Re: [xmca] adult affordances

[Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>]

And here's how students can text their responses to my Keynote questions:

<http://www.polleverywhere.com/macpresenter>

Has anyone out there used either this or the previous link?

Martin

On Mar 14, 2012, at 8:50 PM, Adam Mendelson wrote:

> Think about the cellphone not as a toy to be played with, but as a node in a
> social network that connects your students to other members of that network.
> Then think about your classes as a relatively small activity within the much
> greater activity system that motivates the behaviors of your students.
> 
> I don't think students that use cellphones in class are victims to their
> phones. They simply dedicate their attention according to the perceived
> importance of the multiple interactions in which they are potentially
> engaged at any time. They are exerting self-control when they use their
> cellphone: they are effectively ignoring their teacher in order to do
> something else that they perceive as more important. 
> 
> If it bothers you, you might want to try to integrate texting, tweeting,
> and/or facebooking into class by enabling students to send messages to a
> chatroom or stream that is projected to all in the classroom. I recently saw
> John Seely Brown at the DML conference in San Francisco, and while his talk
> would have been fantastic on it's own, having access to the twitter back
> channel that was projected on multiple screens in the room certainly added
> to my experience. 
> 
> Just the two cents of an XMCA lurker (for the most part)
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> Behalf Of Martin Packer
> Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2012 6:31 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [xmca] adult affordances
> 
> An odd conjunction of issues of content and management  in my undergraduate
> developmental psychology course has me puzzled, and so I'm appealing for
> xmca help!  A few weeks ago I was expounding on the notion that the toddler
> lives in a world not of permanent objects but of affordances - irresistible
> offers to action, made by the things and people and places that surround him
> or her. Gibson, filtered through Vygotsky.
> 
> At the same time, I was waging an unceasing war against the use of cell
> phones in the classroom. (Today I actually got to the point of confiscating
> them when I saw them, and telling the students they could buy them back from
> me later in the city center. With humor, I hope!)
> 
> Finally, it struck me. These young adults, too, are victims of irresistible
> offers to action, made by their little iPhones or Nokias or whatever.
> 
> So what is it about a cell phone that completely overwhelms any and every
> facet of self control? Why is it that I can forbid cell use at the start of
> each class, yet in seconds they start to appear? What is it that transforms
> a young adult into no more than a toddler?
> 
> Martin
> 
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