Rethinking affordance

n/a – Critical survey essay retheorising the concept of 'affordance' in digital media context. Lead article in a special issue on the topic, co-edited by the authors for the journal Media Theory

The technological mediation of mathematics and its learning

This paper examines the extent to which mathematical knowledge, and its related pedagogy, is inextricably linked to the tools – physical, virtual, cultural – in which it is expressed. Our goal is to focus on a few exemplars of computational tools, and to describe with some illustrative examples, how mathematical meanings are shaped by their use. We begin with an appraisal of the role of digital technologies, and our rationale for focusing on them. We present four categories of digital tool-use that distinguish their differing potential to shape mathematical cognition. The four categories are: i. dynamic and graphical tools, ii. tools that outsource processing power, iii. new representational infrastructures, and iv. the implications of highbandwidth connectivity on the nature of mathematics activity. In conclusion, we draw out the implications of this analysis for mathematical epistemology and the mathematical meanings students develop. We also underline the central importance of design, both of the tools themselves and the activities in which they are embedded

Rethinking Privacy and Freedom of Expression in the Digital Era: An Interview with Mark Andrejevic

Mark Andrejevic, Professor of Media Studies at the Pomona College in Claremont, California, is a distinguished critical theorist exploring issues around surveillance from pop culture to the logic of automated, predictive surveillance practices. In an interview with WPCC issue co-editor Pinelopi Troullinou, Andrejevic responds to pressing questions emanating from the surveillant society looking to shift the conversation to concepts of data holders’ accountability. He insists on the need to retain awareness of power relations in a data driven society highlighting the emerging challenge, ‘to provide ways of understanding the long and short term consequences of data driven social sorting’. Within the context of Snowden’s revelations and policy responses worldwide he recommends a shift of focus from discourses surrounding ‘pre-emption’ to those of ‘prevention’ also questioning the notion that citizens might only need to be concerned, ‘if we are doing something “wrong”’ as this is dependent on a utopian notion of the state and commercial processes, ‘that have been purged of any forms of discrimination’. He warns of multiple concerns of misuse of data in a context where ‘a total surveillance society looks all but inevitable’. However, the academy may be in a unique position to provide ways of reframing the terms of discussions over privacy and surveillance via the analysis of ‘the long and short term consequences of data driven social sorting (and its automation)’ and in particular of algorithmic accountability

Extending, broadening and rethinking existing research on transfer of training

Research on transfer of training has a long history, with thousands of empirical studies since the 1950s investigating whether, and under which conditions, knowledge and skills acquired during training are subsequently used in the work environment (see reviews by Baldwin and Ford, 1988, Blume et al., 2010 and Burke and Hutchins, 2007). The generation of such an abundance of research can be linked to organisations’ fundamental and ongoing concern to ensure that their employees possess the necessary knowledge and skills from their employer to maintain a competitive advantage and thrive economically. Training and development is, however, extremely costly to organisations, which has created the need to determine the effectiveness of training, and the conditions under which transfer of training is optimal. A recent overview of “what really matters” for successful transfer of training (Grossman & Salas, 2011), aimed at a training and development readership, summarized the most influential variables emerging from this vast body of research. Based on the expectation that the list of factors which may contribute to influence transfer could always be extended and that it would be impractical to incorporate every single factor in research designs, the authors recommended a shift in future research towards deeper investigations of the conditions under which selected variables are more or less influential in their relationship with training. This Special Issue contributes to this important research agenda and extends it further through the inclusion of a diverse collection of conceptual contributions and reviews, from several scientific disciplines, a plurality of theoretical perspectives and a range of methodological approaches. Expanding the theoretical grounding underpinning empirical work on transfer of training and scrutinizing existing conceptualizations of the notion of transfer is timely in light of widespread concerns from organisations about minimal return on investment in training, and repeated evidence in the transfer of training literature of an enduring “transfer problem”. The aim of this article is to explore the value of extending, broadening and rethinking existing research on transfer of training. The benefits of extending research on transfer of training is considered first, through examining how the contributions of this Special Issue add to the existing literature on transfer of training, and the implications of the new insights for addressing the “transfer problem”. How transfer of training research could be broadened, thus enriched, through incorporating ideas from recent literature on transfer of learning is considered next. Finally, proposals to rethink transfer as boundary crossing from an activity theory perspective are scrutinized for their potential to better understand the learning that takes place at the boundaries of training and work environments. The article concludes by elaborating on the conceptual value of a refocus on ‘transfer of learning from training’ within a perspective of adaptive learning, and a call for cross-fertilisation with the extensive theory grounded literatures on transfer of learning and boundary crossing

Digital literacy in religious studies

This article considers the relevance of the concept of ‘digital literacy’ within the context of the discipline of religious studies in higher education and reflects on its potential impact on notions of ‘graduateness’. It contemplates how digital technology can be integrated most effectively in learning design and reflects on the skills students need to be equipped with to recognise the challenges and opportunities of digital technology and understand its impact and role within the study of religions

Past practices: rethinking individuals and agents in archaeology

Archaeologists who seek to examine people's roles in past societies have long assumed, consciously or unconsciously, the existence of individuals. In this study, we explore various concepts and dimensions of ‘the individual’, both ethnographic and archaeological. We show that many protagonists in the debate over the existence of ‘individuals’ in prehistory use the same ethnographic examples to argue their positions. These positions range from the claim that any suggestion of individuals prior to 500 years ago simply projects a construct of western modernity onto the past, to the view that individual identities are culturally specific social constructs, both past and present. Like most contributors to the debate, we too are sceptical of an unchanging humanity in the past, but we feel that thinking on the topic has become somewhat inflexible. As a counterpoint to this debate, therefore, we discuss Bourdieu's concept of habitus in association with Foucault's notion of power. We conclude that experiencing oneself as a living individual is part of human nature, and that archaeologists should reconsider the individual's social, spatial and ideological importance, as well as the existence of individual, embodied lives in prehistoric as well as historical contexts

Audiovisual coherence and physical presence: I am there, therefore I am [?]

The following is an attempt at both documentation and discussion of my personal audiovisual practice to date; in particular my attempts over the past four years to bring a complex, largely algorithmic, fixed-media method into a live, improvisatory performance context

The teacher as action researcher : Using technology to capture pedagogic form

The paper argues that we make best use of learning technologies if we begin with an understanding of educational problems, and use this analysis to target the solutions we should be demanding from technology. The focus is to address the issue from the perspective of teachers and lecturers – the 'teaching community', and to consider how they could become the experimental innovators and reflective practitioners who will use technology well. Teachers could become 'action researchers', collaborating to produce their own development of knowledge about teaching with technology. For this to be possible, they must be able to share that knowledge, and the paper proposes the use of an online learning activity management system (LAMS) as a way of capturing and sharing the pedagogic forms teachers design. An action research approach, like all research, needs a theoretical framework from which to challenge practice, and paper shows how teachers could use the Conversational Framework to design and test an optimally effective learning experience. Examples of 'generic' learning designs illustrate how such approach can help the teaching community rethink their teaching, collectively, and embrace the best of conventional and digital methods. In this way they will be more likely to harness technology to the needs of education, rather than simply search for the problems to which the latest technology is a solution