interview€¦ · web viewinterview: bd_technology and teaching practice group 14 10 11....

Interview:BD_Technology and Teaching Practice Group 14 10 11

Participants:Q: InterviewerM: Male Participants (x3)F: Female Participants (x7)

(Note: Gaps in transcript due to participants being on desktop video conferencing and speaker phone and one phone connection kept dropping out, gaps also due to difficult accents and talking over each other. If the correct spelling of a name was not known it has been typed as sounded’)

Q: Well and that way we’ll finish hopefully before 11:00am and still cover those topics, so hopefully finishing about 10:50am. I’ve just put the recorder on, I hope people have problem with that. So let’s just go around and just introduce ourselves and say what part of the University we’re from. Let’s go, Mark first on the telephone.

M: Hi everyone, Mark Lee I’m Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the School of Education, and also doing my PhD through the school under Barney’s supervision.

Q: Thanks Mark, Merilyn.

F: Merilyn Childs, I’m a Deputy Director of the Flexible Learning Institute, and I pretty much work in my own space off campus. So I’m not actually located in a particular campus.

Q: Thanks, so let’s go around here, and Suyin.

F: Hi I’m Suyin I’m the … (Unable to understand) and I’m also teaching at the School of Education.

F: Penny Stephens, I teach in the School of Education, here in Wagga campus.

F: Christina Davidson I’m in the School of Education here and I’m interested in Digital Literacy’s and young children.

M: Daryl South I’m doing some casual lecturing at the School of Education here in VT Department I guess.

F: Anne Lloyd I’m in the School of Information Studies.

M: Barney Dalgarno School of Education.

M: William Adlong with LTS immediately working the faculty of business.

Q: Thanks, so obviously we had quite a big reading task, in front of us for this one, and I apologise for that, I think I overstretched a little bit, but I guess I was really keen to have both the Gibson and the Norman take, because Norman sort of updated his take, we needed to get

BD_Technology and Teaching Practice Group 14 10 11

his retake. I thought it was good to have a – one article that tried to critique affordances and I thought Martin Oliver’s wasn’t a bad one, although I’m not completely sure I agree with everything he says. I wanted to include at least one article where the idea of affordances applied in a sort of a, some sort of an educational technology sense. I chose Lisa’s through mine and Mark’s, in retrospect I probably should’ve thrown in the Kickul, Grundy Kickul’s article, which is probably a bit more central treatment of affordances, but apologies for that. Would that be you Jacquie?

F: That’s me.

Q: Hi, you’ve got Suyin, Penny, Christina, Darryl and myself and Will in Wagga, Mark Lee on the telephone and Merilyn Childs on personal desktop video conferencing.

F: … (Unable to understand) technology Merilyn.

Q: Look I thought maybe, there’s a few different ways we can go do, do this, normally we sort of go around the table and give some comments on specific articles, I think we’ll go around the table and do that. I thought, to me there is a couple of crucial things that we should try and touch on. One that’s central I guess is, the difference between Gibson’s and Norman’s use of the term. I guess, and then something that comes in a bit through Lisa’s as well is, this idea of real versus perceived affordance and Lisa then reframes that as intended versus perceived, which is worth touching on as well. So I think, so I’d like to sort of, if possible, I mean give me, give your top end take on the concept and stuff, and all the readings generally, but try and touch on your thinking about the differences between Gibson’s and Norman’s take. And those which I think, the idea of real and perceived affordance sort of comes into it as well, linking girls just come in for those on the telephone, you’ve got, Jacquie Tinkler and Mark Lee on the phone as well as, every you can see. So let’s – why don’t I again, because I always, you always forget to include the telephone people, so why don’t we start with Mark and then Jacquie and then Merilyn and then go around the table here and just get some initial ideas on, either that or something else that really struck you about the readings. Do you want to start Mark, are you happy with that?

M: Yeah … (Unable to understand). I’m not entirely sure I’ve been looking at … (Unable to understand) article and I find it interesting, when you think about, what you mentioned about replacing the real affordances of, with teaching tended affordances. I – see what she seems to be doing there is - well I got the sense that she wasn’t only … (Unable to understand) the 2, which I don’t necessarily agree with. So the intended upon is the, is what the design … (Unable to understand) where’s the, which didn’t look obviously from the, affordances that are perceived by the user. And then, and then the reason, then there’s this thing about, and intended but she keep … saying real affordances was intended affordances. To me the real affordances are, constrained by the actual properties of the object.

Q: Jacquie do you want to pick up on that or make another point?

F: Well I wish I’d known while I was reading all these, was to write notes. Now having got to, last one I read was Gibon one, so I found the


most interesting that that’s overlayed with my, where I’m sitting with my PhD at the moment. And there was a few things in that, that resonated for me too, because that … (Unable to understand). So my … (Unable to understand) be caught up in that … (Unable to understand). It seemed like looking at Norman … design because of my art design background I suppose and we never really … (Unable to understand). I found that quite interesting, a new … intended … (Unable to understand) departing from where Gibson was, I didn’t seem to read it, I’ve got a different point of view. And I only got to the … (Unable to understand). It seemed to me it was, a lot about the visual. There’s a visual, the affordance is, I mean only in something that you see … (Unable to understand). I thought that in itself was interesting in relation ICT and I keep coming back to, partly because of the whiteboard study that we did. … the affects of her whiteboard for example are already afforded what we perceive, what we think is important, and that is, visual, it looks like another thing that. So much is in, so I think … (Unable to understand) I can’t remember now about, about … (Unable to understand) and being confused between what an icon, thinking an icon has affordance where it doesn’t, it has a - I I reckon my rambling kind of response is, I need to kind of write that all down now and make some connections. I did this, fairly late last night on the bus on the way home.

Q: No that’s good, Jacquie. I’ll just keep going around and then we’ll sort of open it up. So Merilyn, do you want to add to Jacquie’s or make a different point?

F: I think when I was reading these papers, the thing that stood out to me was, Norman’s comments on Page 13 of his original paper which had to do with, he makes a comment that a good conceptual model allows us to predict the effects of our action, which to me is a kind of fundamental notion that underpins all of these discussions. And I know that in the future writers are then played around one way or another with that for example suggesting that, this implies an activity … and so forth. Although interested in his, the claim he makes that without a good model, we operate by rote, blindly, with operation, and we were told to do them, and we can’t fully appreciate why, and what effects to expect and what to do if things go wrong. And I think, I have a real problem with that kind of statement, because it assumes that a certain kind of behaviourist approach to how humans behave. And that, without a model, the illusion that without a model, one will simply respond by rote is problematic. So I thought of find that really interesting, not simply because it sits within the whole umbrella of stuff around affordances, but it also really to me, highlights the importance of ensuring that, the theories that we use about this stuff that are connected to other kind of theories that, that were growing up at the same time of this work, but had to do with, how humans behave, some of the stuff out of the friends at school and so forth. So I think taking affordances very, in isolation from other theories about learning, and other theories about, the way humans behave, without referring to behaviourism, I think it’s a precaution that’s has been picked up by the rorters. And I do think the notion of being human, brings with it a great deal of complexity and that one, can operate without operating by rote, without having a good model. So and coming to understand that is, a fundamental notion within experiential learning. So I do see that there are some problems here, although we’re relying on the architecture or on affordances, that as educators, we have thought about in other ways.


Q: There’s a lot there in what you said Merilyn, and I’m going to pick up on some of those points, in my turn in a minute, but just – it’s just that the whole relationship in terms of the other bodies of theory, which I guess Martin Oliver’s trying to allude to a bit, but I think that, I’m not completely sure that he’s done a good job in some respects, in relation to that. Let’s - Suyin we’ll go around the table here and then we’ll sort of open it up and allow more sort of, cross commentary on each other’s but do you want to make some points?

F: Actually this term on affordances and everything is very new to me. So I’ve been trying to understand what affordances mean. I’m not very sure about what’s the difference between real affordances, intended and perceived. And I was looking at, Norman’s article, on 0, he says, it’s rather claimed that the design of a graphical object on the screen affords thinking. And then later on in the paragraph it says, now if you left the mouse button and the wrong person appeared, there would be a real affordance. So sorry I’m not really sure about, what’s exactly the differences between this real affordances and then Lisa’s article intended and perceive. … (Unable to understand) Lisa’s article … (Unable to understand) you intended use for the library and I thought, I understand what she meant by, intended, perceive, but I look at the other articles, I become confused about, what’s the actual differences between the various terms of use. Whether there’s any overlap or is there … (Unable to understand)?

Q: It seems like real affordances, it’s really easy to explain them in terms of physical interaction with objects, but once you get to more complex tasks, such as interactive learning tasks, on a computer, it’s much harder to really define clearly what a real affordance is. And I think that’s, to me that’s part of the problem, between Norman and Gibson’s different takes, is that they’re thinking about a different context maybe. Penny, sorry.

M: … (Unable to understand) I had to avoid, I have actually found and catch myself earlier as I, I nearly used the words when I thought a real affordances, nearly used the words to a physical properties. And then it’s sort of, it came to mind that’s it, not necessarily, forms of … (Unable to understand) not necessarily had to do with things that are physical. So I think maybe functional properties would be a better way of describing real affordances.

Q: That’s interesting. Penny.

F: I thought, affordances too, like Suyin, is new to me, as a, in terms of it’s, in terms of reading in relation to this topic. So I must admit I was quite engaged with getting my head around this idea of affordance, I was getting quite enthused by the idea actually, seeing at lots of practical applications for the work. Norman threw me when he challenged me to say, well in actual fact a lot of them are conventions. I’m thinking about a desktop and I’m thinking about applications, I’m thinking about icons and then he tells me, no they’re not affordances, they’re conventions. So I went okay, so I took a back step again (Laughing).

Q: You don’t have to agree with him though.

BD_Technology and Teaching Practice Group 14 10 11 Page 4

F: Well I guess I don’t, but it did challenge me, because I was sort of at this point I’d nearly worked out, real, intended and perceived. I’d like to pick up on Jacquie’s point, about the interactive whiteboard, because I too think practical when I read these things, and I too agree with the idea that, as a tool which affords us, lots of opportunities in terms of learning, there are a lot of hidden aspects to that. And I went a step further, and I’m thinking about all the other ICT tools I use, like data loggers and GPS’s, and other tools like that, that really are hard for students to use, because they look, they don’t – the student’s I’m finding, perceive before they actually try and engage with it. Does that make sense? The visual is really important, and the moment it looks like a tool that I have to spend time to engage with, then it is a barrier. I like the idea of challenging, connecting models, connecting learning theory models here, because at the moment in my science reading, whereas science is always talked as about an enquiry, as a way to support kids learning in the constructive stage, and a constructive learning models. I’m recently reading stuff out of America which talks about models are actually challenging this idea of enquiries, perhaps a better way to teach science. So I’m very new in that space, and I’m just thinking it’s timely that I talk in affordances here at the same as I’m reading about models over there, there’s lots in my head.

Q: Christina-

F: Me?

Q: Yeah.

F: Well I’m going to say the same thing that, I guess it’s a word, a term, affordances that, I’ve come across and kind of assumed that I knew what it meant. So I’ve spent a lot of time reading the Gibson one, I haven’t read all the other articles but it kind of, made me think about some general beliefs I have about how people use concepts. So my responses are, are these, first of all, I got to Page 78 and I underlined in the 2nd paragraph he says, the – Page 78, 2nd paragraph. And starting at the 2nd sentence he says, the affordance of something does not change, as the need of the observer changes, whether or not the affordance is perceived or attended to, will change as the need of the observer changes, but being invariant it is always there to be perceived. And so that got me thinking, and I’ll use Jacquie’s example about say, a whiteboard, that I might see it in a particular way, but in fact, it can be leaned upon, it can be thrown at, it can be marked in various ways. So that started me thinking about the limits that I might impose on things, because of being a person with particular experience. So I really like there to be perceived, when I applied it to the computer, I was thinking there’s a whole lot of stuff about computers that I don’t get or ever see. Like the workings of it inside, but it is there, to be perceived, if I were to run that line of, I’m going to get into programming or pulling computers apart and that kind of stuff. So it’s there but I don’t necessarily see it, so I might say I don’t use, perhaps computers in powerful ways, I’m a particular user, because some of the affordances that are there to be perceived, I don’t get at. So there’s that, in relation to – I’ll just say concepts like, affordances, scaffoldings another concept that I thinks being applied in a weedy kind of way, by some people. So I take a hard line and that is, Gibson’s affordances is very powerful, so if I want to muck around with it, and


start calling it things that in fact his definition excludes, then maybe I need to get another concept, because if you start getting down to classes and categories of things, and getting this kind of, it’s not clear. Then for me, it’s easier to go back to the original concept and run with that, and maybe call the other things something else, if they don’t fit with the way in which, this powerful concept has been explained and developed here. So that’s a hard line stance.

Q: And I really love what you’re saying there, because I’m guilty of that, I think. And I’m really questioning my use of the term now as a result of this reading, because of the A) Lack of clarity in terms of agreed definition but also whether, if I don’t like Gibson’s version, then does he own it, because he … (Talking over each other).

F: That’s another thing, who owns concepts?

Q: Daryl.

M: I approach my reading from a teaching and technology perspective and affordances are new to me. So I think what, what struck me was that, the idea between real and perceived nothing, because if we’re trying to deliver teaching through technology, maybe we’ve got to look at the perception of our users, and what they see as what a … (Unable to understand) can afford, then is not perhaps what we see. Now, so maybe they got that as a, because they don’t understand, that either and what it can afford, and that because of their perceptions, maybe they’re not getting the full use out of it. So to me, I think that difference between the perception of the user, or the engager I guess, is what – I kind of interests me, before we even start to use technology or we are I guess, but if we’re using affordances in that manner and how we look at it from the teaching. And I wonder if the Gibson, Norman thing is, is a lot to do with the time and space, as in Gibson was a long time … (Background noise) that long ago so perhaps, his take was different because he did technology at the time … (Talking over each other).

Q: Thanks, Lisa isn’t it?

F: Yes, I could hear you all but I couldn’t see you, and I just got their thing working.

Q: Good, fantastic, so well we’ll bring you in after we finish going around the table here. So have you heard most of what we’ve said so far?

F: I heard a little bit, I’ve sort of been in and out.

Q: Good, welcome. Anne I’m really keen to hear your view, because Anne and I started talking about affordances a long, long time ago.

F: That’s fine.

Q: And I think we’ve probably both moved on in our views about it since then?

F: Well I – it was funny because it was good, I was really glad you were doing this, because it sort of brought me back into this and then – I mean I’ve moved in and out of Gibson, but I use – Gibson was one of the


organising constructs in my PhD, well it was one that I drew from, and have worked with a bit over the years. I think the key thing about Gibson for me, and I think that one of things that I – whenever I read Gibson, is the idea that, that it’s the idea – the key words for me for Gibson, are opportunities furnished and interact, because Gibson is an ecological psychologist. And so he’s really, his – when he wrote this, and if you read his wife as well, because his wife writes in this area too. They were looking at how they might connect with new ideas related to, constructivism which were coming out at the time. So they were trying to move away – I think he was kind of torn between the behavioural work that he was engaged in, but also try to overlay with these new ideas …. And so I, for me, Gibson is always about, and the notion of affordances is always about, how do you make meaning, how does an individual or an animal make meaning of the information that is available to them, and that’s where the affordance lies. So I connected then to the work of Bateson, so and one of the things that’s interesting is that there’s not a lot of discussion, in most of these readings around what is information. Like what position are these, do these people come from in relation to information? So what is it, how do they understand it, because it’s by understanding that particular notion that, you can understand how affordance the concept of affordance is being overlayed. Gibson referred; he comes back to Bateson and is certainly that idea that information is any meaning that makes the meaning. Any is anything that is some means – well I can’t remember the proper definition now, but so for me, there’s always more to an affordance than – affordances are available in the environment, but unless you are able to make meaning of the information, that comes from the affordance, then you’re not going to be able to understand the importance, or take up that opportunity that the affordance might have provide. So I’m working with refuges at the moment, social media, and I’m about to go out and do some interviews with them this morning, to talk to them about, how they use social media, how they use technology? The interviews that we’ve done so far, we’ve found quite interesting because they’re what we would perceive to be the affordances of the technology and that access into things like Facebook are not there. So for a lot of groups, so it’s kind of interesting.

F: Is it not there according to Gibson or not there according to the other man?

F: Well it’s not there according to the other guy, to Norman. So that in a way, is sort, is quite interesting, so that’s why I was sort of interested when this all came up again, but I also like – I know you’re talking about Gibson and Norman but I also like, is it Chemero as well, I’ve done some work-

Q: Martin Oliver refers to Chemero-

F: Chemero tries to – because what, my big interest is always how, I mean because it is an ontological view, is how do you, how do you bring that ontological view into, how it’s going to relate to social affordances? So I’m more interested in the social affordances, and which is not what Gibson, is not where Gibson started, but I think it’s where Gibson might wanted to have gone, if he hadn’t of died.

(All Laughing)


M: He doesn’t rule it out though?

F: Oh no, he doesn’t rule it out-

F: … (Talking over each other).

F: And so my big interest is that, my big interest is how do you, embed this in an understanding of what social affordances are? And it always for me, comes back to, how do perceive information? So it’s more, more complicated for me.

Q: I mean what really struck me in doing this reading, is firstly, that I’ve misrepresented Gibson’s ideas in the past, and probably in our conversations I think we’ve, come to an agreed - when we’ve talked about it in the past, I think we’ve been talking more closer to Norman’s definition than Gibson’s in some respect. And certainly Mark I think, we had an argument when we were writing our paper, and I think you were right and I was wrong (Laughing) in relation to the – because I’ve always in my head thought, if affordances are a relationship between the individual and the object or entity, then they have to be dependent on the prior experience, of the individual. So that the actual psychological properties of the individual, rather than the physical are what I would say are important. So then I would say then, that it’s about, it has to be the perceived affordances is what I’m thinking of, when I’m usually talking about affordance, because that’s what’s different between me, the classic example of a person who’s grown up in a village in Africa and never encountered a door, sees a door and it doesn’t afford the action of opening it. Well Gibson would say it does, because physically they can open it, whereas Norman would say, it’s not a perceived affordance. To me that’s the really interesting part of affordance, is the difference between one person and another, in the way they perceive what they can do with an object. So that – so to me it’s a, if you take a sort of a relativist constructivist view of affordances, then it has to be about perceived, but when I say perceived, I reckon it’s a really an interesting point that Oliver makes in criticising Gibson and criticising the concept affordances. It’s this idea that, if it’s perceived it has to be some sort of a conscious mentalist kind of perception, to me, if Gibson was around today, he would probably grab onto some of the cognitive neuroscience findings about the way that we, unconsciously through pattern recognition, identify the affordances of objects, in a non – and so that it’s not in a really classic mentalist kind of way, but it’s in a sort of, it’s an immersed embodied kind of way, but it’s still a cognitive process that’s actually occurring, and it’s different from person to person. So that’s, so to me that’s closer to Norman’s idea that affordances are only interesting if they’re, in terms of what’s perceived rather than what’s physically possible, once you move beyond a concrete interaction with an object. That’s my sort of take.

M: One of the things I was – changed my sense of what affordance meant was in Gibson, when he was talking about a negative affordances, I was quite surprised by that. That the water affords also to travel, drinking, swimming, cleaning, but also for its drowning value. I cliff affords, some things but also affords falling, and that was interesting then, because that, sort of was a kind of critiqued of technology in a way for me, because one of the negatives that are afforded by various things that we talk about with technology. Some of the, I found


something’s in Gibson a little bit, almost annoying and this sort of imprecision when you talk about things, like the surface of water, doesn’t afford anything to him, but you could leave out, the whole classes of animals, waterbirds, yes that it does afford something. It’s for instance, or dependent on visual the … (Unable to understand) of life. Well what about bats and dolphins and the fish that are down below, where there isn’t anything. So when someone – I see something like that, then it draws into question the whole concept, this person’s … (Unable to understand) their thinking, but I mean maybe it was probably the style at this time, where he throws in a, this gratuitous comment about, man being a nasty animal. It was so, anyway might, I’ll just leave it at that.

M: I was smiling and nodding as we were going around the table, and coming to some of Anne’s and Barney’s comments there. My background with affordances is from, a couple of design subjects that I did as part of my education degree, where looking at the … (Unable to understand) principles that were mentioned in one of the articles. We talked about the affordances of say, a door handle or what have you, so it was all about objects, and the kind of use that, the look of them, afforded to the user. So that’s my background with it, within the University, and maybe more in LTS than elsewhere, we’ve been talking about the affordances of technologies for learning and teaching. So what kind of use, they best afford for various purposes, but I would also think about interface design, and what characteristics of a computer interface, would sort of mean to users. And having recently read a bit of Lave and Wenger’s material, where they state that, all knowledge is situated and culturally contextual, I would argue that, as you’re finding with your refugee folk, when we as western folk, look at a computer interface, with our own experience, we may well see something quite different to what others, who haven’t had the same experience or exposure to technology may see. So I would take issue, with the idea of Gibson on Page 78, where, I think somebody else quote, the affordance of something does not change, as the need of the observer changes, because I think that, there is that whole cultural context. And I think that, if perhaps if we don’t pick up, the meaning that is expressed here around perceived and real affordances, you could just take it as plain English. The perceived affordance is actually the real affordance, because that’s what real to the individual, that’s their reality, in, if you take it from the sense that I’m trying to convey.

Q: Well I guess it just depends on your epistemological perspective, as to whether there’s an absolute reality at all in fact.

F: And that’s the problem with Gibson, is that Gibson doesn’t, is not interested in the epistemological argument, he’s more interested in the ontological argument.

M: So though, I still found it great, even though like it was limited, he did open up some new ideas for me, and I found it really valuable because it expanded my thinking around the whole idea. And found me some new things to grab onto.

F: Those things all kind of link up, don’t they, because it’s realism. I mean, the thing I found, I wanted more examples of say, with one thing, what’s the big bag of affordances for something? So pull out a chair, there’s a heap of things, what we perceived to mean, narrows


down, I’m only seeing part of what the big thing might be perhaps. So to take the example that you gave, and that you picked up on, if me, if I, from my particular perspective, which is culturally bound, only see that bit of it. And you see that bit of it, and you see that, but altogether, all of those things are there to be perceived. The limits of it, are if you like, because it’s kind of bounded by people’s experiences and so on, but maybe the richness of it, and I’m thinking here, even of inspiration or like, surely you know and Einstein or somebody, people see something that’s there to be seen, that hasn’t been seen. Do you know what I mean? If we were only ever seeing, what we can perceive, then how do we account for inspiration or people that pick up something and think, wow, what if I did that? You can only do, what if I did that, because there’s the affordance that that thing can-

F: It’s the opportunity to make that difference?

F: Where did that come from?

Q: Look I want to go to Lisa, and let her-

F: Sorry I just thought it was great comment that you made, thank you, sorry.

F: Please continue the conversation, I’m just coming in to, I’m happy to listen and learn from you, so please continue the conversation. I haven’t actually read the article, so I don’t really have anything to contribute about them, enjoying the conversation that I’m hearing.

Q: You don’t want to tell us what you’re from – how you’ve heard the term affordance used, without having read the article to see whether it’s, to give us your opinion on whether the lay persons use of the term is different to, the way in which we’re talking about it having just read all these articles.

F: No, now you’re putting me in a spot. Affordance to me, well actually I quite like the idea that, that the last speaker, I can’t see you, who were talking about, basically, how do we perceive something? Is how do we perceive something and I just have to try to think about when I, when I am introduced to new, whether it’s new technology it’s when, first of all I suppose it, how useful is it for me? And it only became, my creative instincts I suppose will kick in, when I really understand what I’m looking at. So whether that is new technology, whether it is, whatever it is, whether it’s that door, what’s so new about the door, that I need to understand, for me it is about understanding, firstly, and what am I looking at?

Q: Look I’ll just open it up now, for people to comment on each other’s comments or add in additional sort of critiques. Did many people read Martin Oliver’s article, I’d really like someone to explain some of his thesis to me, because I found there were bits that I, either didn’t agree with, or didn’t understand or both.

F: He’s ….

F: I’ve got his email … (Background noise).

Q: Well I thought his keynote wasn’t nearly as deep and dense as-


F: Is this guy that is this, the guy that you were telling me that, so he didn’t keynote did he. Is he the one that … (Talking over each other).

M: Closing keynote … (Talking over each other).

F: Shouldn’t be using it for students in the wrong way.

Q: Yeah just don’t use it at all, so when I saw he’d written an article, I thought we’d better see what he has to say.

F: So too ambiguous to be analytical valuable is what he said.

Q: Pretty much, but I think he, in a way he, both criticises – I mean that’s a valid point that he’s making there, but then he also criticises each of the discreet takes on it as well. And I just think that he’s overly harsh in his criticism of both, the Gibson and the Norman take.

F: Well what we kind of miss here is this, is the notion of language games as well. I’m sorry to go back to Beckenstein, but you do start to move into the affordances is a language games they would play as well.

M: … (Too faint) somewhere.

M: Doesn’t, didn’t he, no … (Talking over each other) resource reading.

F: What do you mean …?

F: Well what I mean is that, I mean we are all, we are all present in various language games, which bring us into certain discourses and certain ways of acting and certain ways of behaving, that are prefigured sometimes put us within a setting. And so, the language game itself, is representative of that, that, so when we engage with Gibson and we talk about affordances, we’re engaging with ecological psychology and a particular way of understanding that kind of thing. Norman comes from a different perspective again, and Oliver comes from a different perspective again, and in a way the affordance, there’s I suppose in ways, that, that for me, that demonstrates affordances, because each of those ways are seen on affordance provides - and the language the … provides me with an opportunity to interact with it. So the language itself is becomes an affordance.

Q: It’s taking relativism to a whole new level there aren’t they?

F: Well maybe I am-

Q: Be prepared to adopt totally different epistemological or ontological view … (Talking over each other).

M: … (Talking over each other).

F: Well I think there’s sometimes it’s more useful to, with this kind of work, to be far more flexible, and allow yourself to take those kinds of risks, in order to come to some understanding yourself of what these people mean.


F: Barney Merilyn here, I kind of think, that when I first came across the term affordances, that I saw it as kind of a little bit like the old Sussan’s clothes store or selling technique, this goes with that at Sussan’s.

(All Laughing)

F: I’ve been thinking, I think that there’s a separation in the kind of like, cultural practice of referring to affordances in terms of learning design. And the work that was done originally in the idea of-

(Interruption – Skype dropped out, talking about internet problems)

F: Sorry I just want to pick up on the point that I was playing with before, surely the richness of life-

F: Sorry-

M: Howdy Merilyn, we can hear you but not see you-

F: Listen I’ll just head out, I have to take this … (Talking over each other) I’ll have to leave, thank you, it was really-

M: Thanks Penny.

Q: Merilyn go again, because you were making a really interesting point?

F: See you later.

F: Sorry about that, I don’t know why I dropped out. So I sort of … the idea of, this goes with that at Sussan, is a kind of contemporary sort of use of the notion of affordances that, an object, an object subjectively and perhaps a learning objects of sub-dutifully … (Unable to understand) or goes with a particular learning thing. Facebook best goes with, student interaction in short bursts or whatever, whereas the original notion of affordances to me, I understand that it’s located under a kind of, a sort of a psychological frame, but it, at the time, they were, there was a lot of work being done, attempting to understand the nature of reality, whether it was – well is there either a life world for example that’s objective and outside human perception. And the whole debate around constructivism and so forth, growing out of some of things, so I actually sort of see it as a kind of big A Affordance, which has to do with an, almost philosophical theory of world. And smaller affordance which is the Sussan approach you chose to do in learning design. And so to that extent, I think a lot of this notions about the kind cultures are sort of muddling up of these ideas. And whether or not, the original notion of affordance in its original form is useful to contemporary research, because contemporary research is so influenced with the idea of social constructivism in learning design. Which is not what the original notion of there is an object, and there is a relationship between objects and animals, which is in its own sense, objective, as a kind of view, which is a fundamental view of that theory. And so I actually think that, in underpinnings on the big A Affordance and the little A affordance are quite different. And so talking about, but the truth is, that it’s really handy to be able to say, what does that afford? It’s a useful thing, there’s a usefulness in that, that kind of ignores those deeper things.


Q: And see I would say, it’s really useful to be able to say, what does that, afford to such and such a person or to such and such a category of people? I would always want to add, afford to somebody, to emphasise the fact that, that it’s not innate, that’s it to do with, a particular person’s physical properties and prior experiences. And that’s the sort of, but I love your distinction between big A and small A, just to sort of, so that you still, the big A, it’s like the master concept, we’re not going to corrupt it, but we still want to use the term.

F: I still feel like it, kind of bounds it in a way that, sells short Gibson’s, the essence of it, for example, let’s take a window. I never break windows, but like if there was a fire, and I was locked in here, I’d be through that window, so fast. And that’s because it’s got breakability, okay, so when I think about windows, like we were talking about doors before, same thing, smash-ability if I have to get out of this room really fast. So I feel like, sometimes the way people use it, kind of confines it to very, immediate kind of concerns that, are driven by certain things, but in fact, the richness of it, is that, should a particular circumstance, or something happened, then the affordances that, of the things, become maybe, that the potential of the thing, if you like. You suddenly use something because it can be used in that way, even though you’ve never thought about it, never done it or whatever, it’s there to be done.

Q: And we think about say a virtual world, as an educational technology then that, fits really well, because the idea that there are lots of possible affordances of virtual worlds in terms of the learning tasks that could be carried out. I think you’re sort of saying is it’s, useful to know what the, the full range of possibilities are even though an individual might perceive a virtual world with a fairly narrow range of affordances.

F: But it’s interesting because it implies in a way, one of the things that troubles me about some of the original work is that it implies that, that someone knows. That there’s almost like a God like theme that, that there is a relationship between animals and objects and that, that there is an, as you said, Barney innate characteristics in that relationship. And who is it that knows those innate characteristics?

M: And that’s a really important point Merilyn, and on Page 78, Gibson says, the object offers what it does, because it is what it is. And that’s a few lines after saying-

F: I love that.

M: The affordance of something does not change as the need of the observer changes. So the object offers what it does, because it is, what it is. It’s quite an objectivist view of things I’d suggest-

Q: Pretty much.

M: That was-

F: Jacquie here.

Q: Jack sorry Will.



M: See I think the affordance I guess to my thinking, the affordance doesn’t have to be, known by anything, to be there. I mean, and it’s often, like Chris was saying, if you’re on the deserted island or whatever, you suddenly all these things have different affordances; you discover they’re there to be discovered, of these various objects.

M: Did Jacquie what to jump in?

Q: Jacquie was that you wanting to jump in?

F: Yeah I was just going to say, is I like Merilyn’s idea of a capital A affordance and a small A. … (Unable to understand) in this article about water affording drowning, I thought was quite telling, I thought well how would you know that, unless you tried it in which case it is-?

(All Laughing)

F: So how does anyone know that water affords drowning? And animals would use that sort of definition, so that to me was kind of telling about, a very scientific way of looking at affordance. And that’s the thing is being more sort of about all our different, all the cultural perception.

F: So how do we learn that water causes you to drown? Do you learn through enquiry, or do you learn because someone has conceptual model that maps that, and you engage with that model?

Q: If someone told you about someone that drowned, and you believed them I guess, or you saw someone drown, you don’t have to have actually drowned to-

F: So it goes back to prior experience?

F: That’s how I know if I click on the little folder on my desktop, then I’ll find documents … (Too faint) and affordance which is … it was.

F: Norman says it’s a … (Talking over each other).


F: But again it comes, the almost, your cultural stuff, and I mean that in your context limits and sets out in particular ways, I mean, to come back to a computer, according to Gibson, a computer, an affordance is kind of a drop-ability thing. You can drop it, you could throw it at someone, you know that’s how he literally talks about things. That’s why I thought the water one was interesting, because I would never have thought of drowning as an affordability, but in that sense, surely from his – maybe I got it wrong, because I’m new to it, but anything that’s there as a possible, is the thing, but our cultural thing says, don’t drop your computer, or you know what I mean. It’s like, that’s not what we do, we don’t throw computers at each other, but it does have that thing, and if it an intruder came in, I’d pick it up and throw it. You know what I mean? It’s-


M: Have you seen that movie years ago, The Gods Must Be Crazy the one the coke bottle fell … (Talking over each other).

F: (All) Yeah, yeah.

M: And that kind of … (Talking over each other).

M: The affordances of a coke bottle?

M: That’s the difference-

Q: That’s a really good example isn’t it, to think about.

M: I tried to come up with a sort of a definition of what lives in the sea, and I said, provides the possibility of, so-

M: Potential is a word-

M: I came up with, I got a list of 3, sort of descriptors, that could be useful in discussions around affordances, perceived affordances, intended affordances and possible affordances, just other, so a slightly different way of thinking about it.

F: Isn’t Gibson going to one step, like one step … because they are all in ways, constructivist approaches to the theory. He is essentially saying they are innate too, not possibilities of or … of or, they are innate-

M: In their thing-

F: They think they are objective and scientific-

M: That’s right.

F: And they can be discovered, but they prove there’s human interaction with them, they are there. And that actually is their … position, and that I think why there is a, why Norman writes the … because that proposition of innate characteristic, it may or may not …. Pre this is our interaction, where’s the notion? So it’s – and that’s why there’s a problem, that’s why there is a kind of tension between the notion of the innate and the notion of the … of the innate.

Q: I agree, and I think that’s the crucial thing isn’t it, is that we’re trying to form a constructivist perspective, make use of a term that was originated by somebody who it would appear was not constructivist in their thinking.

M: But it’s interesting too, taking up the education side of things, I recently sort of investigated some of the origins of some things like, situated learning and other stuff. And if you go back to Lave and Wenger sort of stuff, they – am I naming them correctly, they don’t actually push it as any sort of educational thing, it’s somebody else who picks it up in the next step, whose name escapes me at the moment. Who is really the one where all the learning side of things comes from, yet there’s a lot of attribution back to Lave and Wenger, but if you go and read their stuff, they’re really not pushing that line at all, but so I sort of see Gibson as the originator of a thought, and a term, and


puts his own stamp on it, but I really see Norman as putting something different on it. And if you were to write about it, or wrestle with it, you would need to define whose notion you were going to work with or around or whatever. And I – putting it very simply, Norman on Page 39 says, when you first see something you’ve never seen before, how do you know what to do? And to me, that really, that sort of idea aligned with my, I guess original, well starting place with affordances. And thinking about what different objects are, use, look or whatever my affording terms of use.

Q: For different individuals as well, that’s the crucial thing, because it sometimes, assume that everyone sees the interface or the learning environment in the same way.

M: So going back to one on my criticism of a Mac, sorry Merilyn, back in the early days is, I didn’t find it intuitive to eject my disc by, throwing that icon into the rubbish bin. They’d just, it didn’t - dragging the disc icon into the rubbish bin, to get it to eject, that just didn’t connect for me.

Q: But then it became a convention?

F: But isn’t the eject-ability that it can be, ejected the thing?


F: I’m grappling with it like, I love the example of sitting on, so it affords sitting on, so the machine affords eject-ability, I’m probably not using the right form of the word. Whether you like it, prefer it, or whatever, the thing, the eject-ability of it is there for the-

Q: But the actual way of doing that where you’re dragging an icon on top on another icon, any – it’s theoretically possible to drag any icon on top of any other position on the screen. You can do all sorts of interesting things with a computer, you can click anywhere, hold your mouse button down, and move to any position on the screen physically, but that’s not that interesting, what’s interesting is, when you look at the interface, what picking up and dragging actions-?

F: Which are the affords-

Q: You perceive to be possible through the interface?

F: So the affordance is the picking up and dragging, like sitting on, picking up and dragging?

Q: Yeah.

M: I’m thinking Gibson’s example of the cliff is maybe and perhaps and I can be shouted down, one of the one’s that we might, more strongly support his ideas about things being innate, because I think within us, most of us have that sense of, danger or what have you. And if you walk up to a cliff, that negative affordance, the potential to fall off is an inbuilt trigger, a safety mechanism, whereas with water, given the number of drownings, I’d suggest it probably is less of an innate type affordance, negative affordance.


M: So maybe just to be clear, so you’re saying that physical affordance is there, and then the potential for something physically but if it’s not seeing you, you’re not calling it affordance or so are you going away from Gibson’s original-

Q: No I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t, I think that’s a dangerous thing to do, I think it’s – I think to me, my take home message is, I need to probably use the word perceived affordances to make really clear, that when I’m – what I’m talking about is perceived, just as Norman has said that, he’s going to do from now on, make a global change on every document on his computer. So no one can ever say he’s misusing the term-

F: If use that, in that way then, you have to pick up what Gibon talked about in terms of intended as well, because we perceive it is in owned by the user viewer, the maker of the ICT or applications, the intended performance.

Q: Look I think intended is interesting, but I really don’t agree with the equating of the real and intended-

F: No, no, no, purpose-

Q: And to me there’s a bit of a floor in Lisa’s little diagram there, because to me, there’s a place here where something is real, but neither perceived nor intended, if you know what I mean. So in affordance, so somebody might, might not yet have discovered-

M: That’s where the possibly one goes.

Q: That’s right, that’s right, so there should be a 4th box there, that there’s something you can do, someone might ultimately do it, when they perceive it, it wasn’t intended.

F: There’s a paper in that.

F: So is that Gibson’s, is that Gibson’s bit, that’s left out?

Q: Maybe, well I don’t know, I think it would be better if Lisa was clearer about the difference between real and intended, because I think she almost, as Mark said – did you say Mark you thought she was almost equating the 2?

M: That’s right that was my main problem with it.

Q: Pity she’s not here to defend her position, she had something else on, she would’ve liked to be here, maybe on the blog, we could take up that part of the discussion.

F: So in that sense, the limits of us as people, and I don’t mean that in a negative way, but limits being who we are, our experiences, the cultural stuff, the social stuff. All of that, is about what we can perceive, but in fact, the affordances are beyond the limits of the individual or cultures meaning we have many cultures, if you know what I mean. So all of that chomps into, if you want to run with that idea of perceived, it’s like you only get a slither of the thing, because Gibson’s definition seems to encompass even things like, what things are made of, how they can be used, and those things are – some of those


things are cultural concepts, or cultural things. So perceived will always be more limited than, what Gibson’s trying to get at, which is the fullness of the-

Q: The sort of the infinite range of possible perceived affordances-

F: No, no, no, just affordances-

Q: No, no it’s not actually, because they’re things that could be incorrectly perceived as well, aren’t there-?

F: Or just not seen because you’re a person-

Q: But then-

F: On a particular experiential background-

M: You come from a certain experience.

Q: But you also might perceive something that isn’t actually an affordance as well. So they’re not a, a perceived affordance isn’t a subset of real affordances, it’s an overlapping.

F: Look I was in an antique shop the other day, and it just cracked me up, I had to ask the lady what things were for. There were cutlery and things that, for many people no longer are to be used in that way. So like time and all that comes with it, in terms of things, a whole lot of stuff is no longer there, about those objects. So if you do run with that perceived thing, you’ve also got history in there as well, and in a sense things can lose their affordances, and they haven’t changed. The things still the same, but because we’ve changed and times changed the things-

M: It affects our culture-

F: It is affordance.

F: Barney-

M: It is a perceived-

F: Sorry-

F: The word perceived is an interesting one, because it implies discovery of the pre-existing condition. And I continue to struggle with this, because I, because of the notion of things being constructed, through human experience, culture etc. So whether or not it’s perceived, which implies scientific discovery, or it’s constructed, I don’t know, for me the jury is still out, because of, in the end this comes down to whether or not one is going to play with the original notion of affordance, and interpret it within its own terms, or whether or not the original concept actually can be used in that way, through the compromise of the word perceived, if one is in fact, socially constructing and arguing under that framework. That’s number one, the 2nd thing is the notion of perception, tends to have been formulated from within, an individual or psychology framework. And whether or not that, that idea that lies behind the word perception, as in innate to


the individual, or whether or not there’s the, a broader concept of socially perceived, and therefore, linking into the social psychology and social constructivism. It’s about saying, what’s the clarity of thinking that lies around those things, and I don’t propose an answer to that, but I think it depends on, where one is sitting, with these ideas. And what’s consistent within the way the one is thinking about these things, but I do see that, the consistent, that the word perceived implies certain types of ontology’s and whether or not that fits within what one is attempting to do is a question that remains open to me.

Q: Yeah I think that’s a really, really well made point, that it’s a, it implies a sort of an objective as epistemology to some extent perceived, if you say it is, that the world is, it’s a realist sort of, the world is there to be perceived. Whereas your idea of the alternative of actually constructing your own personal conceptual understanding including the affordances of objects, I like that, so constructed affordances.

M: Do … (Talking over each other).

F: No knowledge of the things or the … (Talking over each other).

F: I don’t, I mean I don’t necessarily propose that as a solution but I can see the problem of the word perceived, for the reason that you just kind of re-said.

Q: I think that’s and as you say that, it’s if the definition of perceived is more of a constructivist definition then you’re okay, but just-

M: I’m not sure I’m following, so if there is a realist that’s actually, if we’re saying, that there is something actually out there that, physically can do some things, that affords something. Now whether I perceive it or not, having somebody may recognise that, and perceive it, and that perception maybe socially or individually constructed, but the fact is, they do or they don’t perceive it. I mean I guess I’m not, I think I’m missing something, I don’t see why there’s a problem.

F: Well what I would say in extension of what I was – of that argument that I just put or that thought. Is that one has to either decide whether one accepts the realist world or not, and that if you’re in a … (Unable to understand) if your thinking phase and fully into it, a social constructivist mind frame, you won’t necessarily accept the nature of the objective world. So this is a fundamental issue, of debate, as to whether or not the notion of a realist world that should be discovered exists or not, it’s the fundamental tension between post positivists and positivist kind of intersections and journeys. And so I’m not saying what my position is necessarily in that, because I certainly endlessly argue with myself about it. All I am looking at, is the intellectual kind of predictions of logic that exist. So what I’m saying is that, what’s our debate here is, whether or not a realist world exists outside of perception that is a philosophical debate.

M: And if somebody accepts that, or intends to accept that there is a – that does exist, sort of realist world, then it’s kind of, some of these other questions don’t come up so much, it’s not a problem.


F: That’s right.

Q: It works, it works, the idea of an absolute affordance works and the idea of a perceived – different people perceiving that absolute affordance. Look I’m aware of the time, and I know we’re not going to resolve the constructivist and objectivist question around the table this morning, but I think that’s been a really fantastic conversation. I’d like to just stop the conversation about the literature, but just spend a bit of time talking about those 2 other points, which is the symposium and also the group’s blog, which not everyone’s aware of, and I want to just make sure people are aware of it. And also that are happy with what we’re doing with people’s really interesting ideas that, have been captured through the audio and transcribed, you happy with that? Is anybody have any – did anyone have a really point that they desperately wanted to make before we put affordances aside?

F: Jacquie here, I was really the science of … drowning in relation to everything we were talking about, that’s all, was just something to think about, in terms … (Unable to understand) thinking whether it was an absolute reality or not we could.

Q: Try drowning?

M: A bit hard with the phone dropping in and out.

Q: Yeah your audio’s not brilliant Jacquie, so we-

F: We didn’t talk much about the social, and he does touch on that, though not as thoroughly. So he talks about people and affordances, so maybe some of the important questions that Merilyn was raising there and you’re commenting on, maybe going back, well for me, going back and looking at what he says about, people rather than, a lot of the other material things might be one way I’d try to think more about the points that Merilyn was making.

Q: So that’s a nice segue because I wanted to ask people about the symposium, I sent out, I think everyone received the – my sort of proposed layout with – we talked to about it briefly last time. As a, like I suggested a title of something like, The Communicative Affordances of Online Tools, I did say And Constraints … (Unable to understand) suggested taking out And Constraints. And I actually agree I think, the lack of an affordance is good enough and you can just keep it shorter, but is it – are we happy that that’s not a misrepresentation of the concept of affordance?

F: Who’s concept?

Q: Well I mean are we opening ourselves up to criticism or I mean to me it works, to me you can have a communicative affordance even though, Oliver says you can’t, I think that Gibson alludes to it, late in the article. I’m comfortable with a tool affording a particular social interaction.

F: So you don’t want to use negative affordances?

Q: In the title?


F: Yeah, isn’t that a constraint?

Q: I guess.

F: Drowning’s pretty constraining.

M: And if … (Talking over each other).

F: And I’m kidding, I’m kidding.

Q: Are you happy with the title?

F: Good title, yeah.

Q: I wish I had got a print out of it in front of me I think, unfortunately.

F: Did you put a big A on that or a little A?

(All Laughing)

M: That’s a little one.

M: … (Too faint).

Q: Take your pick depending on your, which version of APA you’re using, I think we’ll just – it’ll be a little A but a big A if you were capitalising all your words perhaps, don’t know. So now, you’re happy with that date, which is a Thursday the December the something or other?

F: 15th?

Q: 15th, I did get a query from Judy O’Connell saying that, she was going to be up here for graduation on the Tuesday, and if it was on a Wednesday it would save her an extra day of being in Wagga, but I think Guy’s committed on Wednesday isn’t he?

F: Yeah he is.

Q: So it’ll have to be Thursday for that reason. Do you think the sort of structure that I’ve proposed sort of looks like it might work, so a key note with Guy at the beginning, a series of presentations by individuals. I’m thinking probably whole group, I don’t think there’ll be enough to justify parallel sessions, and if we make them whole group, then we get more of a collective sort of thing. And then at the end, a nice facilitated session, where we unpack the ideas, try and connect them together and talk about what we might do as a result. Yep, silence is agreement. Son I don’t know if people saw Son’s response, did he reply to all with his – say his suggestion, we could make that a special issue of distance education, that’s his journal here, that’s on the topic. And I’m reluctant to commit to that, in advance, because I sometimes – been to some things like this where, once you get there, you realise how disparate the views are, some of them are not all that deeply explored yet. And it’s a long way away from, from publication, but I’d certainly be open to that as a possibility. Somebody said, I don’t know if you saw Dean Dudley’s comment saying, not distance because we don’t only teach distance but to me, the distance education journal


explores issues that are relevant to distance education. They might also be relevant to other types of learning, but certainly the issues that we’d be covering I think would be of interest to that readership. So it’s not a big stretch to publish it in that journal.

F: What about e-learning?

M: This sounds really valuable, but I’m still haven’t finished my PhD so I’m going to pass on this one.

Q: Righto but you can, still welcome to attend.

M: Thank you.

Q: Do you mean?

F: The e-learning, the journal that Oliver wrote in. It’s formally … (Talking over each other).

Q: Oh it’s … (Talking over each other) is it?


F: It was I’m not sure if he’s still …?

Q: What did you say Mark?

M: The journal e-learning that Martin Oliver published an article, it is now, it has been renamed, it’s now called … (Unable to understand) in the media and … (Unable to understand).

Q: Who edits it Mark?

F: … (Unable to understand).

M: I forget?

F: She’ll know.

M: Published by – who’s it published by? Published by symposium journals and the editor is-

F: … (Too faint)?

F: E-learning.


M: Oh I didn’t know that the editors are both based in New Zealand, Michael Peters, and Tina Bentley-

Q: So is it, I mean there’s a question of fit, that’s - and obviously a broader journal, it’s not specifically distance, might be a better fit. There’s also the - not all editors are happy to sort of let you commandeer a special issue in that way, and so if Son was prepared to, then that’s something we could consider. I, my thinking is that if we did go that way, we should make it something that others, not involved


in the symposium can submit too, just so that it’s not a complete closed shop. So we can have a symposium, we could say, one of the possibilities from the symposium is that, people submitting papers might have the opportunity to submit an article to a special issue of a journal, but we would make that an open submission, just in terms of, quality and so on. It just opens it up that, that it would be, sort of in a sense, it would be a special issue owned by this group, but others might contribute to it. Does that sound like a – am I being too generous to the other, the rest of the world?

M: I mean I believe the approach is not to have an open call, but to actually invite people from outside the group to contribute.

Q: Well I mean that, maybe that’s a way; I mean obviously they’d have to be reviewed, so there’d be no guarantee that anyone’s article would get published. We did this once years ago, a journal called … a group of us here at CSU put in – did a special issue. And I think there might have been 1 or 2 articles that didn’t get up, but it worked. And then the idea of inviting I guess, means that if you don’t quite have enough, or you feel as though there’s some important things that weren’t explored, that you know someone who’s exploring, you might invite it, to create a better neat bundle I guess.

M: We could get Martin Oliver to write an article.

Q: Yeah, well I’m thinking that, that symposium won’t solely be devoted to the, won’t solely be focussing on the notion of affordances. The sort of themes, I’ve tried to make them broad enough to ensure that, there’d be people in the group, that people feel as though they might have something to contribute, even if they’re not specifically moving the concept of affordances further, but as you say, if we were going to really narrow in on that, Martin might be someone.

F: I like the idea of a journal that’s broader than perhaps the scope of distance education, because for example, if I was doing a paper I’d probably do it about children, using computers in the home and at school or something like that. So I’m not saying, me, me, me, but you know what, there may be other people, for example, Guy Merchant himself, who might be interested in writing. He writes about, children, not, he doesn’t write about distance education, I may be taking it too narrowly there, but I-

Q: It’s a very sort of higher end kind of thing isn’t it-?

F: E-learning might not be the one either, but if there were, there may be other journals that would be more encompassing, you know best Barney, the kinds of areas that people are working in-

Q: Well let’s look at it this way, let’s not approach an editor yet, let’s aim to do something like that, if we’ve got the depth and breadth of stuff that we need to do that, but let’s collectively make that call, once we’ve – know we’ve got. So maybe during that last session, we might talk about it, or have a follow up meeting and then, with that, we’ll have a bunch of abstracts ready to send off to an editor and say, this is the kind of thing. And we can choose the journal, but I hear what you’re saying there, and I think you’re probably right, that DE might be too prescriptive, because it tends to be higher ED as well.


Okay, what I’m thinking with the symposium and the other thing is to make it, obviously highlighted as something for us as a group to contribute to, certainly though, allow others within the University and also outside the University if people find out about it, to attend. I thought promoting the idea of people submitting presentations across the University, rather than restricting it to this group, but I’m in two minds about that. I mean a groups a bit of a fluid thing, we’ve got a, quite a long list of people who I invite, some of them attend occasionally, some more, attend more often. And so when I say the group, I mean all of those people on that list.

F: Is that still on?

Q: No, but I might turn it off now, because we don’t it to be.

(Recording Stopped)


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