**5. Two digital tools from 'Google workspace for education' fundamentals**

The final example in this study relates to two tools within the 'Google Workspace for Education'suite of tools for educators. Google Workspace for Education is used by many educational institutions including universities and schools. It is a cloud-based tool that according to Google, provides "a free suite of easy-to-use tools that provide a flexible and secure foundation for learning, collaboration, and communication" (Google, 2020 https://edu.google.com/products/workspace-for-ed ucation/education-fundamentals/). The range of tools include Gmail (email tool), Calendar, Meet (videoconferencing tool), Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Classroom, Assignments, Sites, Groups, Drive, and the Administrator Dashboard. The suite of tools can be shared with other users so that they can collaborate synchronously or asynchronously.

Screenshots of the tools in use were taken by the researcher. The screenshots are from my own social practice, in my role as a teacher who has to manage a wide variety of social actions related to teaching and learning. These roles include contacting students and communicating with colleagues by email (Gmail) as well as creating educational resources by 'writing' on a document in Google Drive.

**Figure 17** is a screenshot of an email from an (anonymized) student to me. In the email, the student has sent me work, attached as a document. At the bottom of the screenshot there are three phrases: 'Great', Thanks for letting me know', 'Great!' and 'Great. Thanks!'. One of the affordances of these phrases for the user is being able to click these phrases for intentional use as a response to the sender, that may save time writing. It is also useful for making sure that the phrases used by the writer of the email are grammatically and orthographically correct. This is conceivably important if English is not your first language. However, using the typology in **Figure 8** of signs-as-agents, I propose that these phrases, that can be clicked on by users as "off the shelf" pre-made responses, can be understood as passive agents.


**Figure 17.** *Screenshot of an email from an (anonymized) student to me.*

#### *Rethinking 'Affordance', 'Agency' and 'User' from a Semiotic Technologies Perspective… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99699*

The design intention of the signs ('Great. Thanks for letting me know.', 'Great!' and 'Great. Thanks!') is presented to the user in order for the user to initiate (click) instead of making a human typed response. In this action, the initiation serves to *replace* a human written/typed turn.

At this point it is useful to compare this finding with the findings from the Tandem tool, specifically how learners' oral turns can be shaped in different ways. Whereas Knight, Dooly and Barberà [23] highlighted how screen-based resources could shape oral turns by lexical/visual items becoming embedded or becoming topics of talk, results of the analysis in this study illustrates how screen-based resources can shape written (typed) turns of humans in a different way. This is illustrated in **Figure 17** whereby if the user intentionally clicks on a sign/screenbased resource, the chosen sign can then replace the user's (typed) turn completely. We can understand these signs as other potential shaping agents.

In **Figure 18**, I turn to another tool in the Google Suite, namely a Google Document in Google Drive. The affordance of using Google documents is that they can be shared across time, space and also be used by a number of users, synchronously or unsynchronously.

In the Google Document, in my role as a teacher, I have started to use the document for course planning purposes within an educational setting. As I am typing, the system 'suggests' how I might finish the word that I have started to type ('said') as well as suggesting complete words that I might type next ('and done'): acting as a predictor. To 'accept' the suggestion, I can press the right-arrow key. To 'reject' the suggestion, I can keep typing. Following the emerging typology, we can understand this predictive text to be a shaping agent that is passive and that can become embedded in my typed turn (understood as the completion of the word). Also following the typolgy, I can agentalise it by 'accepting' using the right-arrow key. This choice of 'accepting' and 'rejecting' can be understood as my response turn. Furthermore, this process conceivably resembles a negotiating process with the digital tool, rather than a purely creative one, as I negotiate my responses through touch, with the screen-based resources.

Before concluding, a second version of the typology is presented in **Figure 19**, encompassing all the signs-as-agents identified across the three examples analysed.


**Figure 18.** *Screenshot of a Google Document that is being used for planning and educational course.*
