made explicit (i.e. its connection to other concepts been
made clear), as for example the idea of a particle has been made explicit, this type of
inconsistency would not arise. Whether it matters that the term is not made explicit
depends upon what weight of argument is being carried by the term or, more
importantly, whether the use of the term forecloses areas requiring further
investigation. The noun “affordance” carries a greater weight of meaning, when
incorporated into accounts of technology-enhanced learning, than the verb “afford”.
Where it is argued that the affordances of educational technologies have educational
benefits, the concept of affordance really needs to be spelled out in some detail. In the
complex case of education, the derivation of the noun affordance, where it is taken to
mean that an object or technical situation can be immediately grasped, is quite
misleading. Webb (2005) includes the disposition of the student as a factor relevant to
the effect of an affordance but it is precisely the disposition of the student that the
whole concept of affordance is avoiding when it is transferred from the realm of
animals and environment to human learning.

A particular epistemology, that is a particular set of ideas about what it is to know,

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