>I assume we are all in agreement that instruments alone are at
>best distractions. Larry Cuban's book on technologies and how they
>DONT change things remains a good statement of that principle. But
>the question remains: under what conditions can cmputers and computer
>network become instruments for the re-mediation of activity in
>classrooms?
>
>There are positive instances. But what progress has been made since
>the mid 1980's? And, given our particular take, how are classroom
>cultures implicated in the successful cases?
>mike
Good point Mike. My main "urging" was to bias the enterprise toward the
contingent aspects of those positive uses of computers.
Unfortunately, I don't know if these examples got into the HERN final
report, but I'll check. The Hawaii experience has some unexpected
instances of community formation. Schools that had enthusiastic
teachers, clever administrators, and supportive parents got much farther
ahead than schools that had computers alone (like a spontaneous version
of Luis Moll's work.) One school in Honolulu got the parents to wire the
school for ethernet. Another school got off-duty Marines to do it. One
school in Kauai got the Boy Scouts to do it. In general what we saw is
that the schools that really made good use of computers did so when the
larger community joined in to create a support network for the computers.
The flip side was just as true. Schools that remained detached from
community tended to have more "inert" computer centers. The problem that
was reported to us again and again was that school computers could not be
adequately staffed and maintained by paid technicians. The Hawaii
Department of Education didn't have the funds. That vacuum seems to be a
spot for community formation.
So the HERN experience suggests that computer can be an unexpected
catalyst for the formation of communities consisting of school staff,
parents, and students. Of course, this requires parents and school
personnel to be open to such arrangements.
Have other folks on xmca seen such self-directed community formation
around computers in schools? The rhetoric is all over the place, and
I've heard of some success stories from the "Netday" efforts. I don't
know of any systematic studies of the phenomenon though - suggestions?
Peace, Edouard
--------------
P.S. Honorine probably has these references already, but there is
Margaret Riel's work and I think there are a couple other pieces in this
vein in the LCHC newsletter from the mid-80s.
Riel, M. (1983). Education and Ecstasy: Computer Chronicles of Students
Writing Together. The Quarterly Newsletter of the Laboratory of
Comparative Human Cognition, 5(3), 55-59.
Riel, M. (1993). Global discourse via Electronic Networking. Paper
presented at American Educational Research Association. Atlanta, GA.
April-1993.
P.P.S. Well blowing my horn, but for completeness, I co-wrote with my
student community a paper on how computer fostered a community of
practice in a class I taught in 1994:
Deimling, K., Hasemann, H., Jones, B., Lagache, E., Loudon, A.,
Schwarzhoff, S., & Yost, J. (1994). Legitimate Peripheral Participation
through Electronic Communications: Fostering Community in Classrooms.
Paper presented at International Symposium on Mathematics/Science
Education and Technology. San Diego, CA. July-1994.
. - - - . . . - - - . . . - - - . . . - - - . . . - - - .
: Edouard Lagache, Lecturer :
: Department of Communication (0503) :
: University of California, San Diego :
: 9500 Gilman Drive :
: La Jolla, CA, 92093-0503 Voice: (619) 534-4410 :
: elagache who-is-at netcom.com FAX: (619) 534-7315 :
: http://members.aol.com/EdLagache/home_page.html :
:...................................................................:
: That perspective implied emphasis on comprehensive understanding :
: involving the whole person . . .on activity in and with the :
: world; and on the view that agent, activity, and the world :
: mutually constitute each other. :
: :
: Jean Lave & Etienne Wenger, _Situated Learning_, 1991, p 33. :
. - - - . . . - - - . . . - - - . . . - - - . . . - - - .