Affordances

Every activity that we do has the potential to lead on to other activities. For example if I am knitting a hat and run out of wool I may then go shopping. Or if I was knitting a hat and someone came past and asked me what I was knitting the activity of knitting and I chatted to them. In both these examples the knitting has preceded and allowed for the following activity, shopping and chatting respectively. This is my understanding of the term affordance

There are three parts to affordance; communication properties, action properties and moral properties.

Communication properties: This refers to the ability of the activity to lend itself to communication. Communication is an important part of being human. It allows us to connect with others and express ourselves. I'll tell you about the communication to do with knitting:

In order to center myself I'll start with a particular instance. Last Friday I brought my knitting into polytech to do while listening to lectures. The obvious way that my knitting aided communication in this setting was through people asking me what I was knitting. It also helped me to concentrate on what I was hearing. Other times when I knit I knit with friends and we discuss our knitting. Or we might have conversations about anything else, just knitting helps to facilitate the conversation. I sometimes ask other people for patterns and that is a good way of beginning a communication. When I make something for someone else I am communication my love and affection for that person. Such as making a hat for Mum or booties for my niece. Sometimes when I knit, I can afterward look at something I've knitted and remember what I was thinking about and what was happening around me at the time of knitting. This communicates my memories to myself.

 Carmen Sylvia, the queen of Romania (as cited in Nicholson, 1998)  said
 "We get into a kind of fever with doing nothing. A very wise country clergyman allowed the women to knit during his sermons; never had a preacher more attentive listeners: not one of them dropped of to sleep as overworked  women are apt to do when they for once sit down. They grow drowsy and can't keep their eyes open. Allow them to knit and they will be able to tell you almost every word they have heard."

This is exactly what I mean. Knitting assists in the retention of information and helps the listener focus their mind. It certainly helps me not to get distracted. 

Action properties: This refers to other activities or actions that the task enables or encourages.
This is also the story of the activity, so beginning (what happened before), middle (the activity) and end (what  happens afterward). 

Here is one story: I planned to knit with my friend on Sunday so I made sure that when I left home I had everything that I needed. I had already bought the wool and arranged with my friend to provide the pattern and the needles. Before we could start knitting my friend had to wind up her wool. this got knotted so we did a bit of knot untying. Then we selected the needles and pattern and got underway. The family was watching a movie so once I got the hang of my knitting I was able to watch that too.

Moral properties: This is the right or wrong way of doing something as the person doing it sees it.

Following the pattern is one thing that is important to me. If I drop a stitch or miss something out then either un-knit back till I can redo it or un-pull the entire thing and start again. I don't think knitting is of as good a quality when you use acrylic yarn instead of wool.people use different techniques to knit. I was taught to cast on in a completely different way than my friend and each of us does it our own way and would find it strange to do it any other way. I also used to know a lady who held her needles in a weird way. Even watching her my Mum and I couldn't figure out how she was actually knitting with her needles going in those directions.   


Reference:
Nicholson, H. (1998). The loving stitch: A history of knitting and spinning in New Zealand. Auckland, NZ: Auckland University Press.