[DG: Teaching & Learning] User Goals

[Luke Fernandez]

An interesting exercise....which begs the question (which I think Clay
alludes to at the end of his post) as to whether pedagogical goals
can, in all instances, be articulated in ways that are abstracted from
the technologies we use for teaching and learning.

A case in point is that many instructors (especially in the
humanities) view reading and writing as fundamental skills that they
seek to impart to their students.  But reading and writing are
themselves techniques and presume the use of the written word which is
itself a technology.  In the first monday article that Michael
circulated Lane seems to be lamenting as Thoreau did that we are
becoming tools of our tools.  But technology is so embedded in the
teaching of some disciplines that it would be difficult to get away
from this circularity.

Cheers,

Luke




On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 9:55 AM, Robin Hill <hill at uwyo.edu> wrote:
> I agree completely.  Articulating the pedagogical goals rather than the
> mechanics is a worthy exercise; in fact, it's the whole point.  And more
> difficult than it seems, so I invite others to point out the hidden
> assumptions in my stated objectives, as well.
>
>
> Clay Fenlason wrote:
>>  I was looking at the "Learning Capabilities" spreadsheet [1] again
>>  this morning, and was glad to see it being fleshed out. I did however
>>  note a tendency for the "user goals" to creep into feature requests
>>  and implementation assumptions as the list grows longer, which starts
>>  to dilute its effectiveness. Since I warned on the T&L call a few
>>  weeks ago that I would be pushing back on this kind of thing, I now
>>  feel free ;) I know it's hard to avoid the sort of language that
>>  assumes common web tools, since we all live and breathe in this
>>  space, but let me urge the effort once again, and offer a few
>>  examples to illustrate the point.
>>
>>  Near the top of the sheet the user goals take the form of "I need to
>>  see who's in my class" and "I want to learn the names of all my
>>  students/peers." Simple and universal needs with no technological or
>>  functional assumptions.
>>
>>  Near the bottom there are now user goals like "Allow me to use common
>>  keyboard shortcuts" and "Allow me to listen to class readings with a
>>  screen reader." For such things it would be better to place them
>>  among the "capabilities" columns and try to trace them back to the
>>  essential, non-technical need. Maybe that's going to be the right
>>  exercise for most of us who take these technical tools as second
>>  nature: first lay out what seem to us the capabilities in the middle
>>  of the sheet, and then try to work back to the left what the
>>  underlying, non-technical user goal is. If that can't be done that
>>  may be a sign of something.
>>
>>  ~Clay
>>
>>  [1]
>>
> https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AlfbHxo2qpHEdHRuSnowVGMwWE9HY1MtVjFpY1dtS0E&hl=en
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> --
>  Robin Hill, Ph.D.       hill at uwyo.edu       307-766-5499
>  Instructional Computing Services            http://www.uwyo.edu/ctl
>  Ellbogen Center for Teaching and Learning   University of Wyoming
>
>
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