Luiz wrote:
When we use computers as if we were "digital office clercs", we are actually
(re)producing a socio-historical form. And everyone in the process of
learning how to use a computer has to "interiorize" the office metaphor and
everything that goes with it. This could help explaining the differences in
terms of performance.
good points, Luiz - it explains a great deal - and for children in the beginning grades of elementary school these terms are used without any explanation - and so the child learns these terms without any contextualization in relationship to office work.
and earlier,
Eugene wrote:
LACC kids told me that many of them have very
little access to computers in their schools but when they have access it is
very low quality access described nicely in Mike's old but unfortunately
still relevant article:
Cole, M. & LCHC (1989). Kids and computers: A positive vision of the future.
Harvard Educational Review, 59, 73-86.
In many schools with low income kids, computers often replace worksheets (or
workshits?? - pardon my French :-)/dittos to do drills or other
decontextualized activities using a "bottom-up" approach described in Mike's
paper. Meanwhile in many schools with middle and upper income kids,
computers are often used to promote creativity and higher level skills...
What do you think?
this plays out not just in computer work, but in most forms of academic work - there is a deep belief amongst many educators - and in a sense Lisa Delpit valorized this - that Black american students, children of poverty, etc., need direct instruction of skills rather than touchy-feely whole language - her example of a reading program to use, Distar, is a scripted, behaviorist, phonics/skills based instructional program.
it is terribly complex - all these people/researchers/academics telling teachers what they should be doing. so that as professionals, teachers have little time and resources to inform their own practice -
and Lee's article in a sense has completely decontextualized her research efforts from the larger field of education.
phillip
phillip white
university of colorado at denver
school of education
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