The Means Principle

We spent this week looking more into affordance analysis and how to design lessons and effectively consider technologies that you may want to use in your teaching. What really brought these ideas home for me was the activity we did during class where we were given a specific technology to explore. My partner and I looked at google cardboard viewers. These are a technology that I’m familiar with and one that I have used before in my own classroom. While exploring and designing with my partner I was getting frustrated with the assignment that Dawn gave us. I couldn’t quite get the cardboard viewers to fit in with the learning goals that I had set. I was able to stretch the assignment and was able to eventually figure out  a way to finish filling out the design document but It took awhile for me to fit in the technology to what I was doing. 

I think this exercise did an excellent job of illustrating why designers need to remember the means principle. Good learning designs reflect technologies chosen after mindful consideration of the cognitive and societal consequences as well as a clear and appropriate connection with content and learning activities.   With our activity in class I wasn’t really doing this, I was handed the technology by Dawn and told to make it work. We need to remember that design and learning goals should come first and the adoption of technologies that help with reaching those goals should come second. This can be really difficult when we’re being told by the powers that be to implement the latest and greatest technology into our classroom. If we are able to keep the means principle in mind then we will do a better job of using technology the way it should be, to enhance student learning experiences.