Interactions of the fourth kind

Interaction. For many teachers, it has become the keystone of contemporary education. Many studies into the importance of interaction in education have been conducted. We all have different definitions of what interaction involves, but most of us agree - it's an important component of learning. According to theorist Michael G. Moore, there are three types of interaction. In an editorial piece in the American Journal of Distance Education in 1989 Moore outlined his three levels. The first, learner-teacher, is the most likely kind of interaction to be found in traditional classroom settings, but with the age of social media and other forms of digitally mediated communication, interaction can now be just as rich an experience when conducted at a distance.

The second type of interaction, according to Moore, is the learner-learner kind. Generally, this kind of interaction can be seen in the informal conversations that take place outside the classroom, in the common room, at the pub, waiting for the bus home. And yet, in formal learning settings,  learner-learner interaction can be used as a valuable pedagogical technique to encourage free thinking, deeper engagement with the topic, debate and discursive activities, collaborative learning and much more.

Moore's third kind of interaction is learner-content. This is probably the least formal of the interactions in terms of its place in the classroom. Although some learner-content interaction can be observed, with the momentum now toward more discussion, project work and collaborative learning within the classroom, student-content interaction is more likely to occur outside the classroom, at home, at work, on journeys. 

In 1994, Hillman, Willis and Gunawardena suggested a fourth kind of interaction - student-interface. In the digital age, this is the first point of contact between students and all other kinds of interaction. Students now interact more or less continually with their peers, their tutors. The article called for "design strategies that facilitate students' acquisition of the skills needed to participate effectively in the electronic classroom". Hillman et al hit the nail on the head 18 years ago, as new computer systems emerged. Even more than ever, in the age of new handheld devices, wearable computing and natural gesture technology, we need even more effort put into understanding how learners interact with their tools and technologies.

How for example, might students learn differently using touch surfaces such as the iPad, when compared to non-touch devices such as the X-Box 360 Kinect? There is discussion about the advantages of game playing using haptic perception (sense of resistance and tactile feedback) devices such as the Nintendo Wii handset over powerful gestural but non-touch controlled interfaces. What about the several human senses that are brought into play when such tools are used? What can we learn about ourselves and our environments when proprioception (the relative position of our limbs and body in relation to each other) and equilibrioception (the sense of body movement, balance and acceleration) are called into use? For a long time we have focused on the main senses (audio and visual, and to a lesser extent kinaesthetic) at the expense of the many other human senses, but with new technologies increasingly available for learning, it is now time to study the effects of the fourth kind of interaction in greater detail.

Image by Alvaro Canivell

References

Hillman, D.C.A., Willis, D.J. and Gunawardena, C. N. (1994) Learner interface interaction in distance education: An extension of contemporary models and strategies for practitioners. The American Journal of Distance Education, 8 (2), 30-42.

Moore, M. G. (1989) Editorial: Three types of interaction. The American Journal of Distance Education, 3 (2), 1-6.


Interactions of the fourth kind by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.