One more week into this course and I am still continuing to learn so many new things. When I first read our assignment for this week I was pretty confused on what "affordance" even meant, but after reading the course materials and looking at the postings of my other group members I was able to have a much better understanding of the word. Although each person in my group had a slightly different definition/meaning of the word affordance I decided that to me the word meant a practical and intended use of the item, or in this case the technology. I felt that this affordance analysis allowed us to look at when and where we are using these particular technologies and if we are using them appropriately. It also gave us a chance to get some ideas from our peers on how to use each technology.

For my affordance analysis I chose to do MS Word vs. Paper and Pencil (context of uses-writing class). I started by doing the list of affordances for MS Word. It seemed much easier for me to come up with this list. I also went to MS Word on my computer and searched around to see if there was anything that I had left off. When it came to the list of affordances for Paper and Pencil I had a much harder time thinking of a lot of things to put on this list. This was a time when I was really glad that my group was going to be giving me suggestions. I was really hoping that they would be able to help me come up with some more affordances to add for Paper and Pencil. And they did! Mindy reminded me that paper and pencil can not only by used anywhere (which I already had), but that it could also be accessed anywhere. She also suggested that I could add to my list of affordances that it is cheap. Which is something that I didn't think of.

I enjoyed being able to make an initial draft of our affordance analysis and then being able to have our peers read over and help us come up with suggestions. I know it always helps me to have someone else read my work and help me think of all the things that I have left out. It helps to have three other minds helping you think.

I posted my revised version of my affordance analysis just earlier this evening and I have already gotten a post back from someone in another group. It was interesting to see her viewpoint of my lesson and on kindergarten. She felt that the lesson I had come up with seemed like it would be a little too difficult for kindergarten students and that maybe I needed to rethink my intended audience. I responded back to her with a more in depth explanation of the lesson and even gave her an example of what the end product might look like. I hope after reading my response she will understand my rationale behind my lesson better and hopefully have a better understanding of how smart kindergarten students can be. I know as a kindergarten teacher I often feel like our students are not given enough credit. Although are sweet little babies come to us as blank slates a lot of the time they grow so much throughout the year. I hope that I was able to give her a better understanding of what great potential kindergarten students can reach!