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merlin's picture

I am posting this as a

I am posting this as a comment on a previous post because there is something wrong with my account..

 

 Reading Clark, I realized that "scaffolding" was not a new term for me. I knew that I'd seen it used before elsewhere. Then I remembered, it is sometimes used in Psychology (particularly in developmental psychology) to describe how parents teach their children. They provide constructive assistance to the child through different stages of development. The help is specifically tailored to the capabilities and developmental stage of the child. Scaffolding is important because it makes it easier for the learner to complete the task, thus having a more enriching experience from partaking in the activity. I think that technology can serve a purpose functionally equivalent to that of the parent in parent-child scaffolding. Technology enables the user to expand his or her abilities outside of that which he or she would be capable otherwise.This provides an improved experienced that was supplemented with the aid of an extension of the person's own abilities. Scaffolding is a parenting technique that was noticed and described by Vygotsky. Explained a Zone of Proximal Development, in which is the difference between what a child is capable of under her own capacities compared to what she is capable of with the aid of scaffolding through parental guidance. I think there should be a similar term in the Cyborg extension of human capabilities. Scaffolding helps the individual not only to have a heightened experience with the use of technology, it helps the person just as scaffolding helps the child – it can facilitate learning. In this way, technology seems to be a more advanced form of aid which we are already primed for from childhood with the interactions brought about with our parents. To me, this seems to be a good example which helps validate Clark's use of scaffolding. It is an extension of ourselves, an extension of our abilities. It makes us into infinitely powerful learners and experiencers of the world.

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