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Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
Very nice discussion of the concept of 'affordances'. "Affordances can be thought of as possibilities for action. Affordances are detected by a goal-driven agent as they move about in an 'information field' that results from the working of their senses in concert with their body movements." Matangdilis contrasts affordances - which are more like facts of nature - with cultural conventions (though obviously one is related to the other, as we see easily with the QWERTY convention for typewriters). And he draws some interesting conclusions about perceptual learning. "The idea here is that knowledge does not only exist in the world but also in the environment. And that in order to learn one does not need to be separated from the environment; one does not need to withdraw inside the mind to learn. That separation from the environment would lead to loss of knowledge. The unity and inseparability of man and environment is important." Good stuff.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
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