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THESIS

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dissertation entitled

PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS OF
EDUCATIONAL EXPLORATIONS WITH TECHNOLOGY:
UNDERSTANDING WHAT MAKES A 'GOOD INNOVATION'

presented by

RICHARD EUGENE FERDIG

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

PH . D . EDUCATI ONAL P SYCHOLOGY

degree in

 

 

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11/00 eJCIRC/DaioDmpGS-p.“

PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS OF
EDUCATIONAL EXPLORATIONS WITH TECHNOLOGY:
UNDERSTANDING WHAT MAKES A ‘GOOD INNOVATION’
By

Richard Eugene Ferdig

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University

in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology, and Special Education

2000

ABSTRACT
PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS OF
EDUCATIONAL EXPLORATIONS WITH TECHNOLOGY:
UNDERSTANDING WHAT MAKES A “GOOD INNOVATION’
By

Richard Eugene Ferdig

In this study, I set out to answer the question, “What makes a good
technological innovation?”-—an important mandate for our young field of
educational technology. Drawing on an exploration of an innovation entitled, ‘Got
Milk?’, as well as an in-depth literature review, I establish that a good innovation
is one that consists of three “P's”: pedagogy, people, and performance. I argue
that this deep psychological approach helps us establish a more multi-layered
and complete understanding of the impact of technology innovations.

In working to establish this model of a good innovation, and thus to learn
more about the participants working with the innovation, I adapted an interview
protocol from Dan McAdams (McAdams, 1995) that leads a person through the
telling of their story. This narrative approach, initially used as a methodology to
understand educational technology implementation, was used by the teachers
and students to further develop their teliographies regarding life, teaching, and
teaching with technology.

Understanding the elements of a good innovation is an important task for
our young field. It allows US to revisit what we already know, ground what we are

currently working on, and guide our future endeavors. The unintended outcome

of the positive use of the narrative methodology is also important as it offers the
potential for a new approach to teaching teachers about technology. Implications
for both of these points are drawn for teachers, developers, and teacher

educators.

Copyright by
RICHARD EUGENE FERDIG
2000

DEDICATION

In the fall of 2000, just as the proverbial light at the end of the dissertation
tunnel was in sight, my grandmother passed away. I was reminded of her
passing as | sat in my living room watching a movie (Mom would call it
procrastinating). A character in the movie pondered the decisions she made in
life:

“I have the sneaking suspicion that I chose the wrong path. For the past

ten years, I have struggled to achieve what I thought was most important

in life. Now that I have reached those goals and achieved what I held

most dear, I wonder what I missed along the way. I wonder if what I

pursued really has any value.”

I do believe that the path I have chosen has value—even if it meant not
having more time with my loved ones. I have seen it in the faces of the teachers
and students I have had the opportunity to share my education with. However, I
must confess—there are still moments when I feel the need to be apologetic for
being selfish with my time and my studies.

Therefore, I dedicate this dissertation to my family and friends who were
so patient with me over the last ten years from BA. to MA. to PhD. Thank you

for your sacrifice and support as I came to better know and understand myself

and the world around me.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am not sure when a person ever officially starts the process that leads to
a dissertation. I suppose the impetus to attend and finish graduate school came
from three sources: my faith, my family and my academic mentors. My faith got
me through the darkest hour—times when I questioned who I was, what I did,
and why I did it. I praise the Lord that l have fought the good fight, I have
finished the race, and I have kept the faith.

My Mom and Dad, the people who planted the seed of faith, were
supportive and nurturing in multiple ways. They ensured a home visit was filled
with good food, opportunities for discussion, and gentle probing about the finish
line. Even though my choices in life were new terrain for them, they acted
interested as I explained what ‘pedagogy’ meant. I do not know if I will ever be
able to fully explain the desire to attend graduate school; nonetheless, they cared
because they knew I did.

Other family and friends were also self-less during this time. My sister,
brother-in-Iaw, and niece gave me time to unwind and roof their house in the
process. My grandparents, aunt and uncle, and friend ‘P’ bought me a surprise
package of external motivation towards the end of the campaign. And friends
like Pawel, C-Lyn, Dan, Mike, and Ron kept calling even when I did not have time
to return their calls. To reiterate what I stated in my dedication, my family and
friends gave me the opportunity to be selfish—something I needed from them in

order to attain this important goal.

vi

Although the support of my family and friends was essential, I would not
have completed this dissertation without the support of my academic mentors. I
owe a debt of gratitude to 0.. former professor at Calvin College where
I completed my BA. I first learned about the potential of narrative in his cognitive
psychology course. John was willing to take some pedagogical risks and they
paid off for the students who were willing to story their life. In a chance meeting
later at Michigan State, he urged me to continue devoting my life to what I
valued.

Dick McLeod and Leighton Price were two important faculty members as l
transitioned to Masters study at Michigan State. I had temporarily set aside my
interest in narrative to further explore my fascination with technology. Dick and
Leighton were two of the first people to ever show me how to care about
teachers and students in Classes, regardless of the subject you were teaching.
They both provided opportunities to get involved in the right things at the right
time. I am grateful to both of them for their continued support.

In 1996, armed with strong interests and experiences in both technology
and narrative, I began the final leg of the journey that led to this dissertation.
There are too many names for me to list all of the people that have made this
dissertation possible. However, I want to s ecifically thank six people. I became
friends with @ an P. David Pearson as l was leaving Michigan State in
1997. I had convinced myself that the grass was greener on the other side of the
fence. I was planning on attending a different university to focus my studies on

narrative and the development of the child. King Beach helped me realize that

vii

sometimes moving places only means moving sideways. Once I decided that
King was right, P. David Pearson took me under his wing and showed me what it
meant to be an academic who made a difference. He was instrumental in first
getting me published and in the completion of this final degree.

In the summer after I decided to stay, I took a o‘ : course from
Steve Weiland. Although other people had believed in my abilities, Steve joined
P. David in believing in the ideas I brought to our discussions. For the first time
in my graduate career, I began to believe that what I had to say was important. It
sounds cliche these days, but Steve challenged me to be different. He taught me
the rules and then showed me how to break them so I could what I wanted to say
in the way I needed to say it. I am not sure how Steve and P. David had the
perseverance to help a ‘techie’ become an academic. However, I am indebted to
the support they provided. Their encouragement and advice helped secure both
Spencer Research Training Grants I received to fund this research.

I also wish to thank the other two members of my committee—Susan
Florio-Ruane and Rand Spiro. Once P. David and Steve helped me set the
course, Susan and Rand provided the scaffolding I needed to learn more about
narrative and technology. Their feedback was priceless. Although I did not
answer all the questions they asked along the way, they provided a lifetime of
learning in a short amount of time.

I need to thank the newest of my academic and personal mentors, Susan

Melnick. She nurtured my growth as I made the transition from graduate student

viii

to outreach specialist. Her concern for my well being provided the space in
which to complete this dissertation.

My faith, family, and mentors provided the impetus to propose, write,
defend, and revise this dissertation. However, without Danielle and Elizabeth, it
would have never come to fruition. Danielle was willing to let me scrutinize her
practice every single day for three years, including the final year of dissertation
research. Danielle defined what a teacher was, how a good teacher taught, and
what it meant to keep the faith. Elizabeth shared everything she could by telling
her story. She took a risk in letting people see the ‘real’ Elizabeth, and I could
not have asked for more.

In sum, I hope and pray that the people who supported me see a part of
themselves in this text. For truly, they have touched my life and I am grateful to

them for their gifts.

ix

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 1
WHAT Do WE KNow ABOUT TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION? .................................... 1
A MULTI-LAYERED APPROACH TO EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY .................................. 4
A DEEPER PSYCHOLOGY OF TECHNOLOGY ................................................................... 7
SARAH’S STORY' ........................................................................................................... 10
ASSESSING SARAH’S STORY ........................................................................................ 13
RE-ASSESSING SARAH’S STORY .................................................................................. 15
A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS OF SARAH AND HER EMATE ....................................... 17
UNDERSTANDING WHAT MAKES A ‘GOOD INNOVATION' .............................................. 18
CHOOSING A CASE STUDY TO EXAMINE ‘GOOD INNOVATION’ IMPLEMENTATION ....... 21
GETTING To KNOW A PERSON ....................................................................................... 23
UNDERSTANDING THE SOCIAL CONTEXT ....................................................................... 25
“GOT MILK ?” ...................................................................................................... 28
CHAPTER 1: THE PEDAGOGY BEHIND “GOT MILK?” ................................... 35
INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 35
AUTHENTIC, INTERESTING, AND CHALLENGING CONTENT .......................................... 38
A SENSE OF OWNERSHIP ............................................................................................. 44
ACTIVE PARTICIPATION, COLLABORATION, AND SOCIAL INTERACTION ....................... 45
THE CREATION OF ARTIFACTS ...................................................................................... 51
PUBLICATION, REFLECTION, AND FEEDBACK ............................................................... 53
A DISCUSSION OF “GOOD PEDAGOGY’ ......................................................................... 55
GOOD PEDAGOGY AND MORE ...................................................................................... 59
CHAPTER 2: THE PEOPLE BEHIND “GOT MILK?” ......................................... 61
INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 61
WHO ARE THE MEMBERS OF AN INNOVATION? ............................................................. 63
THE PEOPLE BEHIND “GOT MILK?” .............................................................................. 64
THE DIALOGIC NATURE OF IMPLEMENTATION .............................................................. 65
GENUINE INTERACTION ................................................................................................. 68
THE FLEXIBLE NATURE OF TEACHING AND TECHNOLOGY ........................................... 71
OPPORTUNITIES FOR LEGITIMATE PARTICIPATION ........................................................ 76
A DISCUSSION OF GOOD PEOPLE ................................................................................ 78
MORE THAN JUST “GOOD PEOPLE” AND “GOOD PEDAGOGY” ..................................... 79
CHAPTER 3: THE PERFORMANCE OF “GOT MILK?” .................................... 82
INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 82
APPROPRIATE USE OF TECHNOLOGIES ........................................................................ 85
COGNITIVE TOOLS To ASSESS LEARNING OUTCOMES ................................................ 87
DIVERSE METHODS FOR DEEP AND MORE COMPLETE ANALYSES ............................. 90
A DISCUSSION OF GOOD PERFORMANCE .................................................................... 93
CHAPTER 4: ELIZABETH’S STORY ................................................................. 96

CHAPTER 5: THE IMPACT OF “GOT MILK?”

IMPLICATIONS FOR A DEEPER PSYCHOLOGY OF TECHNOLOGY ........... 103
THE “GOT MILK?” PROJECT AND THE THREE P’S ...................................................... 104
IMPLICATIONS OF ELIZABETH’S STORY AND THE THREE “P’s” ................................... 106
SUMMARY AND A CALL FOR FUTURE RESEARCH ...................................................... 114

APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW PROTOCOL ........................................................ 116

APPENDIX B: ELIZABETH’S PHILOSOPHY ON TEACHING WITH

TECHNOLOGY ................................................................................................. 1 17

APPENDIX C: ELIZABETH’S STORY ............................................................. 120

xi

Introduction

What Do We Know About Technology_and Education?

The arrival of personal computers and, more
recently, the connection of those computers to
the vast resources of the Internet, offer the
potential to dramatically change the
educational landscape.” (Microsoft, 1996, 15)

Media do not influence Ieaming under any conditions.
(Clark, 1983, p. 445)

 

With the amount of research and research journals available on the
subject, it may seem like we have established many ‘facts’ and ‘truths’ about
technology and pedagogy. We have evidence that technology helps motivate
certain children, particularly those with special needs (Bamberger, 1999; Englert,
Zhao, & Ferdig, 1998). Technology provides students access to places and
information they may not have had access to before (Hall, 1999). Students more
productively navigate complex, ill-structured domains when they use tools such
as hypermedia and multimedia (Spiro, Coulson, Feltovich, & Anderson, 1988).
Add the available research to the enormous amount of time and money
designated each year for technology implementation, and an outsider might be
convinced we have gained many ‘facts’ and ‘truths’ about the role of technology
in education.

More realistically, the ‘truth’ is that we are only just beginning to learn
within and about the young field of educational technology (understanding the
adoption, use, and impact of technologies such aS computers in education). AS

can be expected, we have ten questions for every one answer. Why do certain

teachers adopt technology quickly while others refuse to implement it? Should
every school have a computer lab or a laptop available for each student? Do
media such as computers directly impact a students’ educational development or
is it merely the instructional design afforded by the medium? How much lntemet
access Should students be given? Do technologies fundamentally change a
teacher’s practice or merely make it more efficient?

All of these questions can potentially be encapsulated by (and are
superimposed within) the caricatured battle currently waged in the field of
educational technology. One side of the divide consists of technology-driven
educators soap-boxing the classroom-Changing benefits of computer
implementation. The other side is made up of technology critics voicing the
concerns and warnings of yet another unjustified panacea for education.
Although this dividing line is obviously more blurred and the differences more
complex than portrayed in this story, the ideologies undergirding each Side are
very real in the academic literature and the policy decisions in our schools
(Agostino, 1999; Berrien, 1998; Cuban, 1986; Oppenheimer, 1997; Reeves,
1999). Technology‘, whether seen simply as devices with a central processing
unit (CPU) or most recently as the lntemet and multimedia, is seemingly under
scrutiny for some inherent abilities to help teachers teach, help learners learn,
and to fundamentally Change the social and educational context of Classrooms.

Rather than taking sides in this debate (labeled a futile approach by

Thomas Reeves in a keynote address at EdMedia ’99 (Reeves, 1999), we return

 

‘ The dictionary (Webster, 2000) defines technology in numerous ways. For purposes of this dissertation,
the word ‘technology’ will be used to refer to computers and their use in education.

to our original question—what do we really know about technology and
education? I will argue in this dissertation that to understand the role of
technology in education is to recognize that technology and pedagogy are not
and cannot be separated in educational technology. Thus, the advancements
made through educational technology research have afforded convincing
evidence because they have addressed technology as a part of pedagogy.2'3
Rather than defending or depending upon the intrinsic qualities of technologies,
they have acknowledged the fact that technology (for education) is neither
inherently good nor bad. Or, to paraphrase Norman (Norman, 1993): the good
news is that technology can make us smart...the bad news is that technology
can make uS stupid. Admittedly, there are qualities of different types of
technologies that can make them more or less useful for certain types of
activities—a point that will be elaborated upon in this text. For instance, a
smaller computer that Children can hold and carry will allow for different types of
interactions than say a desktop computer with a 21 ” monitor. Or, a desktop
application that only allows five users at a time might limit the functionality in a
high school computer lab. However, the point is that what makes a technology

innovation good or bad does not solely reside in the technology itself. Rather,

 

2 Readers might be convinced that I am referring to local transfer. In other words, what we know about
technology and education is only valid when it relates to a certain pedagogical instance. The argument
would be that an innovation is good because the research describes technology implementation in a fourth-
grade classroom (in Holland, Michigan) studying Shakespeare. Furthermore, it is useful because it can be
transferred to other Holland fourth-grade classrooms that want to study Shakespeare. However, I am not
referring to transfer between cases. I am describing educational technology research that focuses on
technology in pedagogy rather than technology in and of itself.

3 Not only has research addressed technology as a part of pedagogy, but it has also addressed it as part of a
cultural system (which includes pedagogy). Nicolopoulou and Cole (1994), through the Fifth Dimension
project, argue that the effectiveness of programs will depend on the integration of those programs within a
framework of the institution in which it is introduced, not on the intrinsic qualities of the technology in
isolation.

as I will argue in this dissertation, it is a complex process involving the
technology, the personnel (innovators, educators, and learners), the pedagogy,
and the relationships between the three.

Although variations of the ideas in this text are evident in the existing,
relevant literature, this is an important point to clarify and reiterate for a young
field such as educational technology. Educators, technologists, and
psychologists have decried the lack of research to justify the onslaught of
technology expansion in our schools. They argue that there is no firm evidence
that media even impact learning, as evidenced by the history of instructional
strategies such as radio and television (Cuban, 1986). These criticisms
notwithstanding, the field of educational technology has made important
advancements regarding the qualities of successful technology integrations and
the support they need for implementation. Thus, along with the call for further
research to validate the technologies and defend their high cost, we need to
revisit what we already know and what we have yet to Ieam. In other words, as
our young domain grows we must ground development of cognitive tools in what
we know currently works.

A Multi-Layered Approach to Educational Technology

Understanding ‘best practices’ in working with technology and education
through an exploration of the relationships between technology, personnel and
pedagogy will help ground past and present research, as well as guide the field
into the future with focused research rather than numbing debates. However,

ensuring more structured and rigid examinations of technology use is not

enough. We need to ensure that the expansion of teChnology research
encompasses the right kinds of questions—questions that incorporate
assessments of the technology development, questions that address the types of
human interaction that are necessary for implementations to attain predefined
and unintentional goals, and questions that delve into the psychological nature of
the relationships we have with technology.4

This is an important step as there is danger in the push that has been
made for increased research on technology and its impact on Ieaming.
Specifically, educational technology research programs tend to focus solely on
the cognitive domain in the relationship between technology and Ieaming. This is
not to suggest that measuring Ieaming outcomes of technology use is an
unnecessary or fruitless endeavor, only one with inevitable limits. There is a
plain, one might say urgent, need for a more complete approach to research on
technology integration.

The problem with the trend in educational technology (often situated in
educational psychology programs) to focus solely on the cognitive domain is the
disappearance of research addressing the relationship between technology and
social and emotional development. Surveys of major refereed technology
journals indicate an almost extinct population of articles relating to this affective
domain (see Jones & Paolucci, 1998, for a complete review). A number of
articles have attempted to break out of the cognitive domain by asking questions

about perceptions, attitudes, and motivation in using technology (Cordova &

 

4 Mark Windschitl also makes this claim, arguing for stronger research that poses more critical questions
(Windschitl, 1998).

Lepper, 1996; Lepper & Hodell, 1989). Others have begun to explore the
relationships that exist because of or with technologies such as computers.
Sherry Turkle, for instance, provided evidence that some people actually adapt
their personalities to the personas they develop and adopt in on-Iine communities
(T urkle, 1995). Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass have asked us to rethink media
such as computers as social actors in a media equation (media = life) (Reeves &
Nass, 1996). However, as highlighted by the aforementioned surveys on
educational technology research, these types of studies are becoming more and
more rare.5 Studies like these are leading the way for creating a new set of
research tools, but we must continue to focus on gaining a more complete
psychology of technology.

Clifford Geertz argues that we need “thick descriptions” in order to better
represent and understand human experience (Geertz, 1983). And in his famous
essay “Deep Play” (Geertz, 1973b), he supplies a timely metaphor for a new field
like educational technology. Applying this metaphor of “depth” to educational
technology essentially means opening it up to all of the tools available to us as
educators and psychologists rather than just technologists. There are a number
of psychological questions that, although normally associated with developmental
psychology and psychoanalysis, may prove fruitful in our discussion of a “deeper"
educational technology. Questions include the role of emotions through

technology, mediating relationships with technology, and sense and meaning-

 

’ Jones and Paolucci (see (Jones & Paolucci, 1998) surveyed eight major refereed journals over a three-year
time period. Most of the articles in the journal publications addressed technology applications,
development, or implementation. Only about 18% of all technology research completed addressed an
evaluation of learning outcomes. However, statistics indicate the almost non-existence of articles relating
to the affective domain.

making through technology. Many of these questions fall outside of the realm of
the cognitive domain. However, answering these questions will not only provide
resources to satisfy cognitive concerns, but it will also provide a more complete
representation of experiences in technology integration.

We need to work on broadening this relatively new field. We do not have
the accounts we need of the emotional and social development of students to
new educational technologies. The task of technology-focused, educational
psychologists and teachers, then, is not only to establish more structured
research and teaching agendas, but also to expand the diversity within those
inquiries. I will also argue in this dissertation that obtaining a deeper psychology
of technology will afiord a more multi-layered and complete understanding of

pedagogy and technology implementation.

A Deeper Psychology of Technology

 

A driving question for this research revolves around an exact definition of
deeper (or “depth”) in trying to obtain a deeper psychology of technology.
Webster (Webster, 2000) defines deep as:

1: extending far from some surface or area; a: extending far downward; b:

extending inward from an outer surface

2: characterized by profundity of feeling or quality

A deeper psychology of technology might therefore imply a profound
examination of the uses of technology as defined by psychological terms. The

problem with a Simple definition like this is the relationship of deep psychology to

psychoanalytic thinking. Somewhere in the term “deep psychology” is the idea

that if we dug far enough into the psyche of the individual using technology, we
would discover beliefs and motives that justified the behaviors of the subject.

Coming to know a person who is using the technology, rather than
focusing solely on the use of the technology itself, may be labeled underthe
banner of “people-centered analyses of technology use.” The goal would be to
examine the person who is using the technology and the ensuing relationship
with the technology, rather than assuming that the characteristics and uses of the
technology are somehow inherent in the technology itself. Mass and Reeves’
work (Reeves & Nass, 1996), which concentrates on what they term the “media
equation’, offers evidence that humans enter into social contracts and
relationships with technology. They argue that interactions with new media like
television and computers are fundamentally social in nature. Much like
interactions in real life, people expect media to obey a wide range of social and
natural rules.

Thus, coming to a more complete understanding of the individual and the
human intentions they confer upon the technology is an important step in
understanding effects of technology use. However, a deeper psychology of
technology goes beyond merely addressing the human and his/her relationship
with a technology. It is more concerned with expanding the vocabulary available
to technologists and researchers as they explore educational investigations with
technologies such as computers. This deeper approach implies not a
psychoanalytic View of the individual, but rather a complete, comprehensive, and

inclusive description of the instance of technology use.

This research might entail examining the constructions a person is able to
make through and with the technology about the learning objective. Conversely,
it might also address what knowledge an individual constructs about the
technology itself, and the resulting differences and Similarities with the
constructions made by the teacher or the developer. More broadly Speaking,
research might also focus on the interactions that surround or are enhanced and
scaffolded through the use of the technology. This would include the discourse
between participants using a technology, the dialogue sustained through the
technology, or an examination of the activity as a whole to determine what
learning opportunities were supported and neglected while interacting with the
technology.

This is not to argue that previous research has not attempted to meet any
or all of these objectives. Rather, it is to suggest that many of these studies have
stopped short of providing a comprehensive description of the events
surrounding the technology use. Many instances of research have ended when
achievements were assessed through behavioral measures such as test scores.
Again, this type of research is not a wasted effort. Our growing field is in need of
research that highlights cognitive gains made through educational technology.
These types of studies have helped shed light on the technology effectiveness
debate mentioned earlier. The fear, however, is that an incomplete (or less than
comprehensive) description of the events lends itself to incomplete
generalizations about future technology use. More complete descriptions and

analyses of instances of computer use will foster better opportunities to label

interactions with technology in general. Educational Psychology, the discipline in
which most educational technology programs are situated, offers itself as a prime
source of extending and expanding a complete vocabulary for our new field.
Psychology can provide the vocabulary that as descriptive and prescriptive tools
to educational researchers and technologists.

In sum, those who study educational technology are determined to
understand broadly why certain technologies are effective, and Specifically why
individuals interact the way they do with various technologies. This dissertation
addresses the same objectives while attempting deeper and more complete
analyses of innovation implementation.

Sarah’s Stopr‘s'7

The struggle to understand technology innovations in education became
vital for me in the summer of 1997. l was working with a team of graduate
students and faculty at Michigan State University in a project aimed at
implementing technology into special education and inclusion Classrooms at a
local elementary school. As part of the “TELE—Web” (Technology Enhanced
Learning Environment-Webs) project, the team decided to purchase an eMate for
each of the three classrooms in the study. (An eMate is an Apple product, a
grandchild of the popular Newton series.) There were two main reasons for the

purchase. First, special education children sometimes have a hard time typing

 

6 Sarah’s story was first told at the Society of Information technology and Teacher Education (SITE)
Annual Conference in San Antonio, Texas (1999), where it won “Best Research Paper” (Ferdig & Weiland,
1999)

7 An experience much like mine with Sarah, Jeanne Bamberger tells a very fascinating story about
‘Leon’—a quiet student who had extraordinary insights when giving the pace and conceptual space he
needed to make new knowledge (see (Bamberger, 1999).

3 TELE-Web is funded by the US. Department of Education and Michigan State University’s College of
Education. http://tele.educ.msu.edu/

10

on the computer. The researchers and teachers felt that if students had an
opportunity to write on the screen, a technology the eMate provides, they may be
more motivated to practice spelling, write stories, and read works to their
colleagues and teacher. Second, the eMate is fun to use. The research team
thought it would be interesting to see how the Children reacted to new and
exciting technologies in the classroom.

Shortly after the eMates were introduced, I began to work with one of the
fourth grade students named Sarah.9 Sarah, labeled by the school psychologist
as “Educable Mentally Impaired (EMI)”, had bonded with the eMate. She used it
whenever she was required to complete a spelling test on a computer (she also
had the choice of one of the “bigger“ computers). She also used it to write
stories whenever she had free time. From a cognitive perspective, Sarah made
tremendous improvements over the course of the year. Her standardized
reading test scores (SORT & Durrell‘o) as well as her general classroom grades
improved. However, there was more to Sarah’s story than mere test score
improvements.

Sarah and her computer “Brian” became friends. The bonding could best
be described as an intense, human-like experience. Not only did she talk to the
computer (and assure the team members that it talked back), but she also
named him and took care of daily needs such as its feeding. On occasion, She

was even seen taking it to the bathroom.

 

9 Pseudonyms have been used for all school and participant names in this dissertation to protect identities.
'0 The Durrell Analysis of Reading Difficulty and the Slosson Oral Reading Test (SORT) are two
standardized literacy tests given to measure reading level and word recognition (respectively).

11

At first, the teacher and the team member considered the situation nothing
more than a curious phenomenon. However, Sarah’s relationship with the eMate
became more striking when she began using it to mediate relationships both in
and out of school. In the classroom, she was one of the only girls in the resource
room. She did not get along with many of the boys and complained often about
the lack of girls in the class. She even wrote the following “complaint” and
addressed it to Brian (translated for meaning):

I sometimes want a girl but I can't get a girl. Mrs. K. will not let me get one.

All my life I prayed for a girl but you are the only one I can talk to.

However, She decided to have her computer “be a boy.” “Sarah needs to
control things” her teacher commented. “This may be her way of controlling the
situation with the boys in the class.” When asked about how she knew the eMate
was male, She responded with “cause I work on boys all of the time. I'm
surrounded by them."

Sarah also mediated her relationship with her teacher via the eMate. Mrs.
K would often help students evaluate their stories. The eMate took over this role
and would tell Sarah which of her stories were good, which ones needed
revisions, and which ones should be deleted. Mrs. K explained that for Sarah,
the eMate represented manageable production. She would often say, “Look
what I’ve done, Mrs. K.” Mrs. K commented, “She is proud of what she has done
with the eMate."

School was not the only environment in which Sarah mediated with the

eMate. At a party during the school year, her aunt was murdered. She told us

12

that She could not tell Brian about the death because “it would cry.” She Spent
much of the next few weeks after the death without Brian. It took her quite a
while to learn how to tell “it” what had happened.

Assessing Sarah’s Stopy

How does one Ieam to make sense of Sarah’s story? Sarah was a poor
student going through difficult times. However, she was not only able to maintain
her composure, She was able to improve herself as a student and as a person
(her teachers and her mother noted her improved behavior; Sarah, herself,
commented on her increased happiness and satisfaction with school and ‘life’).
Did (and if so how) the relationship between the eMate and Sarah facilitate this
growth?

It would be very easy to believe in the power of technology as you hear
about a very emotionally troubled, at-risk student grow into a classroom
representative, school leader, and better-than-average student through an
interaction with a computer. It would be very easy to sympathize with the
numerous teachers who heard the story and wanted an eMate for every student
in their Classes. It would even be fair to join with other researchers in the call for
more exploration of eMate use in the classroom. However, as educators
interested in technology research, the most important lesson to Ieam from
Sarah’s case is how important it is for us is to be able to explain (as best as
possible) instances of computer use such as Sarah’s story, to understand how

and why this technology played such a powerful role in her life.

13

Notice first the pedagogy and instructional design afforded by the design
of the technology. The size and battery power of the eMate allowed the
computer to be in front of Sarah longer than the time spent in front of the larger,
desktop computers or the one, heavy school laptop. The weight, Size, and shape
allowed her to hold, control, even hug a very interactive tool. She was able to
take it under the table (her secret writing room), drag it with her to the playground
(literally), and feed it during her lunch hour. The advantages of the design, in
turn, provided more writing time during the school day, regardless of where
Sarah was in the classroom (or out of the classroom). The teacher’s main
objective of increased writing time was certainly provided by Sarah’s use of the
eMate.

Just as important as the pedagogy was the personnel involved in the
instruction. It is true that without the eMate, the instructor may not have been
able to provide as much writing time for Sarah (although, as I am sure Richard
Clark11 would argue, we could probably find other media to accomplish the same
important goal). However, without a competent instructor who knew how to use
the eMate (both technologically and pedagogically), the tool may not have been
used, or may have not been used to help students like Sarah. The classroom
teacher knew enough technologically about the eMate to be able to get Sarah

started (how to turn it on, how to create a new file, etc.). Moreover, she knew

 

 

" In a very famous article, Richard Clark makes the argument that technology influences Ieaming as much
a truck delivering groceries influences our nutrition (Clark, 1983); also see (Clark, 1994). The argument
extends to the claim that media can replace each other. In this case, the eMate afforded something, but the
al'gllment would claim that other media could potentially do the same. Learn more about the ‘Great Media
Debate’ between Richard Clark and Robert Kozma online at:
httPz//hagar.up.ac.za/rbo/construct/media.htmI

l4

enough about what it could do to successfully create instruction for Sarah and
her ‘friend’. Finally, she knew enough about Sarah to know what instruction with
the eMate Sarah could handle by herself.

Through the use of a technology, a strong writing curriculum, and a
knowledgeable adult, Sarah completed group and individually assigned projects.
She also spent a lot of her own time (recess, lunch, etc.) working on the
computer. At the end of the project, the main goal of helping her develop literacy
skills was realized. Sarah had learned to type, write stories, and Spell better.
Her classroom grades, especially those related to literacy, improved.
Furthermore, her test scores on the SORT and Durrell standardized tests
increased significantly (p<.05).

Re-assessing Sarah’s Stopr

The initial research questions focused on cognitive growth as evidenced
by that development of literacy skills (measured by standardized test scores).
The accompanying research findings suggested that the eMate might make a
promising tool for developing and improving literacy Skills. Those questions and
findings, however, had nothing to offer the research or the researchers when
presented with a young girl initiating a human-like bond with a computer.

Initially, some of the team members wondered whether Sarah’s interaction
with the eMate was similar to a Child having an imaginary friend or a doll. The
eMate was a safe tool for Sarah. All of the students knew the importance that
the teacher and visitors from the university had placed on technology. Her

classmates, peers, and instructors would grant her more agency if she bonded

15

with the eMate than they would have if She had bonded with another toy,
personal belonging (blanket) or instructional artifact. But, how did this differ from
the actual psychological use of a blanket, doll, or imaginary friend? Trying to
further understand these happenings, we turned to the psychological
explanations of the influential British developmentalist D.W. Winnicott (1896-
1971).

In his widely Cited "Playing & Reality", Winnicott (Winnicott, 1971)
suggests that infants, children, and even adults make use of “transitional
objects.” Transitional objects are objects or phenomena that are related both to
external and internal reality.

This intermediate area of experience, unchallenged in respect of its

belonging to inner or external (shared) reality, constitutes the greater part

of the infant's experience, and throughout life is retained in the intense
experience that belongs to the arts and to religion and to imaginative

living, and to creative scientific work. (Winnicott, 1971, p.242).

We hypothesized that Sarah was using the eMate as a transitional object
between her internal reality and the reality that existed in the Classroom and at
home. In other words, it is probable that She was using the eMate much like a
blanket, doll, or imaginary friend. Viewing the eMate as merely a computer used
for spelling tests, even if it was important in her obtaining higher reading scores,

one would have missed this “thicker description” of what was really happening

and thus a more probing psychological account.12

 

'2 This application from Winnicott is but a small sign of the potential uses of psychological ideas in the
study of Sarah and of educational technology in general. Other interpretations might have been suggested
from areas such as Cultural Psychology (Cole, 1996) or Narrative Psychology (Bruner, 1996).

16

A More Complete Ana_lvsis of Sarah and her eMate

Sarah’s story of technology use is inspiring. However, it would be faulty to
conclude that teachers should use eMates in the classroom just because one
student Showed improved literacy test scores after using it. As a matter of fact, I
believe it would be errant to make the Claim even if one hundred students
showed improved marks, without first coming to a more complete analysis of the
Situation. Realizing that comprehensive analysis, at least in this case, meant
understanding both the psychology and pedagogy behind the tool use as well as
the individual(s) who acted as the more knowledgeable or more capable others
for Sarah (in Sarah’s case, her teacher, and on occasion her parents, her friends,
and even the eMate).

Sarah was not the only learner in this story. The teacher and Sarah’s
parents were able to better plan future educational activities for Sarah at school
and at home. The teacher educators in the project learned more about what kind
of knowledge a teacher needed to effectively use a technology. And the project
researchers could design future research agendas around aforementioned
evidence (i.e., the eMate was used as part of the writing curriculum). In sum,
through an understanding of the pedagogy and personnel behind the tool, both
the teacher and the research team were better able to understand, (more
importantly) explain, and potentially replicate the cognitive gains Sarah had
made.

However, stopping at the point of reinforcing or better understanding

cognitive gains may have meant missing a more complete picture of the study.

17

Coming to terms with how Sarah was using the eMate also involved developing a
deep understanding of the psychology behind the relationship she initiated.
Attaining that depth helped the teachers and researchers better comprehend her
emotional development and how to foster her emotional, intellectual, and social
growth in the Classroom. As the teacher said, “I now better understand how to
reach Sarah.“ Drawing on the experiences in the social life of the classroom, the
teacher was better able to help the parent understand the ways in which Sarah’s
behavior was changing at home. Sarah’s mom, at a parent-teacher conference,
told the teacher that Sarah was more willing to share thoughts and feelings and
participated more in family activities. Finally, it opened up new possibilities for
the use of the technology with other social and emotionally disturbed children.

A deep psychological exploration helped teachers and researchers
realize that the development of questions and the analyses of the innovation did
not start and end with cognitive gains (or the lack thereof). Rather, it grounded
the experience of the innovation in the personnel, pedagogy, and psychology that
made up the innovation.

Understanding What Makes a ‘Good Innovation’

In describing a technology used to improve writing skills, Krendl et al.
(Krendl, 1996) claim that a rich technology experience is not defined by any one
feature, but by a combination of elements (the child, the adult, the technology,
the setting, etc.). Therefore, as echoed by this dissertation, the research

mandate for educational technology. and one way to achieve a deeper

18

psychology of technology, is to explore the ways in which these different
elements interact to create a ‘good innovation.’13
What exactly do we mean by a ‘good’ innovation? Was the eMate in
Sarah’s case an example of a good innovation? Many would define ‘good
innovation’ as one that improves performance, successfully meets a pre—defined
plan or solves an educational problem (in this case, through the use of
technology such as computers). For instance, a good innovation would use
technology to help students become better readers. Or, a good innovation would
increase SAT scores after continued computer use. I argue in this dissertation
that there are at least three necessary elements that characterize a good
technology innovation. Those three elements both define and answer the
question of what makes a good innovation.
A good technology innovation requires the “Three P’s”:
1) Good Pedagogy
2) Good People
3) Good Performance
The first two, the good pedagogy and the good people, help define the
term ‘good innovation’. A good innovation is one where technology and
pedagogy are not separated. A good innovation engages a process that
enhances the relationships among innovator, educator, and Ieamer.

Unfortunately, in much of the available research, pedagogy and personnel take a

backseat to an interest in cognitive gains. Thus, asking whether an innovation

 

'3 The mandate for research to understand, explain, and describe what makes a good computer innovation
has been reiterated numerous times in the literature. The first example that comes to mind is Sharon Derry
& Susanne Lajoie, who state that the impetus for editing Computers as Cognitive Tools was to understand
what good pedagogy is and how computers systems will enhance that instruction to create good
pedagogical tools (Derry & Lajoie, 1993). A second instance is Thomas Reeves’ invited address at the
1999 Educational Media Conference (Reeves, I999). Reeves argues that we need to focus our energies on
the invention, understanding, and improvement of creative learning technologies.

19

improves SAT scores or improves reading skills may obscure important factors
that will later prove important in helping understand, explain, or replicate the
research findings.

The third factor, Good Performance, helps answer this question: if a good
innovation is one in which the pedagogy and the technology are Closely linked,
how can one tell if the performance (that is, the outcomes and the
implementation) of the innovation was good, successful, etc.? At this level, we
can draw from psychology to afford a more multi-Iayered and complete
understanding of the performance of the technology and its implementation into
pedagogy. This third level may indeed use cognitive psychology to assess
changes in SAT scores or improved reading levels. However, it may also explore
the innovation as something that helps a child make a transition, mediate with
others, or learn more about herself. The claim is that good is not defined solely
on cognitive measures.

Given this definition, the use of the eMate with Sarah was a good
technology innovation on two levels. First, the innovation was pedagogically
sound; it was well designed, rooted in a strong writing curriculum, and supervised
by a more knowledgeable other. Second, the eMate produced good results both
cognitively and affectively. In this sense, good refers to the success or failure of
the goals of the technology innovation. Cognitive gains, the intended
consequences of the use of the technology, were measured by standardized
literacy tests. Affective gains, the unintended consequences of the technology

use, were rendered plausible by using a framework (D.W. Winnicott’s theory of

20

transitional objects) to explain how and why it facilitated Sarah’s learning and
development.

The main goal of a deep, psychological examination of an innovation is to
ensure a deep and complete enough analysis so that: a) cognitive changes,
whether they exist or not, can be explained in relation to the person using the
technology in a curriculum, rather than explaining it as an intrinsic quality of the
technology itself; b) stronger and more definitive claims can be made about the
instance of implementation; C) teacher educators are provided with more
comprehensive information about what and how to train future teachers or in-
service teachers learning technology; and d) unintended consequences, mostly
appearing as affective, social, and emotional Changes, can be measured.
Choosing a Case Study to Exa‘mine ‘Good lnnovation’ lm_p_le_meLati<m

In order to Ieam more about what made a good innovation, I began a
research project in a Midwestern elementary school. Rose Park is a K-5
elementary school located in a large, urban school district. The demographics of
the third grade Class in which I worked were very representative of the school
itself. 99% of the students were eligible for free or reduced lunch, a majority of
the students came from Single parent homes, and the Class was comprised
mainly of minority students (66% African-American, 21% White, 12% Latino, 1%
Foreign).

I chose to work with Danielle, a Caucasian female, because I knew that I
would find an instance of successful technology integration in her classroom. I

had worked with Danielle, the third grader teacher at Rose Park at the time of

21

this writing, for over three years on other technology projects, so I knew of both
her expertise and interest in educational technologies. Danielle had taught for
over twenty years, but only recently had joined the Rose Part teaching staff. In
the short time she had been there, She was promoted to technology coordinator
for the school and acted as a technology representative at district meetings and
statewide technology conferences. With local, regional, and even statewide
recognition for her technology expertise, I believed that exploring technology
integration with Danielle would provide a Chance to answer the question of “What
makes a good technology innovation?” Furthermore, it would afford the
opportunity to examine the benefit of a deeper and more complete analysis of
that implementation.

A research project in Danielle’s class also seemed inviting because She
had mentored student teachers for two years. I had been privy to her
implementing technology in the students” curriculum. However, I had not yet
seen how she talked about her work to her peers, nor had I seen how She would
teach her understanding of technology integration to others. Her intern was
Elizabeth, a self-proclaimed, “older African-American student who knew nothing
about technology,” but She was very excited to Ieam about technology and
education in her final internship year prior to teaching in her own classroom.

Prior to a more detailed exploration of what made a good innovation, I
needed to choose a methodology that would provide access to a more complete
analysis. Understanding the pedagogy behind any given technology integration,

as well the personnel to implement that innovation seemed straightforward

22

enough. Observations, interviews, and explorations of lesson plans would
provide a more complete description of the necessary curriculum and personnel
Skills associated with the innovation. Furthermore, getting at some of the
psychology behind the implementation, specifically the cognitive components,
appeared as simple as a pre-test and a post-test. However, getting at
unintended consequences of technology use, especially those affective, social,
and emotional effects, was a more daunting task (Kirkwood, 1998). Two
potential solutions, those used in this dissertation, are described below.
Gimp to k_now a_person

Dan McAdams argues that one way to attain analytic depth in studying a
phenomenon is to get to know the person or persons involved in it (McAdams,
1995). Getting to know a person would provide insight into the changes they
experienced as a result of the technology implementation. This is an important
step as not all technology interactions have outcomes as transparent as Sarah
hugging an eMate. Although McAdams confesses that one never ‘truly’ knows
another in full, perhaps not even oneself, he believes that people can be
described on three loosely related levels of functioning. The first level consists of
a person’s traits, and can Specifically be situated around 5 main traits:
extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and
agreeableness. Getting to know a person at this level is equivalent to getting to
know a stranger.

The second level digs deeper into the personhood by trying to understand

personal concerns. These personal concerns include “personal strivings, life

23

tasks, defense mechanisms, coping strategies, domain-specific skills and values,
and a wide assortment of other motivational, developmental, or strategic
constructs that are contextualized in time, place, and role” (p. 365). McAdams
lists these personal concerns as he argues that to know a person more fully than
one would know a stranger, one would have to know information that is
“exquisitely conditional and contextualized” (p. 376).

Finally, level three represents understanding the life story and
intentionality of the individual. McAdams argues that without exploring this level,
“(one) can never understand how and to what extent the person is able to find
unity, purpose, and meaning in life” (p. 382). He argues that western
adolescence requires the creation of a life-story, which in turns help define
identity. Our interest in knowing a person much better than we know him/her
now entails listening to their life story.

Understandably, McAdams developmental framework is aimed at
personologists who are interested in a comprehensive view of the identity and
personality of the individual. This is not to argue that a technologist will lack
success in research unless the complete life-story of the individual is known.
Rather, it is to suggest that McAdamS’ levels of understanding might provide a
fresh insight into ways of coming to a more comprehensive View of the individual
and the changes they experience as a result of the interaction. Technology
research, as Reeves & Nass (Reeves & Nass, 1996) have suggested, would be
improved by viewing the individual as one of two sides in a social contract—a

Side that has a personality of its own. Simple descriptions of the characteristics

24

and traits of the individuals would afford a different angle on interactions during
use of the technology. Personality tests or inquiries into motivations of the
individual might help researchers understand why certain technologies work and
others do not. Finally, individual cases, such as those presented in this
dissertation, would provide a deeper investigation of the technology exploration
by soliciting the life-story of the subject.

Understanding the sociai context

One tool to help educational technologists in their research is a multi-Ievel
scheme of the individual as presented in work by McAdams. McAdams
framework helps us better understand a person; however, technology integration
and use by the individual does not occur in a vacuum. Many times the individual
is working with one or more partners, and is almost never without the direction,
instruction, or scaffolding of the teacher, researcher, or developer, whether that
instruction be implicit or explicit.

A second necessary component to this methodology, then, is one that
allows us to more deeply understand the individual in the context of the culture or
society in which he or she resides. Geertz addresses this issue in his book Q3931
Knowledge (Geertz, 1983). He highlights the fact that trying to know a person
goes beyond seeing the individual as a bounded and well-defined whole. It also
includes understanding the semiotic means by which persons are defined by one
another.

He argues that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed is not king but

Spectator. In other words, to understand anything from the subject’s point of

25

view, a researcher must try to figure out “what the devil they think they are up to"
(Geertz, 1983). The trick, Geertz argues, is not to try to put oneself into
another’s skin. Rather, it involves trying to determine how the subjects define
themselves. Geertz writes:

I have tried to get at this...not by imagining myself someone else, a rice

peasant or a tribal sheikh, and then seeing what I thought, but by

searching out and analyzing the symbolic forms—words, images,
institutions, behaviors—in terms of which, in each place, people actually
represented themselves to themselves and to one another. (Geertz,

1983)

Thus, where McAdams starts a framework to know a person as an
individual, Geertz completes the approach by acknowledging the subject as a
social actor. Where McAdams encourages us to hear the life stories of the
individuals, Geertz asks us to observe what is being told, to whom, in what forms
and images, and with what consequences. In order to fully understand a
technology integration experience, one begins to see the importance of not only
understanding a person deeply, but also the context in which a person resides.
Interpreting this context as best as we can becomes defined as Geertz’s “Thick
Description.” The goal of thick description is “setting down the meaning
particular social actions have for the actors whose actions they are” (Geertz,
1973a). It is achieved by inscribing social discourse and includes “interviewing
informants, observing rituals, eliciting kin terms, tracing property lines, censusing
households...writing (a) journal” (Geertz, 1973a).

McAdams focuses on the individual and views speech as thought.

Gaining access the stories of an individual provides insights into the thoughts

and thought processes of the subject. Conversely, Geertz views speech as

26

action. One can achieve depth of understanding of an individual by observing
them in the context of the semiotic relationships with others. The aim of this
dissertation, then, is to join both methods in pursuit of a more complete and
deeper understanding of technology innovations. With both the tools to describe
semiotic representations thickly and to know a person, we begin to be able to
“uncover the conceptual structures that inform our subjects’ acts...and to
construct a system of analysis in whose terms what is generic to those
structures...will stand out against other deterrninates of human behavior”

(Geertz, 1973a).

27

“Got Milk?”

Armed with observational techniques from Geertz and an interview
protocol adapted from McAdams (Appendix A), l was prepared to enter Danielle’s
third grade classroom. I wanted to observe Danielle, Elizabeth, and their
students as they worked with a writing project Danielle had created. In the
project, computers would be used to gather data and write research reports. I
went to the Classroom the first day of the research project, laptop, video camera,
and tape recorder in tow, ready to explore writing with the students.

As I entered the classroom, some of the students ran up and said, “Mr.
Ferdig, Mr. Ferdig! Will you help us make a video?” It took about ten minutes to
actually make my way into the classroom that day, having to work my way
through small waves of excited children. When I finally met up with Danielle and
Elizabeth, they explained the situation.

In the few days prior to my visit, the students drew the lucky piece of
paper out of the ‘Good Behavior Rewards Jar’ and won the opportunity to eat
lunch in the Classroom with Danielle and Elizabeth. 1" After lunch, the students
noticed many full and half-full containers of milk dumped in the wastebasket.
They began to ask themselves, “Do we have a problem here?” In the
conversation that ensued, Elizabeth recalled: “the students felt convicted thinking
about their waste and the people in the world who did not have food or milk.”

With the teachers’ help, all of the students ‘brainstormed’ and put a list of things

 

'4 “Won the opportunity” sounds like I am being sarcastic. When I was in school, having to eat lunch with
your teacher meant you did something wrong. Now it is actually a very positive thing; the teacher brings in
an extra treat for you, and the students tell me that the teacher lets them get away with more than the
legendary ‘Lunch Lady’ does.

28

on the board that they could do to help others Ieam about this problem. They
wanted people from around the world to know that “wasting milk was bad
because milk was good for healthy bodies.” Examples of ideas the students had
for the project included: writing poetry, writing argumentative essays, building a
PowerPoint presentation, visiting other Classrooms, and making a movie. The
class voted, and decided that a movie would be the best way to Share their
concerns with others. After talking it over with the teachers, they felt like another
medium of presentation might be as convincing, but a taped movie would allow
them to share their ideas with many others even after they had graduated to
fourth grade and beyond.

I barely had enough time to listen to Danielle’s story before I was once
again mobbed by the students and cries of “Can we? Can we?” Persuaded by
their conviction, I agreed to help. I suggested that the first task in creating a
movie would be to understand what it took to produce a movie. The students,
teachers, and I spent time talking about the different components that made up a
movie. We decided that a good movie campaign would consist of such things a ‘
trailer, an introduction, supporting evidence, and a jingle. Based on these
divisions, students signed up for the task they wanted to work on.

Danielle and Elizabeth initially conceived of this project as a two or three
day event, mainly connected with the development of literacy skills. Students
would get together in their Chosen groups to write a script describing what their
part of the movie would look like. After they had agreed on a script, they would

perform, review, edit, and re-perform their videotaped screenplay. Through this

29

process, students would practice skills such as writing, reading, and public
speaking. However, while listening to the different groups plan their
presentation, the teachers quickly realized the larger potential impact of this
project. Students were developing screenplays that involved the learning, use, or
refinement of skills from other subject areas such as math and science. One
group of students wanted to know more about the natural process of milk
production. Another group wanted to poll neighbors and friends to see if they
wasted milk. A third troupe concluded a visit to the lunch area would be the only
sure way to gather evidence. Consequently, the main task for Danielle,
Elizabeth, and I was to understand how to bring the group learning to the whole
class.

After the students had completed the different parts of the movie, a
student-designed CD-ROM was produced (‘burned’) that contained all of the
artifacts created during the production of the video. These included: the movie
itself, scanned images of early scripts, scanned images of graphs and Charts
created through the process of collecting evidence, posters for the “Got Milk?”
campaign including student voiceovers describing their posters, and transcripts
of chatrooms that students used to discuss what they wanted the movie to look
like. Creating the CD-ROM served three main purposes.

First, it was an archive of the project, almost like a yearbook, for the
students (each student was given a CD-ROM), teachers, and researcher. A
second goal was for the CD-ROM to serve as a learning tool for other teachers.

Thus, the CD-ROM also contains videos of: a) its presentation to other

30

classrooms; b) teachers describing the creation and development process; c) its
relationship to state technology and curriculum standards; d) the role of Ieaming
theory in some of the components; and e) its development from a technological
perspective (what it took to make it). Third, students wanted to share what they
had learned with others from around the world. Although a version of the project
was to be added to the school website at a later date, the CD-ROM format
allowed easy and relatively cheap distribution of the video and related
components ($1 per CD).

The CD-ROM proved extremely useful in the last few weeks of the project.
Equipped with the CD-ROM, the teacher’s laptop, and a projection device, the
class was able to Share the movie and other artifacts of the Ieaming process.
“Got Milk?” presentations started with a short introduction and the Viewing of the
video. Students would then use their posters to explain what they had learned
about the benefits of drinking milk and why others Shouldn’t waste food or milk.
Presentations ended with a toast to milk, including a cold glass of chocolate or
white milk and, of course, cookies!

Based on its initial success (as indicated from compliments the class
received from itS early program graduates), we decided to send the “Got Milk?”
CD-ROM to a multimedia competition for elementary students. We had hoped
the technology competition would give us a chance to Share the program with
Other districts and schools around the state, regardless of the contest outcome.
Ur'Ifortunately, after much deliberation, the awards committee decided to

disqualify our entry. They reported that it was unlikely that students could do the

31

caliber of work that was on the CD-ROM. They assumed that adults created and
completed the entire project with little student involvement. We explained to the
judges that the students had a major role in each and every production phase. It
was at that point that the main judge confided that they were unsure what to do
with the CD—ROM because they never had received anything like it. They
informed us that they were more used to simple PowerPoint presentations and
straightforward Hyperstudio stacks. The judge was unsure whether movies, web
sites, video, and audio even counted as multimedia.

As one could imagine, we were all disappointed with the decision. The
teachers commented that the students were especially upset—not about losing,
but about not even being able to partake in the competition. They saw the
contest as a chance to share their work with people outside of their immediate
community, and to have that work denied entry crushed the students’ sense of
accomplishment.

A day or two after the judge’s phone call, we had a visit from the district
technology coordinator. She had heard about our creation and our presentation
to other classes. She invited us, on behalf of the Governor, to represent the
school at the statewide Governor's Technology Conference. Danielle, Elizabeth
and seven of the third grade students attended the conference, and while
handing out free glasses of milk, talked about the Importance of health and
eliminating waste. For their hard work, the students were awarded second place

in the showcase competition, a prize awarded over all other elementary schools,

32

middle schools, high schools, and technology academies invited to the
conference.

All of the students were greeted with honors after the conference and
were invited to present at both the PTA meeting and the local city council
meeting. Two newspapers covered the council meeting, where the mayor
applauded the efforts of the school and the children in bridging technology and
education. One reporter hailed the presentation as “one of the most innovative
projects in the state—in all age groups” (Golembiewski, 2000). Another reporter,
Showcasing the event on the local television news, suggested that the students
send their project to the Rosie O’Donnell Show to receive national attention.

The teachers were very pleased with the project, especially looking back
at the pedagogy and academic content in relation to state standards.
Specifically, the state’s Department of Educational Technology Plan called for
students to participate in a project-oriented approach totechnology, with the
outcome consisting of introductory multimedia projects. The “Got Milk?” movie
and CD-ROM certain qualifies for more than ‘introductory’ status; yet, it also
fulfills and exceeds the Department’s goal of students applying appropriate
technologies to critical thinking, creative expression, decision-making, problem
solving, and communication. Most importantly, the teachers were able to
facilitate this achievement while preserving the focus on state curriculum

standards in math, science, social studies, language arts, etc.

33

Was this technology innovation a success? Was the ‘Got Milk?’ video a
good innovation? Based on the attention, awards, and recognition received at
the local, regional, and statewide levels, the innovation was a ‘good’ one.
However, as I will argue in this dissertation, the project was successful
(cognitively and effectively) because it exhibited sound pedagogy, it impacted the
personnel in the project in positive ways, and it resulted in positive performances
—its implementation and impact—as measured by a deeper psychology of
technology. A deep and more complete analysis reveals findings that
substantiate why students Ieamed, how teachers taught, and some important
unintended consequences of the implementation and research surrounding the
implementation. These factors, in turn, not only guide future research, they also
present important understandings for the field of educational technology. In the
chapters that follow, I intend to unpack and carefully examine each of these

claims.

34

Chapter 1: The Pedagogy behind “Got Milk?”

Introduction

Using CD-ROMS for open and distance
education does not necessarily equate with
improving teaching effectiveness; it all depends
upon the pedagogical design and purpose of
particular discs. If a CD-ROM is viewed
primarily as a storage device or delivery
mechanism, the resulting structure might be
similar to an encyclopedia—a great deal of
content, but devoid of any specific teaching or
Ieaming goals.

(Kirkwood, 1998)

As important as it is for instruction to
accommodate new technologies, it is just as
important for the design of these technologies
to accommodate the instructional needs of
teachers for literacy and Ieaming.

(Leu et al., 1998) p. 203)

 

After three years of working with Danielle, I knew that she would try
anything in her Classroom related to technology because she believed two things:
a) any experience with new technologies would broaden her students’ horizons
(because); b) she could integrate almost any technology into a Ieaming tool for
her students. Danielle does not believe these things because she thinks 'she is a
technology expert. She describes herself as “just a teacher who is interested in
the teaching and Ieaming potential (pedagogical value) of new technologies.”
However, years of experience taught her that most technologies are flexible
enough to be adapted to the curriculum and will prove fruitful to students, even if
just as an introduction to the tools that would eventually greet them as “students

of the information age.”

35

Because of her beliefs, her technology accolades, and my past
experiences with her, I was fairly confident that her classroom would provide an
arena to explore technology integration. However, when we first Spoke, I had
intended to study a writing project she was about to implement. Danielle
believed in the students’ active construction of their own identity and wanted to
do a yearlong project called ‘Constructing Me.’ She believed that the computers
would play a key role in helping students reflect on their lives, as well Sharing
their life stories with others. A week or two before the project began, the
students and teachers decided they had a more important project to do. ‘5 This
new project, the “Got Milk?” program ended up being successful (on one level)
because it was imbued with ‘good pedagogy.’

What do we really know about technology and education? We know that
a good technology innovation is one that is integrated with academic content and

good pedagogical practice. ‘6 Technology research provides evidence that even

 

'5 It is difficult to place a value on something of ‘more important’, especially when you are comparing that
thing to helping students understand something as important as Ieaming that they construct their own
future. As will be documented in this dissertation, however, the ‘Got Milk?’ project helped students Ieam
they have control over who they become and what they do in life by helping and teaching others. Thus, as
following the pedagogy set forth in this section, they were actively creating a sense of themselves as
owners of their own development by collaborating in authentic problem solving activities, participating in
social Ieaming relationships, and publishing artifacts. Granted, this may have been achieved through the
original writing project; however, in this project, students accomplished these goals by solving an authentic
problem of how to help others Ieam about (and consequently how to solve) a problem.

6 Along with other researchers (Norman, 1993; Salomon, 1993), I started this discussion by making the
claim that no technology innovation is inherently good or bad in and of itself. This, in turn, begs the
question, “what makes a good innovation?” Gavriel Salomon (Salomon, 1993) pursued this line of
argument, and came to two important conclusions. First, it is difficult to judge the ‘goodness’ of a
technology outside of the purpose for which it was created. In other words, a screwdriver is a good
innovation in some cases, and potentially bad at times when a wrench is needed. The second conclusion is
that in the light of number one, the value of innovations should be judged on their pedagogic value (i.e.,
tied to pedagogic goals, pedagogic assessments, etc.). I agree with Salomon, and thus devote this chapter
to an understanding what makes a good pedagogical tool. The next two chapters are allocated for pushing
beyond just pedagogy to describe other important features of a ‘good innovation’, namely personnel and
psychology. The aim of the combination of the three is to describe a more complete approach to
understanding technology innovations.

36

without the interaction of more knowledgeable others, prior pedagogical goals, or
a strong teaching program, Children may construct their own curriculum and their
own purpose for Classroom technologies (Webb, 1996). However, technology
use in the Classroom is not necessarily an end in and of itself17 (except, perhaps,
in the case of an instructor teaching a computer course), nor should it be left up
to chance as to whether the student uses it as a medium in Ieaming. In most
cases of Chance, instructors and students leave the machines to gather dust
(Kinzer & Risko, 1998; Miller & Olson, 1994; Webb, 1996). In other scenarios,
technology plans without pedagogical considerations result in mindless
technology ‘checklists’ devoid of any strong ties to curriculum (i.e., keyboarding,
word processing, and desktop publishing Skills learned by the end of the third
grade) (Berrien, 1998).

What does it mean, then, to create an innovation steeped in academic
content and practice? Mainly it entails tying it to Ieaming theory to create
authentic and engaging activities for students. From a social constructivist
perspective“, this means:

-The innovation must be imbued with authentic, interesting, and

challenging academic content (at the high end of the students' Zone of

Proximal Development).

-Participants must have a sense of ownership.

-There must be opportunities for active participation, collaboration and
social interaction.

 

'7 See Kirkwood’s (Kirkwood, 1998) discussion of educational concerns vs. technological concerns.

" We know very little of Lev Vygotsky’s complete works due in part to the minimal amount of his writing
that has been translated from Russian. However, the writing that has crossed the ocean has spurred an
interest in what is known as socio-cultural thought and social constructivism. Like Piaget’s individual
constructivism, it highlights the knowledge construction process of the learner, with a major exception
being the emphasis of the learner situated within a culture, society, or institution. “The basic goal of a
sociocultural approach to mind is to create an account of human mental processes that recognizes the
essential relationship between these processes and their cultural, historical, and institutional settings”
(Wertsch, 1991). (See (V ygotsky, 1978).)

37

-The curriculum and technological tools must provide chances for the

creation of artifacts in a variety of ways.

-Publication, reflection, and feedback play a key role throughout the

project. ‘9
We. lntergting, and Challenging Content

The “Got Milk?” project was a good innovation because it was steeped in
good pedagogy. Students actively participated in the design of both the problem
and the solution. Although the teachers and students both noticed the wasted
milk, the students decided that it was an authentic problem in their lives. Many of
them had personally experienced the frustration of seeing wasted goods after
being without food or drink. Others knew friends that didn’t drink milk because
they did not think it was ‘cool.’ The project would solve an authentic problem that
they had discovered (and described) with a solution they had created.

Immediately upon hearing the terms ‘authentic problem’, most people
think of mathematics story problems such as: “Bill and Nancy are in separate
cars heading away from each other at 60mph...” Actually, authentic content
refers to content that is meaningful, worthwhile, feasible, and anchored in a real-
world problem (Newman, Secada, & Wehlage, 1995; Blumenfeld, Krajcik, Marx,
& Soloway, 1994; Englert et al., 1998; Krajcik, 1994; Scardamalia & Bereiter,
1991).20 Albanese states that this type of learning is an instructional

methodology characterized by the use of problems as a context for students to

Ieam problem-solving skills and acquire knowledge about the topic they are

 

19Many researchers would also include the use of cognitive tools such as computers as an important
component of this Ieaming perspective (Krajcik, I994; Linn, 1991; Salomon, 1993). As this dissertation
focuses on technology use in the classroom, the use of cognitive tools is an omnipresent (although not
necessarily listed) assumption of this research.

2° I suppose by that rationale, two cars heading in different directions might be meaningful to someone in
some context dealing with a similar problem.

38

studying (Albanese & Mitchell, 1993). Kolodner (Kolodner, 1997) adds that
students Ieam in these situations “by having rich experiences that motivate the
need to Ieam and that give them a chance to apply what they are learning”
(p.61).

It is important to have authentic, real-world problems because they are
interesting and meaningful to the students and thus engaging. “Designers of
successful Classroom interventions must make sure that they are engaging
enough to seduce children into the world of learning...Once ensnared, it may be
possible to guide students toward the intrinsic rewards that follow from self-
initiated disciplined inquiry” (Brown, 1992). Interesting problems, in turn, create
Significant missions for the students to fulfill; Ieaming occurs in the context of
carrying out that mission (Kolodner, 1997).

The students in Danielle and Elizabeth’s class decided to tackle the
problem of waste. Because it was their project, and thus authentic to them, they
were interested in the learning that would be required to solve the problem. They
did not see graphing as part of a mathematics lesson, but rather a tool to Share
what they had learned from visiting the lunchroom. They viewed the maps on the
wall as places where dairy farms existed, not a geography lesson.

Content that is authentic and interesting engages the student.
Sometimes, the technology iS the component that makes the content more
interesting. For instance, students could write a letter to their local
Congressional Representative without the use of a computer. However, using a

computer that speaks their words back to them, allows them to paste in pictures,

39

and translates their text as they write on the screen may motivate them and even
peak their creativity. At other times, the technology affords the content to be
authentic. Writing a letter to an animal expert to Ieam more about Penguins is an
authentic task, but might be unrealistic due to the time constraints of finding an
expert, writing the letters, mailing the letters, and waiting for a response. The
teacher may decide instead to just have the students write the letters and never
send them. Compare that experience to the experiences of Danielle and
Elizabeth, who visited a dairy website, obtained the name and email of a milk
expert, had the students email the class letters, and heard a response the next
day.

Along with being authentic and interesting, content that is supported by
technology must be challenging to the students. A main tenet of Vygotsky’s
theory is the importance of aiming instruction at the upper boundaries of a child’s
‘Zone of Proximal Development’ or ‘ZPD’ (Brown & Ferrara, 1985). The ZPD is
defined as:

the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by

independent problem solving and the level of potential development as

determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in

collaboration with more capable peers. (Vygotsky, 1978, p.86)

In other words, if instruction is too easy for the student, they will lose
interest; if it is too hard, they will become frustrated. The goal is to use content
that is at the high end of their ZPD, where learning takes place with adult
guidance or collaboration with more knowledgeable or more capable others. The

child still acts as the agent in the Ieaming activities, but knowledge emerges from

the social interactions between the Child and the adult or more knowledgeable

4O

other (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1991). These other participants scaffold the
learning such that the individual constructs knowledge at a level unreachable by
him or herself alone.

In the “Got Milk?” project, the students became the writers and producers
of their own movie segments. Working with the teacher gave them the
opportunity to explore not only what they already knew, but also what they
needed to know. Their self-directed learning was guided in the meeting times
with the teacher. However, it was also supplemented and reinforced as they
became the more knowledgeable others—teaching their colleagues what they
had Ieamed upon returning to the class. Although Danielle, Elizabeth, and I all
played important roles in scaffolding their development in the ZPD, technology
was also integral. Students were able to use the lntemet to ask questions to
experts about milk and the dairy industry. They then used the computers in class
to post notes to one another when they had questions, comments or thoughts.
Again, in both processes, they not only were scaffolded in their development, but
they also Ieamed how to scaffold others’ development.

There are many exciting possibilities for the role of technology and
learning in the student’s Zone of Proximal Development. Two existing examples
besides the “Got Milk?” program include the CSILE and TELE-Web projects.
CSILE, developed by Marlene Scardamalia and Carl Bereiter, stands for
Computer Supported Intentional Learning Environments. The creators describe
CSILE as “a networked system that gives students simultaneous access to a

database that is composed of text and graphical notes that the students produce

41

themselves and a means of searching and commenting on one another’S
contributions” (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1991, p. 38). CSILE was developed to
support and sustain Ieaming environments that focus on knowledge building.
However, unlike traditional knowledge-based models directed by teachers,
students use the technology (databases, note creation, etc.) to set cognitive
goals, ask stimulating questions, monitor comprehension, and activate prior
knowledge (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1991; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994). In
doing so, the technology provided students with a higher level of agency in their
Zone of Proximal Development. This process, in turn, stimulates higher order
thinking (self-regulatory behaviors) and guides students into more independent
thinking (Salomon, 1993).21

TELE-Web, mentioned earlier in this dissertation, is the Technology-
Enhanced Learning Environments-Web. It is a technological instantiation of the
Early Literacy Project (ELP) developed by Carol Sue Englert and others at
Michigan State University.22 “Although the Early Literacy Project showed
significant effects of the literacy curriculum on the reading and writing
performance of students, there were several issues that warranted extensions of
the work into literacy applications involving technology” (Zhao, Englert, Jones,

Chen, & Ferdig, 2000a). In these extensions, researchers studied the potential

 

2' Salomon gives the example of a physician to better explain how technology can help in self-regulating
and higher-order thinking (Salomon, 1993). An ‘expert’ technology that helped a doctor diagnose illnesses
would be performance-oriented in nature. However, a system that cultivated the doctor’s own skills would
be pedagogic in nature. Pedagogic tools are better for education as they “turn effects with them into more
lasting effects of them” (p. 184). Students use pedagogic tools like CSILE to attain higher order thinking
skills such as self-regulatory behaviors.

22 ELP, “designed for use in primary-grade classrooms for students with Ieaming disabilities, was intended
to build literacy skills and impart leaming-to-leam strategies” (Englert, Raphael, & Mariage, I994). ELP
strategies include: a) journal writing; b) story response; c) choral reading; d) thematic units; e) report
writing; and I) book sharing.

42

of using technology to better scaffold student Ieaming. The technology-based
learning environment provided such things as text-to-Speech and speech-
recording functions, an increase of access to information, a larger authentic
audience of teachers and peers, and prompts for students who were reading or
writing. Research on TELE—Web has provided evidence that these tools, and the
social interactions made available through them, served to scaffold mediated
performance in the students’ ZPD (Zhao et al., 2000a).

If the Zone of Proximal Development is defined by activities the
participants can handle cooperatively better than they can alone (Scardamalia &
Bereiter, 1991), then evidence suggests that technology can plan a role in
making Ieaming challenging by placing it at the high end of the student’s ZPD. In
one case, research supported the notion that technology tools provided space for
authentic and interesting content, as well as opportunities for scaffolding
mediated performance in the ZPD (Englert et al., 1998; Zhao et al., 2000a). In
another case, the technology environment was used to help students take over
the adult regulating role (Diaz, 1990; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1991). In the “Got
Milk?” project, a student-directed initiative allowed the teachers to work with
authentic, challenging problems in the students’ ZPD. The students were then
enabled to act as more knowledgeable others to their colleagues. All three cases
represent technology innovations as cognitive tools helping students “transcend
their cognitive limitations and engage in cognitive operations they would not have

been capable of otherwise” (Salomon, 1993).

43

A Sense Of Ownership

The active construction of knowledge means that the student learns to
take on a self-regulating role in the Ieaming process. This active construction
has become the forefront of many education mission statements, specifically
stating: “the self-regulated learner must have a healthy self-concept with a strong
understanding that they, alone, are in control of their Ieaming, mastery of tasks,
and attainment of goals" (Sandford & Richardson, 1997). The emphasis is on
student control of their Ieaming, where opportunities for that ownership are
available in the design as well as the solution of the project or problem.

Technology can offer ways for students to establish that personal
intellectual ownership of new concepts while they visualize and interact with
abstract ideas (O'Shea, 1999). An example is the after-school computer
Clubhouses run throughout the country. Students in these Clubhouses have the
freedom to create and participate in their own projects. When given this
ownership, control and responsibility over their learning, students developed
creative problem solving skills, personal connections to knowledge, a sense of
audience, and a private area for reflection (Resnick et al., 1999; Zhao, Mishra, &
Girod, 20000).

In the “Got Milk?" project, although students collectively agreed on
producing a movie, other student choices were subsequently created artifacts
used in the campaign. These included posters, drawings, web pages, interviews,
stories and poems. All of the students therefore shared a sense of ownership,

whether seeing it in the choices they had voted for, the secondary artifacts that

44

were created, or the collaboration and group interaction that surrounded the
creation of the artifacts. Each student also participated in the technical
production of the campaign, using the tools experts would use to accomplish the
same task. They would take turns videotaping, audiotaping, directing, searching
the web for information, taking digital pictures, scanning, editing, and adding
voice-overs.
Active Participation, Collaboration, andfiSociaflntpelgptjpp

Closely tied to the idea of the Zone of Proximal Development is the notion
that good innovations must provide opportunities for active participation,
collaboration and social interaction. Active participation has seemingly become a
catch phrase in any Ieaming theory that opposes itself to “traditional didactic
approaches to education, which seem to be based on an assumption of direct
transfer of knowledge from teacher to student, without an intervening
constructive process” (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1991, p. 38). In other words,
knowledge is not transmitted from the expert to a passive learner; rather, learning
is an enculturation process where knowledge is actively constructed within the
student’s ZPD with the help of more capable others (Brown, Collins, & Duguid,
1989; Rogoff, 1994). This active participation takes place as students talk, write,
relate, and apply among other things, and is present in both the design of the
problem as well as the design of the solution (Chickering & Gamson, 1987;
Kolodner, 1997). The design of Cognitively Flexible Hypertexts (CFH’S) is one

key example of how a technology innovation can scaffold active participation.

45

Cognitive Flexibility Theory (Spiro et al., 1988) is a constructivist response
to the difficulties of advanced knowledge acquisition in ill-structured domains. “A
central Claim of CFT is that revisiting the same material, at different times, in
rearranged contexts, for different purposes, and from different conceptual
perspectives is essential for attaining the goals of advanced knowledge
acquisition (mastery of complexity in understanding and preparation for transfer)”
(Spiro, Feltovich, Jacobson, & Coulson, 1992). CF H’s, hypertexts that draw on
Cognitive Flexibility Theory, support a crisscrossed landscape of the knowledge
area and thus convey ill-structured aspects of knowledge domains. Most
importantly for this discussion, rather than pre-specifying knowledge, CFH’S
provide exploration environments in which students work with building blocks to
assemble knowledge. Furthermore, a principle tenet of CF H’s is that “the .
phenomena of ill-structured domains are best thought of as evincing multiple
truths: single perspectives are not false, they are inadequate” (Spiro et al.,
1992). Thus, participation is scaffolded such that students do not form singular
truths but actively create multiple narratives and knowledge arrangements for
different purposes.

Active participation is a necessary component of constructivist Ieaming
theories, and thus also a major tenet of those theories which espouse a social
perspective on learning (Wertsch, 1991;'Prawat, 1996). And, as evidenced by
the research on CFH’S, active learning can be supported and enhanced with
technology use. However, active participation also includes learning in shared

endeavors with others—a reason why social interaction and collaboration are

46

other important features of technology innovations (Linn, 1991; Rogoff, 1994).
Thus far, I have highlighted collaboration and social interaction as being with an
adult or a more capable other. In the example of TELE-Web, a teacher was able
to create prompts, specified assignments, and other learning tools (notes, maps,
etc.) to provide direct support for the student. The advantage of technology was
that she could program it into the computer and thus be able to help all of her
students at once. However, as evidenced by the research on TELE-Web,
CSILE, and other technologies, the more knowledgeable other may also be other
students working with the same innovation. Research suggests that when
children collaborate, they can and do scaffold each other’s thinking as predicted
by Piagetian and Vygotskian learning theories (Roschelle, 1992; Tudge, 1992).
This is an extremely important point because for the most part, children spend far
more time in direct interaction with their peers than they do with adults (Rogoff,
1994). 2“

Regardless of who or whom the more capable other is, technology can
support the active construction of knowledge and eventually the taking over of
the self-regulating adult role in the social learning relationship. Innovations that
espouse active learning, collaboration, and social interaction also offer
opportunities for new types of relationships between teachers and students—
Ieast of which is the proverbial move from “sage on the stage’ to the ‘guide on the

side’ (Batson, 1993). Finally, as “Ieaming occurs through centripetal participation

 

23 A third potential role for the computer is to actually act as the more knowledgeable or more capable
other. That is a role worth mentioning, though it is highly debated. Although one can see the potential in
programs that ‘teach’, it is arguable whether it is the computer acting as the more knowledgeable other or
the teacher and other participants (students, audience, software author, etc.) acting through the medium.
(See (Linn, 1991).)

47

in the Ieaming curriculum of the ambient community” (Lave & Wenger, 1991),
innovations become promising tools insomuch as they provide space for the
creation of Ieaming communities. Those communities, places where students
can try out ideas and Challenge the ideas of others, are both supported through
and emergent from interactions with technology such as computers (Krajcik,
1994; Resnick, Rusk, & Cooke, 1999).

Like TELE-Web and Cognitively Flexible Hypertexts, active participation,
collaboration, and social interaction were important features of the “Got Milk?”
project. We decided that during the individual study time, the teachers would
meet with one group to learn more about what they wanted to do (and later on,
what they had done and what they had found out). Danielle and Elizabeth would
then develop instruction that would help the group (and the class) learn the Skills
associated with the group’s plans. For instance, the ‘evidence group’ wanted to
visit the lunchroom to count the number of milk containers being thrown away.
Students in this project would learn how to collect, organize, and display their
data. Danielle and Elizabeth taught the entire class different ways to collect
information. After the “evidence group’ had returned with their data, the teachers
engaged the entire Class in math Skills needed to translate their raw data into
graphs, charts, and conclusions.

The ‘information group” was responsible for gathering information related
to the use and waste of milk. In this process, the group Ieamed about the
production of milk. Danielle and the group members then taught the rest of the

class the science behind the physical and mechanical production of milk. This

48

approach turned the two-to-three day “Got Milk?” movie into a thematic unit,

encompassing math, science, social studies, history, language arts, art, music,

and theatre. 2‘ Danielle shared her thoughts on tape one day:
The students generated all of the ideas for the movie. However, we
began to realize that if we wanted to make their dreams come true, we as
teachers needed to plan. So, we made a schematic map based on their
ideas. We began to think about how it would fit into different curricular
strands. How would it fit into math? How could we support it with social
studies values?

The teachers designed a curriculum around the students’ ideas that
supported multiple curricular elements. Students learned mathematical and
analytical skills of problem solving, data collection, and data representation. This
included creating and using tools to verify their hypotheses, putting the data into
graphic form, and reflecting on what they had seen. They honed their language
arts skills through Speaking, reading, writing, listening, brainstorming, conducting
interviews, and debating. In social studies and geography, students
communicated with others from around the world (mainly Australia and Africa) to
discover whether the problem was global or local. In doing so, they discovered
that many Children did not know where milk came from or thought that milk only
came from cows. In science, they learned about how milk was produced, what

animals produced it, and how dairy farmers processed it. Other lessons focused

on history (the history of milk production, the history of dairy animal use in

 

2’ Thematic units are sets of learning experiences surrounding a central question. These themes (bats,
whales, milk wasted, etc.) allow students to explore a topic from a variety of perspectives. Much like the
argument behind Spiro’s Cognitive Flexibility Theory (Spiro et al., 1988), multiple passes at the same
content from different perspectives affords a more comprehensive approach to the material. Moreover, it
allows students to see connections between content areas.

49

America, etc.). art (how to create posters, how to design web pages, etc.), music
(the creation of a jingle”), and theatre (acting, directing, producing a movie, etc.).

Potentially one of the most interesting things related to active participation
and collaboration happened when a student searched for information on the web.
The very first page was entitled, “Why milk is bad for you.” This student shared
with the rest of the class information he had Ieamed from this research. Mainly,
he found that people can be allergic to milk, and others are against drinking milk
for health or religious reasons. After he shared this, a few students admitted to
being allergic to milk. They later confided that they hadn’t revealed this before
because the focus had been on ‘how cool it waS’ to drink milk. Students used
critical thinking skills to decide that, Since people have different reasons for not
drinking milk, the focus Should shift from “drinking milk’ to ‘not wasting food or
milk.’

In each of the examples above, students actively participated in the design
of the curriculum and content. The social interaction, especially in the last case
of the “bad milk” was important to Challenge the preconceived thoughts and
notions of the students. However, the technology was important in
supplementing both of the participation and the social interaction. It helped
connect students with experts from around the world. They also used chatrooms
to post their thoughts with members of the Class. According to the Danielle, they
built a local community of experts online—a place where students could test out
their conceptions of how milk was made, where it was used, and how it was

wasted.

50

F urtherrnore, using technology allowed them to approach the same
problem in a variety of ways. Using the criss-crossed landscape method
described in Cognitive Flexibility Theory, students learned about the waste of
milk through studying science (the production of milk), mathematics (graphing
waste), history and social studies (the impact of milk production and history of its
use), language arts (argumentative essays for and against the use of milk as well
as interviews), and geography (locating the places milk came from). However,
they also used a variety of technologies to explore those issues including:
chatrooms, PowerPoint, word processors, email, web searching, and video and
audio production.

The Creation of Artifacts

The “Got Milk?” project began with a brainstorming activity on how the
students could best ‘reach a chosen audience.’ The students and teachers
talked about what they could create to share their message of the importance of
not wasting. The movie was chosen; however, as mentioned earlier, all of the
student ideas were eventually used in the production of the CD-ROM. This was
important as it helped each student gain a sense of ownership. It was also
important, though, because good innovations must offer a variety of opportunities
for the creation of real solutions and artifacts in response to those problems.
Michael Cole (Cole, 1996) states: “an artifact is an aspect of the material world
that has been modified over the history of its incorporation into goal-directed

human action” (p. 117).25 In social constructivist thought, these artifacts are

 

2’ Cole, drawing on Marx Wartofsky, distinguishes between three levels of artifacts. Primary artifacts are
ones used directly in production such as axes, needles, and bowls. Secondary artifacts are representations

51

integral and inseparable components of human functioning (Engestrom, 1991;
Prawat, 1996).26 The creation of those artifacts allows students to learn
concepts, apply information, and represent knowledge in a variety of ways
(Blumenfeld et al., 1994). Those artifacts, in turn, represent students’
understanding of the problem, resulting solutions, and emergent states of
knowledge (Krajcik, 1994).

One prime example of the technology-supported creation of artifacts is
Project Based Science (Krajcik, 1994). In Project Based Science, “the computer
provides access to data and information, expands interaction and collaboration
with others via networks, promotes laboratory investigation, and emulates tools
experts use to produce artifacts” (pp. 488-489). Technology is integral to the
project not only because it helps to produce artifacts (artifacts that emulate what
an expert might create) but because of the variety of ways in which students can
create artifacts. Artifacts are representations of student knowledge and
understanding; as such, students must have various, diverse opportunities to
create them. In Project Based Science, opportunities exist to easily construct,

manipulate, and revise video, audio, text, and graphics (p. 489). 27

 

of primary artifacts. Recipes, constitutions, and norms are examples at this level. The final level consists
of imaginary artifacts that come to constitute a relatively autonomous world. Tertiary artifacts color the
way we see the world; examples include works of art and processes of perception. See Cultural
Psychology (Cole, 1996) for a more comprehensive description of Wartofsky’s levels.

26 Another definition or version of artifacts comes from Jerome Bruner (Bruner, 1996). Drawing on the
French cultural psychology, Ignace Meyerson, Bruner calls these artifacts oeuvres. Oeuvres are “works
that, as it were, achieve an existence of their own. In the grand sense, these include the arts and sciences of
a culture, institutional structures such as its laws and its markets, even its ‘history’ conceived as a canonical
version of the past” (p. 22). Minor oeuvres also exist as local, modest, identity-bestowing traits.

27 Working with these various tools, in turn, prepares students to participate in the ‘information age’ (Zhao
et al., 2000a).

52

Students in Danielle’s class saw a variety of possible solutions to helping
others Ieam about their problem (wasting milk). The technology offered
opportunities for those students to express their solutions to those problems.
The CD-ROM was the largest artifact, but as a part of that product, students also
created and produced movie segments, recorded and live speeches, PowerPoint
presentations, scanned images, milk chatrooms, and digital images of the
problem and potential solutions. After spending time researching the problem in
the library and on the lntemet, students discovered that their created artifacts
represented many of the same efforts made by experts in the field—experts in
both dairy farming (‘enlightening’ the public) and the problems of waste.
Publication. Reflecflon, and Feedback

Although each “Got Milk?” participant focused on a different part of the
campaign, they all had the opportunity to Ieam through others. This meant that
the students helped the instructors teach their specific section (mathematics and
graphing, art and web design, etc.). However, it also entailed sharing what they
had learned from completing their section (both the artifact of the endeavor as
well their secondary artifacts throughout the process). They shared with their
classmates and, in the end, shared with a larger audience through the publication
of the CD—ROM and visits to other classrooms, the technology conference, and
the City Council meeting. Students from other classes, judges at those
f conferences, parents at PTA meetings, and reporters from local news stations all

Spent time sharing feedback with “Got Milk?” participants. They wrote letters,

53

email, and made personal visits to Share the impact the students’ work had on
their lives.

Students having a Chance to publish, reflect, and receive feedback on
their efforts is essential to a social constructivist model of Ieaming because of
what Rom Harré (Harré, 1984; Harré, Clarke, & DeCarIo, 1985) has called the
‘Vygotsky Space.’ His representation helps clarify how Ieamers “move from
using new meanings or strategies publicly and in interaction with others to
individually appropriating and transforming these concepts and strategies into
newly invented ways of thinking” (Gavelek & Raphael, 1996). The Vygotsky
Space defines and describes four recursive processes within the individual-social
and public-private dimensions: appropriation, transformation, publication, and
conventionalization.28 Although all of the Vygotsky Space processes were
evident in the “Got Milk?” project, publication was the most salient.

Publication is the process in which student knowledge, understandings
and strategies are made public so that others can respond. Artifact creation and
the opportunity for publication are important ingredients in good innovations for
three reasons. 29 First, through publications, teachers and researchers “can infer
the process by which students transform meanings and strategies appropriated
within the social domain, making those strategies their own” (Gavelek & Raphael,

1996) p. 188). Second, publishing makes material accessible to subsequent

 

2" See (Gavelek & Raphael, I996; Harré, I984; Harré et al., 1985) for a complete explanation of the
Vygotsky Space.

29 Artifact creation and publication essentially sound like the same process—4hat of producing
representations of knowledge and understanding. One of the core differences is that artifact creation can
either be material or conceptual, especially in the secondary and tertiary levels. Publication, conversely,
refers to representing that understanding in forms others can see, hear, feel, etc. In the Vygotsky Space,
publication takes form as knowledge moves from the private to public sphere.

54

reflection and analysis, allowing students to revisit and revise their artifacts, thus
enriching the Ieaming experience (Bruner, 1996; Krajcik, 1994; Olson, 1994;
Olson, 1998).

A third reason publication is important refers back to the need for a good
innovation to consist of Challenging, academic content at the high end of the
Zone of Proximal Development. Assistance from a more capable or more
knowledgeable other in the ZPD is referred to as scaffolding (Wood, Bruner, &
Ross, 1976). “Scaffolding characterizes the social interaction that occurs
among students and teachers that precedes internalization of the knowledge,
skills, and dispositions useful for all Ieamers” (Roehler & Cantlon, 1996).
Publication offers the opportunity for feedback; feedback, in turn, scaffolds a
learner in their quests for knowledge construction, knowledge integration (Linn,
1991), higher-order thinking, and self-regulatory behavior. 3°
A Discussion of ‘Good Pedagpgy’

Research presented in this chapter provides evidence that authentic and
challenging content, active participation (including collaboration and social
interaction), a sense of ownership, opportunities for the creation of artifacts, and
publication (promoting reflection and feedback) are all necessary features of
good pedagogy. Good pedagogy, in turn, is a requirement for good technology

innovations. The benefit of this relationship is the fact that many technologies, as

 

3° Another excellent example of technology-supported publication of artifacts and scaffolding through
feedback is the Reading Classroom Explorer (RCE) (Ferdig, Hughes, Packard, & Pearson, 1998). RCE is a
web-based tool created at Michigan State University’s College of Education. It was designed to engage
teacher candidates as actively as possible in Ieaming about literacy instruction. Students use RCE to create
and publish a variety of artifacts including notes, papers, and discussion forum messages. RCE is available
on-line at: http://reading.educ.msu.edu/rce

55

corroborated by educational inquiries documented in this chapter, are flexible
enough to support the components of good pedagogy. Thus, a reciprocal
relationship exists in which good technology innovations require but also have
the potential to support and sustain good pedagogy. At this first level, good
pedagogy turns innovations into pedagogical, cognitive tools that scaffold
students and support Ieaming (Salomon, 1993; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1991).
Three questions regarding good pedagogy and technology innovations remain,
however:

a) Are these the only five factors that assure sound pedagogy?

b) In any given technology integration, must all five components be

evident to assure sound pedagogy?

C) What about successes in educational technology innovations that were
not designed or planned?

Are these the only five factors that assure sound pedagpgy? Research
provides evidence that the five components listed above, when present in a
technology innovation, help to ensure the innovation is sound from a social
constructivist perspective. The use of only five factors does not necessarily imply
that these are the only components that make up a pedagogically sound
innovation, for three reasons. First, as evidenced in the literature, other research
has documented many of the same findings but with different labels (Blumenfeld
et al., 1994; Krajcik, 1994; Zhao et al., 2000a). Some have separated many titles
I’ve joined; others have joined categories I have separated.

Second, I argue in this dissertation that we need a deeper psychology of
technology. The call for depth implies drawing vocabulary from disciplines such

as psychology to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the instance of

56

technology use. Thus, I would hope continued exploration would drive the
discovery of other necessary factors. In conjunction with Sarah and her eMate,
research might suggest that educational technologies need to be designed to act
as transitional objects for younger students. Or, drawing from Cognitive
Flexibility Theory and Cognitively Flexible Hypertexts (Spiro et al., 1988), we
might Ieam that hypertext is an important design factor in all “good innovations.’
Third, different pedagogical goals have different needs associated with
them. For instance, research may suggest that teaching visual Ieamers requires
innovations that are more pictorial in nature. Or, research might suggest that
students need on-line calculators to facilitate their mathematical Ieaming in some
online Ieaming environments. Important ‘secondary’ factors exist, therefore, in
the design and implementation of the innovation related to the specific goal of
teaching. That does not mean, however (at least not yet), that every innovation
has to provide access to pictures and calculators to be considered pedagogically
sound. These secondary factors are potentially related only to the pedagogical
goals of the curriculum or environment in which the innovation is to be
implemented. Conversely, at this point in educational technology’s young
history, research on Ieaming theory and technology has supported the five
aforementioned ‘broad’ factors as important in assuring pedagogical sound

innovations, regardless of what pedagogical goal you are trying to accomplish.

In any given technolmv integration, must all five components be evident

 

to assure sound pedagogy? The idea behind a good innovation requiring good

pedagogy is that the technology Should support what we know about how

57

students learn. As documented by this dissertation, the five components are
integral parts of a social constructivist learning theory. Thus, to leave out one or
more would leave you subscribing to half of the theory. A technology innovation
that claims to espouse a social constructivist approach and yet does not support
artifact creation or active Ieaming is not pedagogically sound. In turn, an
innovation that is not pedagogically sound is not a good innovation.

This argument extends to claim good pedagogy is required regardless of
the learning theory one subscribes to. Thus, a Piagetian individual constructivist
approach might not have the exact same factors, but would still require the
innovation to match the learning theory in order to be considered ‘good.’

What about successes in educational technology innovJations that_w_ep§
not designed or planned? In the history of educational technology innovations,
there are examples of technologies that have transformed a Ieaming experience
even though there was no pre-stated, preconceived or premeditated design. For
instance, one teacher I worked with used group reading in a lesson on social
studies. The students reacted very emotionally due to the content of the book,
and asked the teacher if they could write out their feelings using word processors
in the classroom. The students used the word processors to type out their
essays, and then Shared their writing on-line with other Classes. This experience
was imbued with artifact creation, social interaction, publication, feedback, etc. It
provided evidence supporting social constructivist theories of Ieaming, and yet it

was not initially designed based on that (or any) Ieaming perspective. Does this

58

imply that using the word processors was a bad innovation because it was not
designed, let alone designed with pedagogy in mind?

One reason I find technology fascinating is because of its ability (or our
ability through mediation) to be represented in multiple ways. For instance, a
laptop is a word processor to some people, a projection utility to others, and a
CD audio or DVD movie player to still others.31 Somewhere in his approach is
the notion that regardless of the pedagogical design we build into educational
technologies (or the lack thereof), students find other (potentially important) uses
for them. Or—another way to put it—the pedagogical use of technology,
especially in the classroom, is not always a pre-calculated event. Thus, in the
instance of the teacher and the word processors, it was important for her to ‘
revisit and reflect on the instruction to understand the pedagogy and technology
behind the experience. Furthermore, it highlights the fact that good technology
innovations require more than just good pedagogy; they require good people and
good psychology. These additional components, discussed in the next two
Chapters, help us understand what it takes to adapt the technology to the
curriculum (and vice versa), what Characteristics certain technologies have that
might make them more or less conducive to teaching and/or learning, and the
unintended consequences of technology use.
Good Pedagogy and More

The “Got Milk?” project was a successful technology innovation, at least in

part, because it used good pedagogy to scaffold the Ieaming of authentic,

 

3' This varied mediation of tool use occurs outside of technology as well; a perfect example is Cathy
Davidson’s 36 View of Mt. F ugi (Davidson, 1993).

59

Challenging, academic content. Students used technology to actively participate
and take ownership of a project they had designed. They also used technology
to create artifacts to solve problems unearthed during their inquiry. In turn, they

Ieamed how to be problem-solvers and critical thinkers.

60

Chapter 2: The People Behind “Got Milk?”

Introduction
The Magic Everywhere

I see snow on the trees and I see white snow
on roofs of houses. I see snow on the ground
covering the grass and I see marshmallows on
chocolate. I see some cookies with some
white sprinkles I can taste in my mouth. Can
you feel the magic and taste the magic in the
air?

 

By Alannah (age 9)

What do we really know about technology and education? We know that
a good technology innovation is one that views implementation as a process
catering to the relationships between innovator, educator, and Ieamer. In the last
chapter, I presented research that demonstrated evidence of the necessary but
potentially reciprocal relationship between technology innovation and pedagogy.
That first requisite highlights technology innovations as tangible hardware or ’
programmed software that act (at least in one manner) as cognitive tools. They
scaffold and support students’ Ieaming and student Ieaming environments when
they are permeated with good pedagogy. However, a good innovation is also a
process of creation, implementation, and use by innovator (developer), educator,
and student.32 A good innovation is consequently defined in relationship to what it

is as well as how it is implemented.

 

32 Sometimes, as will be mentioned here and discussed in greater detail in the next chapter, those three can
be the same person. This is due to the fact that we all use technologies in different, new, and exciting ways
for a variety of reasons. As mentioned earlier, a laptop to one person is a database management tool. To
another person, it is a CD-ROM audio player.

61

A third grader named Alannah, a “Got Milk?” member, wrote the poem
above, entitled “The Magic Everywhere.” It had just snowed for the first time that
winter, and she was thinking of ways to express her feelings about the ‘magic
She felt.’ The web-based software she used to write the poem was Specifically
designed with good pedagogy in mind. In order to write the poem, Alannah had
to log in to the system and create her own project, thus giving her a ‘personal
space’ and a sense of ownership. She created for herself an authentic task of
trying to Share her perceptions with others on the web-based system. In writing
the poem, She created and used other artifacts such as notes, prompts, and
diagrams. She then published the poem and received feedback from her
teachers and colleagues.

The innovation (software) afforded the opportunity for Ieaming because of
what it was—a technology steeped in good pedagogy. However, the history of
the innovation tells a more complex story than Alannah merely walking up and
typing in the poem. The teacher wanted a tool in the classroom to support the
development of her students’ writing. She contacted the developers, who began
by trying to easily and efficiently develop flexible, pedagogically sound software.
The teacher then spent time with the developers, learning the software and
helping to further craft the system to her educational needs. During the
implementation stage, the teacher worked with students in the classroom and
adapted her curriculum to integrate the new technology. At that point in time,

Alannah was able to use the innovation to Share her magic.

62

This vignette of an innovation implementation demonstrates that a
technology innovation is more than just a hardware and/or software product—it is
also a process. That process is not just a matter of the amount of time it takes to
develop the product; rather, it is also a matter of how the product is implemented
(developed, put into practice, taught, etc.) over time. That process can best be
defined as a collection of relationships between the members involved in the
innovation, namely students, teachers, and developers. Therefore, a good
innovation, in addition to requiring good pedagogy, also requires good people.

What does it mean to have an innovation that is implemented by good
people? It means having:

1) Innovators who recognize the dialogic nature of innovation

implementation.

2) Innovators who interact with teachers and students in genuine ways.

3) Innovators and teachers who understand the flexible nature of both

teaching and technology.

4) Innovators who provide opportunities for legitimate participation.

Who are the members of aminnovajon?

A good innovation requires good people. ‘Good people” refers to the
members who are a part of the innovation development and subsequent
integration and use. Those members include innovators (developers), teachers,
and students. Prior to a more complete description and explanation of the

necessary relationships between the three groups, it is important to define

Specifically the roles of each of the members/groups in an innovation.

63

The first group is named ‘innovator’ and/or ‘developer’; the two terms are
used interchangeably in this text. 33 Sometimes this person is described as the
“technology expert.’ The role of this person (as defined here) is to use computer
technologies in novel, creative, original, and advanced ways to enable a different
or more productive teaching and Ieaming experience. This can involve the
development of new tools or the innovative uses of existing ones. The second
group is labeled ‘teacher.’ As the title would suggest, this is a person who
instructs the third group—the student. However, this is also the person that
works with the developer to integrate the innovation into the curriculum. Finally,
‘Student’ is the label of the third group; it refers to the person who is using the
innovation to learn.

It is important to note that these labels of teacher and student do not
necessarily correspond to the same labels as they are used in classrooms. The
titles are based on the functions or tasks the individuals perform. Thus, a
developer may be the classroom teacher, an outside consultant, a researcher, or
even a classroom student. Conversely, a teacher might refer to the classroom
teacher, a classroom student teaching a peer, or the developer (working in the
classroom). And everyone plays the student role at some point or another; they
all use the innovation to learn.

The People Behind “Got Milk?”
The milk video was a successful innovation because it provided students

with the opportunity to use technology to accomplish curricular goals—goals that

 

33 One could make the claim that a developer actually creates hardware and software where an innovator
uses the development in inventive ways. However, for purposes of this text, the two terms are not
differentiated.

64

were derived from good pedagogy. The innovation was also successful because
of the people behind the project. The fact that parents, other teachers, local
university representatives, family members, and administrators (district and local)
supported the project says something about the power of this innovation to
impact not only teachers and students but a wide community of peripheral
participants. However, I’m specifically referring to the people who enabled this
technology innovation to be implemented in the classroom: Danielle, Elizabeth,
and myself. The necessary relationships among the three of us (as teachers,
students, and innovators) are explained below.

The Dialogic Nature of Implememption

There has been much debate in the field of educational technology
regarding the relationship between technology innovations and established
practice (Bromley, 1997; Bruce & Hogan, 1998; Bruce, Peyton, 8. Batson, 1993).
One Side views technology innovations as having the power to fundamentally
transform existing practice (Fishman & Pea, 1994; Papert, 1987). The other side
contends that teachers’ beliefs, school bureaucracy, and other established
practices retard, sometimes even negate, the potential impact of technology
innovations (Cohen, 1987; Cuban, 1986).

Good innovations require developers who understand that technology
implementation is a bi-directional dialogic interaction between innovation and
established practice (Cziko, 1995; Hawkins, 1987; Zhao et al., 2000a; Zhao,
Mishra, Worthington, & Ferdig, 1999). “In this view, neither innovation nor

existence is considered the independent variable. Instead, both are independent

65

and dependent variables, causing changes in each other simultaneously” (Zhao,
Worthington, & Ferdig, 1998, p.2). This dialogic interaction can be thought of as
a ‘negotiation’ or ‘improvisational dance’ between the teacher and developer,
with each bringing something special to the relationship (Cliff & Miller, 1997).
The teacher brings knowledge of pedagogy, academic content, and pedagogical
content knowledge (i.e., how to teach, an understanding of mathematics, and
how to teach that understanding of mathematics). That knowledge helps
developers create innovations imbued with good pedagogy. The innovator
brings cognitive tools that support teaching and learning as well as a more
complex understanding of the potential uses of technology. The concept of
negotiation reminds both groups that they are entering into a dance, with the
intended outcome being a recursive, dynamic creation of technology that
supports pedagogy and pedagogy that is fundamentally changed by virtue of its
integration with technology.

As expected, this project took the time and effort of all three of us.
Danielle and Elizabeth had to ensure that what the students wanted to do was
tied to the curriculum. In other words, they had to provide the space to complete
this project. For starters, they had to expand the time and energy it took to
create a thematic unit over an extended amount of time. Furthermore, when
students worked in groups, they had to connect what the groups were learning to
the thematic unit. This entailed teaching small group lessons to the entire class,
and then using the outcome of the small group work as data in response to that

Ieaming.

66

Collaboration was also essential. We needed one person in the room to
oversee small group activity while another taught the larger group. We had to
decide what activities would support the “Got Milk?” campaign while other
students were filming. Cooperation and social interaction was also required on
the part of the students as they directed, filmed, or even sat quietly while filming
was taking place.

My role initially was that of a participant observer (Hammersley &
Atkinson, 1995). In other words, although I was a part of the Classroom, my role
was designed to mainly observe while the students and teachers used
technology. However, although I started as this ‘peripheral researcher,’ I ended
as a complete member researcher (Adler & Adler, 1994). I was converted to
genuine membership during the course of my research because of the need for
technical skills. Although Danielle was recognized as being very proficient,
experienced, and knowledgeable about technology, some of the things we were
doing in the class were new to her. This included helping the children film, edit,
and burn (record) their movie.

Although Danielle was the main teacher in the classroom, this project
occurred during the lead teaching time of Elizabeth’s internship. Thus, Danielle
acted as a developer and innovator as much as She did a teacher. In developing
this project, we met with Elizabeth almost daily to understand what she was
trying to accomplish in the classroom, and how technology could enable that
teaching. Danielle knew more about teaching, and I knew more about

technology. As a tandem we were able to provide Elizabeth with insight and

67

advice on what technology could do to help her achieve her specific pedagogical
goals. Elizabeth, in return, would report on what was working and what wasn’t,
what She wanted more of and what needed to change.

The interactions described above among the three of us and the students
might make it sound like ‘technology as innovation process” refers to the time and
effort it takes to carry out a project. Or, it may appear that a good innovation
requires nothing more than knowledgeable people experienced with teaching and
technology. Both of those, of course, are essential. However, the process lives
or dies depending upon the relationships between the people. Even when
knowledgeable people work together, it might fail because the relationships
among them are not educationally legitimate interactions. Legitimate
interactions, as described above, are those that are dialogic, genuine, and reveal
the flexible nature of both teaching and technology.

Genuine Interaction

With some innovations, the technology expert (developer or innovator) is
also the classroom teacher. However, in numerous cases, the developer or
innovator comes from outside of the classroom. This could include district or
school technology coordinators, volunteers from local businesses, or educational
researchers examining the effectiveness of new technologies and innovations.
External specialists can be extremely important to the success of innovations,
especially if the teacher is uncomfortable with technology to begin with (Chaney-
Cullen & Duffy, 1999). However, additional responsibilities are placed on the

technology expert from outside of the Classroom in implementing a good

68

innovation. Namely, developers must understand the significance of genuine
interaction with teachers and students. If an expert is to help implement the
innovation in the classroom, he or she faces a challenge the teacher does not
originally have: when the teacher is the innovator, students have already
developed a rapport with the person integrating the technology. This rapport is
important for innovators entering the classroom because building connections
with students helps to develop a community or culture of Ieaming to which the
innovation is to be introduced (Rowe, 2000). AS described in social constructivist
pedagogy, this community promotes Ieaming as students participate in shared
endeavors with others (Brown, 1994; Rogoff, 1994).

Moreover, understanding student concerns and histories allows for a
better explanation of technology implementation in the classroom (this is also an
important effect of good psychology, described in the next chapter). In the story
that began this chapter, the researchers thought there might be some component
of the technology, her Ieaming style, or the interaction of the two that prevented
Alannah from using the computer as a cognitive tool for writing. Once rapport
developed between the innovator and Alannah, she revealed that She had never
used a computer before and was afraid of what might happen if she used it (what
She would ‘mess up’, etc.). Once she trusted the innovator, She trusted the
innovafion.

In order to enter into the dialogic interaction and negotiation of
implementation, technology experts must also develop a relationship with the

teacher(s) in the classroom. Most in-service technology training models,

69

generally in the form of short-term after school programs, fail to provide teachers
with the opportunities or the knowledge they need to successfully implement
technology into their curriculum (Murray, 1995). Murray (1995) describes four
characteristics of good technology developers and innovators including: a) being
peers of who they are training; b) being effective teachers who can translate
technical information to Ieamers of different levels including novice; C) being
patient tutors without succumbing to taking over the keyboard; and d) being
available to answer questions promptly.

Genuine interaction with teachers and students is a necessity of a good
innovation because: a) the developer acts as the more knowledgeable other in
the leamer’s Zone of Proximal Development, thus supporting good pedagogy; b)
interaction facilitates collaboration and social interaction, which helps to sustain
the community of learners; and C) interaction fosters rapport between the
members of the innovation. By building rapport, technology experts enter into a
more dynamic and comfortable ‘improvisational dance’ with the existing
participants and practices of the Classroom. The role of the technology
developer or innovator is highlighted as someone who supports teacher and
student Ieaming by actively participating with the Classroom participants in the
innovation rather than consulting at a distance.

Genuine interaction was a necessary and evident part of the “Got Milk?”
innovation. Although the teachers had worked with the students for a few
months, I had only gotten to know them a few days. I had to spend a lot of time

listening to their stories, Ieaming more about Pokemon, and even jumping rope

70

before I gained their trust. This trust and personal relationship, in turn, allowed
me to “pull out spontaneous expressions from the students and augment their
creativity"—at least that was the conclusion reached by Danielle and Elizabeth.
The teachers were developing their own working relationship, which grew largely
out of the interactions of Danielle teaching Elizabeth about technology and
teaching. Elizabeth revealed this during one of our meetings:

Danielle is a good collaborative teacher for me because she is very

positive, delicate, and gentle. I can see what she is doing when she does

it to me because I watch her do it with the kids, but it works for me. We

have other interns right now who are ready to quit because they’ve been

verbally abused; they’ve been treated horribly.
The Flexible Naypre of Teachinganp Technology

An important component of the implementation and negotiation process is
genuine interaction between the participants. This genuine interaction builds
rapport and helps the members develop Shared understandings of the
knowledge, skills, and dispositions they bring to the dance. For a developer, one
important understanding is the flexible nature of teaching. Learning, from a
social constructivist perspective, is always improvisational and adapting to
immediate, constantly fluctuating circumstances. Therefore, teaching requires
continual Ieaming, adaptation, improvisation, and instant decision-making
(Becker & Riel, 1999; Engestrom & Middleton, 1996).

Teachers require innovations that are adaptable enough to meet these
Changing demands of the classroom. Part of this need can be alleviated when

developers help teachers understand the flexible nature of technology. In other

words, PowerPoint to one teacher is a presentation tool at PTA meetings; to

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another teacher, it is a way for students to tell a story. One teacher might use a
video camera to record and then reflect on her teaching; for another teacher, the
camera provides a way for students to reflect on their Ieaming. Teachers and
developers need to understand that even with technologies designed for specific
purposes, users will create their own rationale and functions for its use. This
chameleon-like flexibility of technology, once appreciated, is a very useful
feature, especially for teachers who might be limited by the amount of technology
they have access to. (As described in the next chapter, it is also important in
assessing the impact of the innovation.)

However, developers can also design the implementation to facilitate and
support the flexible nature of teaching. This design, called component
architecture, focuses on producing reusable and context independent software
units (Zhao, Mishra, & Ferdig, 2000b). Specifically on the web, a designer can
implement multiple, interchangeable modules to meet the educational goals of
the teacher, rather than developing thousands of lines of code each time a new
need arises. An example includes the aforementioned TELE-Web project. It
uses server-side software (mail, video, and web servers, etc.) and client-side
plug-ins (JavaScript, Java applets, Shockwave, etc.) to offer an integrated suite
of multi-functional tools for teachers and students. However, all of the tools are
small modules in and of themselves. Chatrooms, space for writing notes and
papers, diagram and mapping instruments, and classroom videos are all
separate components that can be exchanged, combined, or separated when a

new educational need arises.

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A major benefit of this approach for developers is the opportunity to easily
and inexpensively create flexible and pedagogically sound software by adapting
‘modules’ to different purposes and applications. Many of the components
necessary for web-based learning environments are available pre-packaged and
free over the Internet. The component architecture design also facilitates the
negotiation process between the developer and teacher. If a teacher finds a
component that does not fit her pedagogy, she can easily replace it with another
without having to throw out the entire innovation (Zhao et al., 2000b).
Furthermore, the teacher can play a more Significant role in choosing the
modules because she no longer has to know how to program in order to make
the components work.

A good innovation requires developers and teachers who understand the
flexible nature of teaching and technology. For developers (and teachers), this
understanding entails realizing that users create their own functions and reasons
for using any given technology. Developers can also facilitate the process of
negotiation by creating technology innovations that are based on interchangeable
components. In doing so, they also help teachers appreciate the flexible nature
of technology.

The project itself demonstrates the flexibility of teaching and technology.
The project was student developed; it was a creation of an authentic problem
they discovered, and it Changed daily based on what the students were learning
from their investigations. (In describing what She had learned from Danielle,

Elizabeth suggested that many teachers would have sent the students away with

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a lecture about the perils of waste.) This constant need for change created
tasks, spaces to be filled that could be filled by technology. The lntemet was
used for research one day, and then for email the next. The movie camera
filmed the students’ interactions for the teachers and researchers one day, and
then was used by the students as a tool for reflection the next day (the students
videotaped each others’ speeches and, upon reviewing the tapes, made
suggestions for improvement). In other words, the technology worked because it
was not seen as limited to only perform a small number of tasks. Moreover, a
variety of tools were used so that if a particular tool did not work, the project did
not close down. Instead, a new tool was found to fill that role. Or, as in this
case, the technology was used for a different purpose. We were able to move
from one tool and purpose to another because the three of us were in constant
dialogue.

The best example of this flexibility in the “Got Milk?” classroom was the
use of PowerPoint. PowerPoint is software from Microsoft that is advertised as a
tool to organize, illustrate, and present ideas. Most people use (and are taught to
use) PowerPoint as a visual aid in face-to-face presentations. Combined with
projectors, outlines or highlights of presentations are sent to a large screen while
the Speaker is sharing his or her thoughts and ideas with an audience.

In the past, Danielle had used PowerPoint and a projector to present
lesson plans to the class. She also instructed students how to use PowerPoint
so that they could make their own presentations of stories they had developed or

library research they had completed. When Elizabeth met Danielle during the

74

summer before her internship, Danielle had suggested that she learn PowerPoint
so that She, too, could present lessons to the whole Class using the projector.

Even though She used PowerPoint extensively, it came as a surprise to
me that Danielle suggested the software to solve Elizabeth’s problem. Elizabeth
wanted the students to create posters about the use and waste of milk. She
foresaw them using the posters as a visual tool to share their ideas with other
classes. However, Elizabeth wondered, how could the posters be preserved in
the CD-ROM? Danielle thought that digital pictures of the students and their
posters could be captured and put into a PowerPoint presentation, and then
added to the CD-ROM. That, in some small sense according to Danielle, would
best represent the students’ work to ‘readers' of the CD-ROM—those not
fortunate enough to see the Children perform in person.

As suggested in an earlier chapter, neither Elizabeth nor 1 had conceived
of PowerPoint as a way to present hand drawn work. Furthermore, it solved a
technical problem for me as developer. 1 was not sure how to guarantee every
CD-ROM user would be able to view the pictures. By turning the pictures into a
PowerPoint presentation, we could include ‘viewers’ with the CD-ROM so that
every user would have access to the student work. Once we had been
introduced to the idea, I then suggested that PowerPoint could be used to record
voiceovers. Thus, the students could actually read and record the text on their
posters. When a user ‘flipped’ to their poster, the child’s voice would read the
poster text to them. I left earlier than the teachers that day as they were both

excitedly discussing other ways in which this new combined use of PowerPoint

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could be advantageous in other curriculum objectives. The point is that if we had
stuck to a very conventional understanding of the technology, we would have
been limited in our ability to represent the flexibility of teaching and learning that
took place in the “Got Milk?” Classroom. Moreover, the new and improved design
of the posters provided an innovative way to teach and share student ideas with
others (CD-ROM users) even though it was not in a face-to-face environment.
Opportunities for legitimate participation

If an innovation is to work for all participants, it must provide opportunities
for legitimate participation. Legitimate peripheral participation, a term coined by
Lave and Wenger (1991), means offering chances to co-participate in the
practices of the ambient community, with the end goal being full participation in
that community. “Moving toward full participation in practice involves not just a
greater commitment of time, intensified effort, more and broader responsibilities
within the community, and more difficult and risky tasks, but, more significantly,
an increasing sense of identity as a master practitioner” (Lave & Wenger, 1991,
p.1 11).

Earlier, I made the claim that the roles of the three groups grow, Change,
and develop. Because we all had similar goals, legitimate participation with good
pedagogy allowed all of us to learn both the content (what was being taught) and
the process (the way in which it was being taught). The teachers helped adapt
technology to their teaching to create a pedagogical tool; in doing so, they also
learned how to use technology to enable and transform their teaching. For

instance, the students wanted to create a movie. The teachers shaped the

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movie such that it would contain content that could be used to important lessons
in mathematics, science, and geography. In helping the developer adapt the
idea of a movie to the curriculum, they Ieamed about new and exciting ways to
teach those same topics. Danielle commented on the importance of using the
lntemet to actually talk with people from the lands they were studying. Elizabeth
talked about the benefit of using a graphing program to help students understand
how to plot data. Although both of these were tools that were used to create the
movie and CD-ROM—tools that the teachers had helped revise and fit the
curriculum—they occasioned learning experiences for the teachers.

I also played the role of the student as I attempted to create a
pedagogically sound tool. In doing so, I learned more about teaching and
pedagogical content knowledge. I was familiar with the use of video, but I did not
fully understand the potential of having students record themselves and replay
their performance. Not only were they able to practice public speaking, they
learned from their performance. They were able to see their own mistakes and
accomplishments. Michael asked, “Do I really talk that way?”

Finally, the students were able to Ieam the academic content while
exploring how to teach others, how to become more self-regulatory Ieamers, and
how to use technology. Upon returning from their group time, they had the task
of Sharing the information they had learned with others. Students became the
experts or more knowledgeable others in certain topics and were looked up to by
their colleagues to teach specific topics. Charles became the ‘web expert.” He

had visited many web sites in Australia (virtually, of course) and shared the fact

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that many students in Australia “did not know where milk came from.” Elizabeth
described this ‘diverse’ Ieaming as follows:

I want students to know that I’m a human being. I want them to know that

even though I’m the teacher and I have some authority, I’m still a learner.

I don’t know it all, but I may know more than they do regarding certain

things. And, I’m sure they know more than I do related to other things.
Agisppssion of Good Peopl_e_

‘Good people” in a ‘good innovation’ has been defined as the community
members (teachers, students, and innovators) who enact the technology and
who understand necessary roles and relationships that exist between and among
one another. The labels of the community members define the prototypic role
each plays—not their official status within classrooms—and the actual tasks they
perform in enacting the technology. Any one person can carry out more than one
task, and any member can carry out any given task. This means that the teacher
may also serve as the developerfmnovator."4 Or, a parent or another teacher
could act as an innovator and teacher. Moreover, because legitimate peripheral
participation entails mastery of skills and a growth of identity in the community of
practice, a good innovation is also one where the roles and relationships
between members change.

Up until now, I have specifically addressed the student as the one learning
academic content through the innovation. However, the innovator or teacher is
also a student. The developer learns academic content, pedagogical content

knowledge, and rules about the community of practice from the teachers and

students using the innovation. A teachers’ identity changes from “educator" to

 

3’ This occurs numerous times in education either because the teacher has technology experience or there is
a lack of funding to appropriate a ‘technology position.’

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“educator and innovator” as they learn to construct their own pedagogically
sound, technology innovations. Or, a teacher could refer to a classroom student
who has ‘mastered’ the Skills of a technology and it teaching it to another student.

The argument is that to view the three types as members with clearly
delineated roles with impermeable boundaries is to claim that members never
adapt and never Ieam. Evidence suggests that members do switch roles and are
more informed in making decisions (for themselves and others) about pedagogy,
technology, and learning because of the interaction surrounding the innovation
(Ferdig, 2000b).

Having said that, it does not imply the roles (mainly between teacher and
innovator) will permanently merge. A person must have sufficient understanding
of the academic content to apply and adapt technology appropriately. A person
must also have sufficient understanding of the technology to know what is
possible and how to implement that into the curriculum. In most cases, due to
the amount of content knowledge in both fields, these are two different people
called educator and innovator. Teacher training programs Should still continue to
support students learning the relationship between technology and curriculum, as
long as it does not replace or neglect the Ieaming of content or pedagogical
content knowledge.

More than just “Good People” and “Good Pedagogy:

A developer provides opportunities for participation by seeing the

implementation experience as dialogic in nature. This dialogue provides the

space for the teacher’s voice in the integration of technology and academic

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content. A developer also facilitates involvement by having genuine interactions
with both students and teachers. Genuine interactions support collaboration,
community building, and social interaction—three important features of good
pedagogy. Genuine interaction also implies providing guidance without seeming
to take over; in other words, facilitating learning by acting as the more
knowledgeable other in the Zone of Proximal Development. Finally, participation
is supported by developing software that uses modules teachers can easily and
inexpensively interchange and replace without having to have a deep
understanding of the programming behind the tool.

“Understanding to be gained from engagement with technology can be
extremely varied depending on the form of participation enabled by its use ”
(Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 100). However, the three requirements of good people
(those who recognize the dialogic nature of technology implementation, those
who interact with participants, and those who understand the flexibility of
technology), ensure student attainment of mastery level skills of both the
academic content and the innovation implemented to scaffold Ieaming of the
content.

Creating a pedagogically sound technology innovation, amplified by
people using the product in ‘good’ ways, allowed the participants to Ieam content
while developing their identity as masters of the skills used in the community of
learners. Good pedagogy and good people are not enough, though, to
determine whether an innovation is good. The performance of the innovation, as

defined by the Ieaming gained and the development within the community of

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Ieamers, provides the final “P” required to more deeply explore, understand, and

assess technology implementation.

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Chapter 3: The Performance of “Got Milk?”

Introdpction

Once upon a time there were two brothers and
they did not like each other; they fought all the
time. But when they grew up, their father and
mother died. The boys learned to work
together and lived happily ever after.

 

Arron (Age 9)

What do we really know about technology and education? Based on the
evidence provided from the “Got Milk?” project, as well as claims from existing,
relevant literature discussed in the previous two chapters, we know that good
technology innovations are those that are integrated with academic content and
good pedagogical practice. Furthermore, a good innovation is one that IS a
process catering to the relationships between innovators, educators, and
learners. However, a good innovation is also one that produces good
performance.

In the first chapter, research was presented that demonstrated evidence of
the necessary but potentially reciprocal relationship between technology
innovation and pedagogy. Good pedagogy described technology innovations as
product. In the previous chapter, technology innovations were seen as
processes; those processes, in turn, were described as the pedagogical
relationships between the central people involved in an innovation.

Technology innovations were thus examined for what they were as well as
how they were implemented, which helped define the question we were asking.

In other words, if a teacher or educator wanted to assess a technology prior to its

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use, pedagogy and personnel would be pre-requisites for answering the
question, “Is this a good innovation?”

We change the meaning of the question dramatically, however, if we ask
“Is this innovation good?” rather than “Is this a good innovation?” The latter
question directs us toward criteria for evaluating ‘goodness’ from within the world
of innovations (as innovations go, is this a good one?), but the former question
forces us to look outside of the world of innovations—to appeal to some external
standard for goodness. Instead of understanding what is important in the
creation of a good innovation, we ask what results demonstrate that the
innovation was good or successful. This question essentially examines the
consequences, the outcomes or the performance of the implementation.

Arron, a third-grade member of the “Got Milk” project, wrote the short story
that begins this chapter. Much like Sarah in the beginning of this dissertation, he
was a struggling student who was given the opportunity to use the eMate.
Danielle and Elizabeth made sure that he had assignments to go along with the
use of the eMate. In the example above, the teachers asked Arron to write a
story about conflict and struggle. They helped him when necessary, but let him
tell his story in the way that he wanted, including drawing pictures to illustrate
certain points (a function of the eMate).

We know that he used technology to write the story, and that the
35

technology was both pedagogically sound and implemented by ‘good people.’

Thus, it was a good innovation. But, was the innovation good? The story is the

 

3’ Saying ‘good’ to describe ‘good peOple’ makes it sound like I’m referring to some aspect of their
character. Instead, I am describing the way in which they provided legitimate opportunities for growth in a
Ieaming community.

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result, outcome, or performance of the use of the innovation by one student.
What are the criteria that determine whether we judge this story as a good
outcome? If I asserted that Arron was the best writer in the class, would that
make this innovation good? Conversely, what if I stated that he didn’t know how
to Spell and couldn’t put sentences together? What if I divulged that his grades
improved because of the use of the innovation, regardless of what you think
about this story? Finally, what if we knew that he used the technology to tell a
story about his relationship with his brother, which in turn allowed him to reflect
and change his real relationship with him? Which of these sources of information
helps us assess the ‘goodness’ of an innovation?

At some level, an innovation can be judged successful by meeting the
required pedagogical goals laid out in the design of the innovation. Thus, if a
technology is created to increase math scores, we can use certain tools to
measure that goal. However, even if you design cases so that they are
pedagogical sound, sometimes things happen that you don’t intend. It Should be
obvious that we need ways to measure the success of an innovation just as
much as we need methods to ensure quality design, development, and
implementation.

Although a deeper psychology of technology refers more broadly to the
relationships between pedagogy, people, and performance, psychology is
extremely important in helping us determine what makes an innovation good. It
helps us assess and understand an instance of implementation. Specifically,

psychology implores us to:

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1) Consider the appropriate use of technologies based on student needs.

2) Use cognitive tools to assess Ieaming outcomes.

3) Use diverse research methods to provide more complete and deep
analyses of the way the technology is integrated into the pedagogical
context

Appropriate use of Technologie_s

In the introduction to this dissertation, I re-stated a claim that technologies
are not inherently good or bad. Rather, it is the pedagogy and personnel that
determine the quality and impact of the creation, implementation, and
subsequent use. However, there are times when technologies may possess
features that make them more or less conducive to Ieaming. At some level, this
refers to the way we mediate with technology (Agostino, 1999) and the social
relationships we create with technology such as computers (discussed further in
point three).

However, I am specifically referring here to the technical design of the
innovation in relation to our pedagogical goals and our students’ needs. Let us
assume, for instance, that our pedagogical innovation iS developed to help
students learn to spell better. We were going to assess that goal based on pre-
and post-tests of spelling. Regardless of the results of the implementation, good
performance reminds us to consider whether the outcomes had anything to do
with the technology itself. A technology innovation may have appeared to fail,
only to discover that the school didn’t have enough computers to warrant
continuous use by the students. In another case, the technology may have
succeeded, but then we discover that the students who Showed marked

improvement were ones who had hand-eye coordination problems and couldn’t

85

 

 

write well enough to make their hand-written spelling tests even legible. They
knew their letters, though, and were able to hit the key that corresponded
appropriately.

Two students in the “Got Milk?” project, Nancy and Bill, had just this
problem. They were considered remedial because of their reading and writing
abilities. Danielle told us that these two students would rarely Share their ideas.
When they were placed in front of a computer and chatrooms set up to discuss
milk, however, they excelled. They became leaders according to their teachers,
turning in more complete and advanced writing than any of the other students.
The confidence of writing well in the technological context gave them
encouragement to Speak out in class. Does that mean that the innovation (in this
case, the Chatroom) was and can be useful for helping students learn to write?

In reality, we don’t have enough evidence (at least as told from this Short story of
Nancy and Bill) to make that claim. The students may have done just as well
merely by Sitting in front of a computer, regardless of the innovation. It may have
been the medium, not the content, that made the difference.

In either case, this is not a Claim about the overall power of the “Got Milk?”
project or technology in general. Rather, we discovered that their unwillingness
to write was fueled by their poor hand-eye coordination and motor Skills in
writing. They could not share ideas because their penmanship was bad. Their
penmanship was bad because they could not control the pencil well enough to
Share what they were thinking. Once presented with a different medium of

interaction (i.e., a computer keyboard), the students were able to Share their

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ideas and participate in the class activities. 36 It is likely that this, in turn,
prompted their academic growth and cognitive and social gains. Research
supports this claim with evidence that computers help students with multiple
kinds of disabilities develop literacy skills, specifically in reading and writing
(Englert et al., 1998).

In terms of performance, we must conclude that even though we cannot
pinpoint the specific features of the Got Milk innovation that triggered the growth,
growth did occur. First, we Ieamed (unintentionally) that computers can help
some children Share ideas, especially those with motor skill difficulties. Second,
understanding the first principle allowed us to redesign our study to try to focus
our attention on the use of the innovation (software) and not the technology the
innovation was ‘run’ on. In other words, what started as a designed experiment
with two groups (software group and control group), turned into one with three
groups (software, computer without the specific software, no computer). The
point is that without appreciating the technical design of the innovation, we would
not have been able to make claims about its use or effectiveness. Good
performance suggests that there are characteristics that make certain
technologies more or less conducive to learning, teaching, and the creation of
electronic teaching and learning environments.

Cognitive Tool; to Assess Learning Outcomes

If a teacher or researcher tells you that (s)he developed a successful

 

36 Incidentally, that doesn’t mean that students should give up on learning penmanship if they have
problems. In this case, the teacher realized the goal of penmanship was not associated with the specific
assignment she had assigned. In other words, there was a time to work on penmanship; this assignment,
however, was designed to have him share his ideas.

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innovation, (s)he is probably referring to the fact that it met some aforementioned
pedagogical goal as evidenced by a cognitive measure such as a standardized
test. This iS a significant and important task if researchers are to provide
evidence that technology impacts learning. Unfortunately, surveys of major
technology and education journals suggest that few technology research studies
include student-Ieaming outcomes (Jones & Paolucci, 1998).

There are two important points to consider regarding assessing cognitive
outcomes of technology uses. The first relates to having a good innovation. An
assumption of my model as it has thus far unfolded (good pedagogy and good
people) is that we are trying to get students to understand or learn something
besides how to use the technology. Those pedagogical goals in a good
innovation are more deeply defined by both the pedagogy and dialogic
relationships among the innovator, teacher, and students (due to the flexible
nature of teaching and technology); thus, it can be assessed more easily
because it is more lucid. In other words, a well-planned project that has
pedagogy at its center and people to implement that pedagogy will have more
obvious and easily drawn goals because on that initial concern for pedagogy and
opportunities for legitimate participation. However, technology is so new and
exciting to many teachers (and even researchers) that it is often put into the
classroom devoid of any content Ieaming goals. (This goes back to the false
claim stated in the introduction that technology can just be dropped into a setting
and it will magically transform the practices of both the teacher and the student.)

It may be possible to measure other outcomes in such a Situation, but it is not as

88

simple to measure cognitive ones. Conversely, implementing an innovation with
good pedagogy and good people helps ensure goals that can be measured
cognitively.

Having said that, a second related point to consider is that measuring
student-Ieaming gains made with technology is a very difficult endeavor (Jones &
Paolucci, 1998). Learning, and thus teaching, is flexible. Teachers often
implement technology without much preparation or lead-time to match this
flexibility in teaching. Even in cases of research studies and experiments, many
teachers do not want control groups. They do not want to Split their students in
half and only give the innovation to certain students. There are ways around this
problem, but many have tried to solve it by comparing one classroom with
another, making the assumption that they are sufficiently Similar (they are in the
same grade or the same school) to merit a direct comparison. A more
comprehensive approach would be to revisit the integration (of the technology
into the curriculum) and plan studies to assess the cognitive and affective impact
of those integrations.

The “Got Milk?” project helped Danielle and Elizabeth identify specific
student needs, and it provided ways for the students to grow emotionally and
socially. Both of those gains then impacted the cognitive growth of the students.
Unfortunately, the project happened so quickly, that strong Claims cannot be
made about the cognitive improvements of the students. In other words, the
students reading scores improved significantly (p<.05). and the teacher reported

an overall improvement in grades during and after the innovation. However,

89

because of the immediateness of the project, there were no control groups; thus,
only modest claims can be made based upon the growth we did observe. We
cannot rule out the possibility that the students would have made this magnitude
of growth without any special intervention.

Measuring cognitive gains iS an important task, one that will help us
understand more about the ways in which technology impacts learning. In the
case of preplanned implementations, researchers can ensure opportunities to
measure cognitive growth by verifying the existence of good pedagogy and
affordances for good personnel in their design. In the case of just-in-time
innovations such as “Got Milk?”, researchers need to revisit the integration do
learn more about the content, context, and individuals that comprised that
innovation. Providing a thick description of the pedagogy, academic content, and
roles of the people involved offers the opportunity to undertake this revisit.
Divefie MethocLsior Deep and More Complete Analyses

Measuring gains in the cognitive domain is a necessary and imperative
task for our young field. However, we also need to ensure that the expansion of
technology research encompasses questions related to other aspects of
students’ experiences (i.e., social and emotional). This is an essential
component of technology research as affective gains (such as emotional and
social growth), as in Sarah’s story introducing this dissertation, often precede and
drive cognitive gains.

Sarah made cognitive gains in the form of test scores related to reading

achievement. The study was based on sound pedagogy and opportunities for

90

 

legitimate participation. Furthermore, the research team created control groups E
to offset the technical functionality of the using the eMate. (In other words, some
students followed the same pedagogy without the use of the eMate, and others
used the eMate with a different pedagogical approach.) However, it still was not
enough to merely describe the cognitive gains made by Sarah; they did not tell
the whole story, not even the most important part of the story. Once She started
to mediate her relationships with the technology, her self-esteem grew and She
felt more like a member in the classroom. That, in turn, afforded more
participation in the classroom and more active Ieaming. Saying that the eMate
afforded Sarah Ieaming gains is not necessarily false, it is just not completely
true. A more complete analysis (as described in the introduction), one that paid
attention to Sarah’s social and emotional growth, enabled researchers to make
more confident claims about the implementation of the eMate. The deeper
approach offered insight into new and exciting ways to reach Sarah, how eMates
might be used in other classrooms, and how technologies other than the eMate
could be used as transitional objects.

Research in the affective domain is not only important as a predecessor to
understanding cognitive domains. Sometimes, it is the evidence that helps
answer the questions we are asking. An example comes from research on the
Next Day Innovation Grants (Zhao, Pugh, Sheldon, & Byers, 2000d). Over one
million dollars was given to teachers who applied to do innovative things with
technology in their curriculum. The research was designed to understand the

successes and failures of those innovations. The results provided evidence that

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social interaction (in the form of support or opposition) from others in the
teacher’s network was a leading factor in predicting success or failure of the
innovation implementation (success referred to whether the project
implementation met the project’s planned goals). 37

Finally, studying changes such as social and emotive ones are important
because research is beginning to provide evidence that humans enter into social
relationships with technology. Reeves & Nass (1996) have argued that
“individuals’ interactions with computers, television, and new media are
fundamentally social and natural, just like interactions in real life. . . Everyone
expects media to obey a wide range of social and natural rules” (Reeves, B., &
Nass, C., 1996; italics original, p. 5). In other words, one starts with any social
situation where there are norms and rules, and thus expectations. Replace one
of the human actors with a computer actor and the results of the social rule will
essentially stay the same. For those unconvinced by their argument, the authors
ask whether the person has ever been scared when watching a movie. Other
research has backed these claims, providing evidence that humans get angry at
computers and even try to act spitefully towards them (Ferdig, 2000a).
Documenting this evidence is necessary because successes and failures of
technology innovations might be decided on hidden assumptions and
expectations that our students place on the technologies they interact with rather
than the pedagogy or goals we build into those technologies.

This affective measure, as determined by emotional and social growth of

the students, was one of the most salient indicators of success in the “Got Milk?”

 

37 Also see: (Pelto & Muller-Wille, 1972; Sharp & Shearrnan, 1987).

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This affective measure, as determined by emotional and social growth of

the students, was one of the most salient indicators of success in the “Got Milk?”

project. The teachers noted that the “biggest change for the students was

internally.” They noticed that students were more responsible, would share food,

and would tell others not to waste. Students seemed to use the project to

express themselves and grow in a way that they needed to. Elizabeth expressed

the following about Tyron who was not normally considered a good student:

I know that many of our students can write and articulate on a way higher
level than him in their words. But, he can articulate really well. Like, when
we were watching the finished movie and it got to him, he was very bold.

It stuck out. When he was speaking, he knew what he was talking about
and what he wanted to say. And he did it. I was like, “Wow! Look at him
come out in that.” If you only had him write it, he wouldn’t have
expressed that. That wouldn’t have come out that strong. Even if you had
asked him to make a poster, it wouldn’t have come out like that. I saw
technology really being key in bringing him out of his shell. It gave him the
chance to his knowledge and what he found out. You have another
student who Spells everything right and always gets perfect scores. She
does all her work and gets all A’s on her report card. When you watch
both of them on the video, he stands out as being a great student. He has
a gift when it comes to speaking and Sharing, but it doesn’t necessarily
come out in his writing. I think technology plays a role in helping him
express who he is.

Both teachers added that this process built the student’s self-esteem, and he was

later able to express himself in writing. Danielle specifically noted the

improvement in the quantity and quality of the writing he completed during and

after the “Got Milk?” project.

A_Discpssion of Good Performance

Good psychology helps to answer the question of, “Is this innovation

good?” By more closely assessing the cognitive and affective (social, emotional

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etc.) outcomes of the use of technology, researchers are more adequately able
to explain, replicate, and generalize their research findings. This is an important
point to consider because good psychology helps us understand two things: a)
what gains were made and b) what allowed us to reach those gains.

Does that mean that all three of the points described above (good
psychology implores us to consider the appropriate use of technologies, to use
cognitive tools to assess Ieaming outcomes, and to use diverse methods to
provide more complete and deep analyses) have to be evident in order to have
‘good performance’? Not necessarily because not every project will include
every type of gain (cognitive, technical, emotional, social, etc.). The idea behind
using a deeper psychological approach (and thus a more complete analysis of
the instance of implementation) is that performances such as proposed goals can
be more easily assessed, and unintended outcomes can be realized, understood,
and appreciated. Surely we want to assess whether we met our avowed goals,
but we always need to be prepared to evaluate unintended consequences—
whether negative or positive (i.e., serendipitous).

In sum, a comprehensive understanding of performance is important
because: a) it helps answer research questions about the integration and use of
technology; b) it provides evidence as to why cognitive gains were made; and C)
it examines the social relationship that we impose on our interaction with
technologies. (These, in turn, as argued in chapter one, help to form a more
complete and deep understanding of technology use and integration.) Specific

evidence presented from the “Got Milk?” project to support these claims included

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a discussion of Nancy and Bill’s motor control difficulties, assessing the increase
in reading scores of the entire class, and the Short history of a student named
Tyron whose affective growth preceded cognitive gains. However, perhaps the
most convincing evidence for the necessity of a deeper psychological
perspective on performance (as well as pedagogy and people), comes from the

story of Elizabeth, presented in the following chapter.

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"I ‘itl'L':

 

TIT - —‘

Chapter 4: Elizabeth’s Story

Sarah was an at-risk student who struggled in almost every daily activity at
school. When presented with the opportunity to use technology, Specifically the
eMate, she grew into a leader in the classroom. Data from simple analyses of
this innovation, perhaps best called an intervention in this circumstance,
demonstrated Significant growth in literacy areas such as reading and writing.
However, there was more to Sarah’s story than just cognitive gains. Sarah’s
teachers commented on her improved behavior in school as well as her
increased social interactions with other teachers and students. Her parents
indicated an improved relationship and attitude in her home life.

Rather than attributing all of this growth to the use of a technology, as the
teacher initially wanted to do, it was imperative to dig deeper into her story to
determine how and why the innovation impacted her life. In doing so, we
discovered Sarah using a technological tool as a transitional object. If we are to
more fully understand the implementation and use of technology, we need deep
explorations of its use as in Sarah’s case. At the end of our story of Sarah, we
‘know’ as much as we can about Sarah and her story, and how to replicate the
pedagogy and the roles of the personnel involved in the implementation. We can
use data to make Claims about the cognitive value of the pedagogical use of the
eMate. We can use data to support the impact on the social and emotional life of
the Child. However, we need to learn to benefit from using psychological tools to
understand the relationship between the pedagogy, the personnel, and the

student. At that point, we also begin to appreciate the potential of the technology

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for cognitive, social, and emotional gains. Compare this approach to the
teacher’s initial, uninformed, interest in purchasing as many eMates as possible
for each and every student.

The same philosophy can be applied to the “Got Milk?” project. The third
grade students at Rose Park Elementary Ieamed about history, science,
language arts, math, and social studies, as evidenced by standardized tests
periodically administered throughout the semester. The teachers and parents
also commented on the improved behavior, performance, and attitude of the
students at both school and home. The research was not complete enough just
to demonstrate evidence of these gains. As in Sarah’s case, we needed a thick
description to gain a more complete understanding of the innovation.

A thick description of both the pedagogy and personnel highlighted
components integral to the Ieaming environment (legitimate participation,
flexibility of teaching and Ieaming, authentic problems, etc.). The thick account
of the performance of the tool indicated growth and changes in the cognitive,
social, and emotional development of the students and teachers (improvement of
grades, literacy scores, and attitude). Thus, the account provided a more
complete description of what an educator or researcher would need to do to
create such an environment (to replicate something like the “Got Milk?” project),
and even some possible results.

As “Got Milk?” demonstrated a concern for both the pedagogy and
personnel involved in the implementation, can we say that it was a good

innovation with any degree of certainty? The cognitive and social results

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certainly give us a standard by which to measure progress and growth. I;
However, I would suggest that we dig deeper and use tools from psychology to
add to the argument that this was a good performance. Specifically, I draw from
narrative psychology and work by McAdams (1996) and others.

McAdams (1996) argues that a person is a history, “a subjectively
composed and construed life story that integrates one’s past, present and
future... A person defines him- or herself by constructing an autobiographical
story of the self...the story provides the person with a sense of unity and purpose
in life.” Thus, by asking my participants to story their life, I intended to learn more
about the way in which the use of technology Changed, enabled, or re-organized
parts of their story.

Instead, I Ieamed that sometimes participants use their story to change,
enable, and organize technology (see (Miller & Olson, 1994)). At some level, this
sounds like the process of dialogic interaction during the implementation of the
technology. In other words, a technology can’t be dropped into a classroom and
magically transform it. Instead, it is a dialogue between the developer and the
prior Classroom practices of the teacher and students. However, the importance
of the story goes beyond the ‘prior practices’ that have been established in the
classroom by the time the innovation is introduced. This history refers to the
person’s story over the entire life history of that individual.

The most prominent example of this occurring in the “Got Milk?”
Classroom was Elizabeth’s story. She was involved with technology in the

classroom, but really only to the extent that Danielle asked her to be.

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Technology was used in those cases mainly as a manager of instruction, where
Elizabeth would type up forms or letters using the computers in the Classroom.
Occasionally, she would let the students use them to type a story, but she would
not teach with it. However, when the “Got Milk?” and “Conflict Management” 38
projects came along, Elizabeth was very excited for the students to work with the
technology. I did not understand why she was using technology the way she was
(what role it played in her philosophy) until we both realized (through the course
of her story-ing) that She was trying to use technology to save the students in her
class. She was trying to save them, as you will see, from a fate she felt she
almost fell victim to. Elizabeth summarizes her story as follows (see Appendix C
for her complete story):

As a child, I lived and attended school in an urban setting. My Siblings
and I were at-risk students in both, elementary and secondary school. We
were considered at-risk for various reasons. First, our mother ran the
household on one low-income as a single parent. Because my mother
was a single parent with two jobs, I grew up unsupervised in an
unstructured environment. Second, drug abuse was rampant in our family
and neighborhood. It was difficult to find a role model in the environment
where we lived. In a Situation such this, hopelessness characterized my
Siblings, myself as well as other children in my community. Third, many of
the teens my community became parents, dropped out of school and
depended on Social Services in order to survive. This appeared to be the
pattern passed from one generation to the next.

Another dimension that made children like me at-risk were schools and
teachers who lacked hope and belief that students such as myself could
break the cycle of defeat and become productive citizens in our
community. There were teachers who constantly made negative remarks
about our abilities and had low expectations. It appeared that they
expected us to fail and behave badly. There were others who judged us
by our outer appearance or based on what other teachers said in passing.
Finally, the curriculum in our school prepared us to work in jobs that were

 

3‘ The “Conflict Management” unit was Elizabeth’s lead teaching project. She adapted the idea of the
“Book Club” (Florio-Ruane, Raphael, Glazier, McVee, & Wallace, 1997) to have her students Ieam
conflict management in their own lives.

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working class oriented. College was an option mainly for those who
naturally received high grades.

As demonstrated by this short summary, growing up was not easy. She
partly attributes being ‘Saved’ to experiences with technologies, granted that the
technologies took a different shape when She was growing up. Her favorite
memory in her past is when her fourth grade teacher took her Class to the local
television station. The class recorded a commercial for the station, which was
later aired numerous times on local television. Elizabeth reported a deep
understanding of the care that the teacher had for all of her students.

She would always tell me that all students are capable of Ieaming and

accomplishing all that they set their minds to accomplish. She always had

high expectations for me and never judged me based on my actions or
outer appearance. As a matter of fact, she had a way of looking passed
negative behavior and seeing the root of a problem. She responded to the
root of the problem rather than me. She not only Changed my life. She
impacted the lives of my children and will have an effect on my Children’s
children.

However, She saw technology. specifically in the form of the television
commercial, as a way for the teacher to directly impact the students’ lives.
Elizabeth noted that although many teachers try to do good for their students, her
fourth grade teacher succeeded because of the opportunities with technology.
Elizabeth, in turn, identified with almost all of the students in her class and
wanted to ‘Save them like She had been saved.’ For her, technology was a way
to do that.

Some of these kids don’t see their worth or value. They don’t see their

importance for being here. If they grow up without seeing that, they won’t

be productive. I think one of the things that helped me is that I liked to
help others. I felt like someone needed me and that made a difference,

even if it was superficial. To me, it wasn’t. To me, I was able to help
someone and that helped me. I think for the students, they feel important

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seeing themselves on that video and CD. They feel important having

another classroom come in and learn something from their experience.

They felt even more important having a student or teacher from around

the world sending them email saying, “We really Ieamed something from

this. AS a result, we’re doing this or not doing this.” That was a huge
boost, which to me gives hope, purpose, and a reason for being.

I was convinced the “Got Milk?” project was successful because of its
performance, as evidenced by the cognitive, social, and emotional growth of the
students combined with the good pedagogy and personnel behind the
implementation. The students made tremendous gains, as did Danielle in her
understanding of what a good technology consisted of. However, I could not
explain Elizabeth’s relationship with the technology. Admittedly, I was initially
more interested in the students’ Ieaming that l was the pre-service teacher. A
deeper psychological approach not only uncovered her growth, but also
highlighted the fact that her story dictated her interest or lack of interest in
technologies. In other words, She saw the role of technology in her life as
“savior." She associated experiences with technology in the past with times
where her self-esteem and self-worth grew. Therefore, She assumed
(subconsciously perhaps) that the important technologies were ones that would
somehow reach out and ‘save’ at-risk students. Although this lead to important
uses of technology, she admitted being blind to other purposes and uses for
technology in education. Once she became aware of this, She was able to reflect
on how this goal played out in her teaching and teaching with technology.

According to Elizabeth, this discovery helped her figure out what the technology

was, how she was using it, and what else it could be used for:

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One of the things I do know is that I’ve always had some type of
relationship with technology, but it’s being transformed right before my
eyes—the way I see it, the way I use it, and the importance of it. It’s not
just a means to an end anymore. So, I’m Ieaming as I go along. I’m
thinking more about why I use it than before. Before I just used it and
thought, “Oh! This is good because you can let kids see things and do
things.” Now I'm trying to figure out, is it really good? I’m questioning
everything that I think I believe.

 

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Chapter 5: The Impact of “Got Milk?”;

Implications for a Deeper Psychology of Technology

I began this discussion by asking, “What do we know about the
relationship between technology and education?” It seems like we know a lot,
considering both the research available (research articles, journals, books, etc.)
and the amount of money (in the form of grants and bonds) that is allocated for
technology implementation in our schools.

Yet, the truth of the matter is that we know very little about the young field
of educational technology. By now, I am referring to both ‘realizing the potential
of' and knowledge in the form of strong Claims about its use. Evidence to support
that assertion has been documented from three different areas: 1) articles,
books, journals, and research calling for more research to justify the
implementation of technology in the schools; 2) calls for different approaches to
research on technology, specifically that which is more comprehensive; and 3)
arguments that abound in the field (and have for some time) regarding the role of
technology in education.

One caveat Should be noted prior to a discussion of the specific
implications of the “Got Milk?” project. In this research project, I studied one
classroom over a period of a year. The classroom consisted of 25 students, a
teacher, and one student-teacher intern. That classroom and its participants
were used as evidence to support the Claim of the importance of exploring and

understanding a deeper psychology of technology. However, due to the fact that

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only one classroom worked with the technology represented in this dissertation,
there are limitations on the generalizability of specific claims regarding the
integration of the “Got Milk?” technology itself.

The “Got Milk?” Project and thp Three P’s

Perhaps an answer to the initial question is that we know, or at least are
beginning to know, more about what makes a good innovation. This is an
important question for our field because it helps establish and reiterate what we
know, which in turn sheds light on what we still need to Ieam.

In this research, I studied a technology innovation called the “Got Milk?”
project. Through analyses of individual behavior and social interactions as well
as an extended literature review, I developed a model entitled the “Three P’s.”
The P’s refer to the elements that make up a good technology innovation:
pedagogy, people, and performance. Pedagogy sets the stage by analyzing
technology as a product (although from a social constructivist perspective,
arguably it can be seen as a process as well). The product, that being computer
hardware and software implemented into the curriculum as well as the artifacts
created in its use, has components requisite to Ieaming. Specifically from a
social constructivist perspective, technology innovations must provide
opportunities for learners to: a) engage in authentic and Challenging content (at
the high end of the Ieamer’s Zone of Proximal Development); b) actively
participate, including collaboration and social interaction; C) develop a sense of
ownership; d) create artifacts in a variety of ways; and e) publish, reflect, and

receive feedback.

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The second “P” that makes up a good innovation is ‘good people.’ Where
pedagogy focused our attention on the innovation as software or hardware (i.e.,
product), ‘good people’ shifts interest to technology innovation as a process.
This process highlights the fact that innovation implementation necessitates
having people who understand the relationships that exist between the different
members of the innovation. Legitimate peripheral participation, essential for the
development of mastery level Skills and the growth of identity in a community of
learners, can be achieved when developers: a) understand the dialogic nature of
innovation implementation; b) engage in genuine interaction with teachers and
students; C) appreciate the flexible nature of teaching; and d) help teachers
understand the flexible nature of technology.

The final element of a good technology innovation is good performance.
Psychology helps us answer the question of whether or not an innovation is
good, where good refers to successful. Good psychology defines success as a
deeper and more adequate understanding of the technical, cognitive, and
affective gains made through psychology. This requisite helps us understand
and assess an instance of implementation so that we can better describe,
replicate, make claims about our technology use.

Good pedagogy, good people, and good performance are described as
the three main components of a good innovation. Are all three necessary,
though? There are times when well-designed software helps someone teach
because of the built-in pedagogy steeped into the design of the tool. There are

other times when a knowledgeable person can take a technology and make it

105

 

pedagogically sound ‘on the fly.’ In both cases, one drives the other. We can
support teachers with pedagogically sound technology; and we can Ieam from
teachers who make technology pedagogically sound. Therefore, yes, the first
two are definitely required, but they tend to be responsible to one another. One
will always require the other; good pedagogy is part of a process and the process
includes teaching with good pedagogy.

The last point, good performance, is the one we know the least about. We
do know that it is imperative to include in order to better understand the role of
technology and education; this explains the number of calls to justify the
expansion of technology in our schools. However, along with more research to
justify implementation, we need different methodologies to understand what that
assessment looks like. For one project, that might mean coming to a deeper
awareness of how the technology impacted the Ieaming. In the cases of both
Sarah and Elizabeth, using psychology to examine performance entailed not
stopping at cognitive gains (school test scores or more knowledge of technology)
but more deeply exploring why those gains were possible. In each case, it
means a more comprehensive approach to measuring intended as well as
unintended goals.

Implications of Elizabeth’s Stopy and the Three “P’s”

Studying the “Got Milk?” project provided the opportunity to understand

what makes a good technology innovation. Described below are implications of

this study and future research that needs to be completed on this important topic.

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«as: :d

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Teaching and Development. Good technology innovations are those that
are imbued with strong pedagogy and opportunities for growth in the learning
community. Teachers and developers must Ieam to appreciate the flexibility of
teaching, as well as the ways in which the flexibility of technology can
reciprocally support the initial pedagogy and instruction. These understandings
are supported by the design of innovations that are adaptable (as set-forth by the
idea of component-based architectures) and part of a dialogic interaction that
promotes mutual growth, change, and advancement of the technology and the
corresponding pedagogical goals.

Research. The field of educational technology has made important
advancements regarding understanding the pedagogy and people behind
technology innovations. As evidenced by the research discussed and presented
here, active participation in authentic tasks using technology, along with people
who understand how to legitimately bring people into the Ieaming community,
afford greater opportunities for gains in multiple domains. However, like many
others, I highlight the call for more research related to understanding these
technology innovations. We do not have the evidence we need to justify the
expansion of technology in the schools.

Most importantly, in establishing this research agenda, we must aim for a
deeper, more comprehensive psychology of technology. A deeper psychology
invites questions regarding cognitive gains as well as affective, social, and
emotional ones. There are intended and oftentimes unintended consequences of

using technology. More methodologies are required explore and appreciate

107

these unintended outcomes. The narrative methodology used in this dissertation
may prove beneficial to that call.

Teacher Education. Using an approach from narrative psychology,
Elizabeth and I discovered that her story was guiding her decisions about why,
where, and when She wanted to use technology. Perhaps even more
importantly, however, was that Elizabeth seemed to be using the nanative
methodology as a way to make sense of why She went into teaching, what she
was Ieaming about teaching, and how to integrate teaching with technology.
Many of our conversations were Spent talking about previous or future lessons
and what happened during the day. Successes and failures were re-Iived
through the telling of the story aS if part of the time were natural storytelling and
story-construction opportunities. Swidler argues that narrators create hostile
worlds and Simultaneously recreate themselves as heroes in those worlds
(Swidler, 1999). Although arguably not hostile, Elizabeth was Ieaming to make
sense of the new ‘world’ and her place in that world.

In other words, once She had storied her experience, She was ready to
plan what kind of teacher she wanted to be and how she was going to use
technology in that role. George Howard (Howard, 1996) calls this process
‘teliography.’ It refers to understanding the causality that we have in our stories.
If an autobiography tells a story of the past, a teliography tells a story of the
future. It gives us a guide to set our Sights on.

Metaphorically, a teliography is like a climber’s grappling hook. The hook

is thrown to a point higher on the mountain that the Climber hopes to
scale. Once secured on some distant point, the grappling hook serves as

108

 

 

an anchor that the climber uses to close the distance on her or his desired
goal. (p. 132)

Using her story to better understand where she had come from, Elizabeth
created stories about where She wanted to go. She developed teliographies 39 of
her life, her teaching, and most notably for this conversation, the ways in which

she hoped to implement technology in her future classroom.

Reflecting on my story has helped me think more about my teaching
philosophy. The teachers who affected my life affected the lives of my
future students. I’m making a difference because of them. It’s so powerful
to see how what one person does impacts others. I believe as a teacher,
even if you can impact just one child, it will make a difference in multiple
lives. It’s letting them know that you accept them because they’re a
person with a heart, a hope, and a future. Therefore, one part for my
teaching will be to aid in their construction of knowledge; the other part will
be to show these kids that we care unconditionally...Moreover, I want my
students to work with multiple kinds of technologies. I want them to use
video cameras to create and record scripts and plays that someone else
could watch and be inspired by. I want them to use the lntemet to do
research. They could create a project and then find out whether someone
has done this already and what types of ideas they had. Wouldn’t it be
neat if they could find something on the lntemet that’s led by students,
their own peers?

For Elizabeth, this narrative approach, initially serving as a research
methodology, enabled her to learn more about who she was as a person and as
a teacher. By creating a history of her life, she provided a base in which to
reflect on her teaching as well as climb towards higher places and more
advanced goals (Blumenfeld et al., 1994; Howard, 1996). Those teliographies

described who she wanted to be in the future, specifically in relation to her

 

39 A person can have more than one teliography depending on the context in which you are using the term.
At a very local, specific level, I may have a future, fictional autobiography—a teliography—about the type
of scholar I wish to become. Or, I could have a teliography about how I one day wish to use technology in
the classroom. At a broader, more general level, arguably all of the teliographies could fit into a ‘meta-
teliography’ of the person I want to be. In this specific case, Elizabeth’s teliographies included topics such
as teaching, teaching specific subject matter, and teaching with technology.

109

teaching. Others have highlighted this finding about the importance of using
autobiography, specifically as a way to help teachers Ieam more about their
culture, their pedagogy, and their students (Bruner, 1996; FIorio-Ruane et al.,
1997; McAdams, 1996; Nicolopoulou, 1996; Wannar, 1994).

More recently, it has been suggested that narrative approaches provide an
important vehicle for teachers to learn about technology (Ferdig, 1998; Harlow &
Johnson, 1998; Miller & Olson, 1994). In this study, a teacher used a narrative
approach to understand where technology fit into her story. She began our time
together talking about technology as a way to make what a teacher did more
efficient; at its best, it was merely a motivation tool for students who were bored
with the traditional classroom. At the end of our time together, She shared her
philosophy of teaching with technology, a philosophy that described technology
as being able to transform her teaching and her students Ieaming (see Appendix
B for her complete philosophy).

Cognition and Personalitv Theories. I made claims in this chapter about
Elizabeth’s growth and her teliography, drawing on work by George Howard
(Howard, 1996). I also suggested in the introduction to this dissertation that the
way to ‘know’ this teliography (or teliographies) was to get to ‘know the person’
using the narrative framework of Dan McAdams (McAdams, 1996). Finally, I
cited work from Lave and Wenger (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and Vygotsky
(Vygotsky, 1978) in chapter one to suggest that the importance of getting to know

a person and their teliography was not only to demonstrate growth, but also to

110

help them develop their identity as a master practitioner in a community of
practice—thus highlighting Vygotsky’s notion of Ieaming as social in nature. 4°

In one sense, there seems to be an implied competition between the
aforementioned narrative and personality theories of McAdams and Howard and
the learning theories presented by Vygotsky, Lave, and Wenger. McAdams and
Howard suggest the importance of the development of the individuals’ story
(autobiography and teliography). The development of identity is seen as the
creation of individual teliographies. Vygotsky, Lave, and Wenger, on the other
hand, emphasize the importance of Ieaming as a social action and one that
requires emergence into a community of practice. ‘1 Identity development from
this perspective entails becoming a member, and specifically an active member,
in that community of practice.

Combining these approaches solved problems I experienced in planning
an exploration of individuals’ Ieaming about technology. From a social
constructivist perspective (i.e., learning theories of Vygotsky, and Lave &
Wenger), I knew that the learners in the “Got Milk?” project were entering into a
community of Ieamers. The students were Ieaming to use tools (i.e., Video
cameras, tape recorders, and computers) that experts in the community used to
solve problems. Moreover, they were engaged in knowledge-building exercises
surrounding important artifacts in the learning community (i.e., knowledge in
mathematics, science, history, etc.). The teachers were also learning. Danielle

was learning to use technology in her teaching, while Elizabeth was Ieaming to

 

4° The methodology of Geertz (Geertz, l973a) was used to capture this social interaction.
" This is also discussed in work cited on the Vygotsky Space (Gavelek & Raphael, I996; Harré, 1984;
Harré et al., 1985) in chapter one.

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'Irrvr'wmv. - . .4.

 

 

 

become a teacher (and a teacher using technology). Using Geertz (Geertz,
1973a) to examine these interactions and development into a Ieaming
community was a necessary but not sufficient way to explore a deeper
psychology of technology. If I had used Geertz’s methodology without an
exploration of the individual, I would have potentially subscribed to the notion that
we are nothing more than a product of our social interactions. To re-examine the
Vygotsky Space discussed in chapter one, important components of the social
sphere are publication and conventionalization. However, the individual is also
involved in the processes of transformation and appropriation (Gavelek &
Raphael, 1996). Where Geertz provided a lens to examine the social nature of
the learning community, McAdams and Howard afforded an examination of the
individual as an actor in that social world.

Conversely, to only use McAdams and Howard would not only ignore
important social components of Ieaming (i.e., a more knowledgeable other in the
Zone of Proximal Development), it would leave open the possibility that a
person’s teliography could be as open-ended as possible. In other words,
understanding personality from a narrative approach, according to McAdams and
Howard, revolves around getting to know and further developing an individuals
story. However, realizing that a person’s story is part of a larger society—a
community of practice—helps ground the story. For instance, Elizabeth wanted
to become a good teacher. She could have decided that being a good teacher
meant not ever letting your students talk. Working with colleagues, professors,

and her coordinating teacher (Danielle) provided resources to publish and

112

 

receive feedback on her story and teliography of what it meant to be a teacher.
This is not to suggest that her story had to follow and could not change others’
stories. In one example, Elizabeth suggested the use of a CD—ROM (something
Danielle and I had not considered) to supplement student creation of artifacts.
Her teliography about what a classroom project should look like did not match
our stories, but helped us grow with her. The point is that in order to create a
deeper psychology of technology, I needed these individual approaches to
personality to better describe the occurrences of learning in a social environment.
Equally, I need social theories of learning to explore the ways in which an
individual was developing (including the adaptation and growth of their
teliographies).

I am not suggesting that this dissertation completely bridged and solved
the differences between social Ieaming and individual development. However, I
propose a deeper psychology of technology is and was a way, in some sense, to
draw on the benefits of both of these approaches, albeit both having different
premises and intentions. For instance, rather than being seen as merely the
entrance into a community of practice or the development of a story, identity
could be defined as the development, publication, and revision of the story of a
member within a community of practice. This seems to be the heart of using a
deeper psychology of technology: the willingness to exploit the benefits Of
multiple psychologies (i.e., psychology of Ieaming, psychology of personality,
etc.) to more deeply and completely understand phenomena such as the

integration and implementation of technology.

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Summagy and A Cgll for Future Resegrpp

In sum, the three “P’s” serves as a model to help us understand what we
know as well as what we still need to learn. We know that technology
innovations that adopt a deep psychological approach for assessment and
evaluation lend themselves to a more multi-layered and complete understanding
of the impact of the technology on the people and pedagogy involved in the
innovation. In continuing to explore both the existing and potential relationships
between technology and education, we must make sure our investigations of
explorations have a depth and breadth to them. This depth and breadth refers to
a more comprehensive approach, as afforded by psychology, one that provides
opportunities to create, implement, and study technology in pedagogy. In that
approach, a narrative methodology deserves more consideration, especially as a
way of teaching teachers about how technology fits into their story.

The research on Sarah’s use of the eMate and efforts to understand the
“Got Milk?” project have both added to the repertoire of tools that we have as
psychologists and educators to understand the role that technology does and can
play in our schools. Specifically, these studies document using technology as a
transitional object and the efficacy of a narrative methodology in helping us
understand the use or lack of use of technology. Future research needs to
continue to broaden the relatively new field of educational technology. We do not
have the accounts we need of the emotional and social responses of students to
new educational technologies. We need to know more about the importance of

joining multiple psychologies to understand technology integration. The task of

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technology-focused, educational psychologists and teachers, then, is not only to
establish more structured research and teaching agendas, but also to expand the

diversity within those inquiries.

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Appendix A: Interview Protocol

Adapted from “The Stories We Live By” (McAdams, 1993)

. Think about your life as a book. Each part of your life composes a chapter
of that book. Divide your life into as many chapters as you would like (you
can give me a table of contents if that’s easier), and tell me about the role
of technology within each of those chapters. You don’t have to tell me
each and every story for each chapter. Instead, try to focus on the main
points and think of this as the story’s outline.

. Describe as best as you can, eight key events relating to technology in
your life. Those events are:

a) best experience with technology

b) worst experience with technology

c) turning point in your technology use

d) earliest memory of technology use

e) important use of technology by someone else in your
Ieaming/education

f) important use of technology by yourself in teaching someone else

9) an experience with someone who looks up to you for technology
help

h) an experience with someone you look up to for technology help

. Describe the four most important people in your development as a
technology user.

. As you continue learning and using technology, what is next for you?
What is your overall plan, outline, or dream for the future in learning to use
technology?

. Please describe two areas in your life that represent a major stress or
conflict regarding technology use.

. Looking back at the history of technology use in your life, can you describe

a central theme, trend, or idea that runs throughout that text or those
chapters?

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Appendix B: Elizabeth’s Philosophy on Teaching with Technology

I had some time to think about what I know to be true about technology
and how it can transform teaching as well as allow students to do things that they
would not othenlvise do. After deep reflection, I have comet alize that I am
barely skimming the surface. However, I am very interested I l aming how
technology enhances Ieaming especially for at-risk students‘. am very
interested in how technology can be used to transform teaching. I want to learn
and understand better how to effectively integrate technology in classroom
learning. I noticed that the state technology standards emphasize that the
students’ outcome should be critical thinking, self-directed learning, creator
producer, and effective communicator. I feel like a lot of what I am learning will
prepare me to continue to pursue ways to responsibly integrate technology and
the curriculum.

How can technology transform my teaching?

. Efficiency, I am able to quickly get information from the Internet for class
lessons, presentations, and papers. I am able to keep an accurate log of
my students’ progress and . I am able to create and store lesson plans
that I would other wise have to maintain by paper. It is definitely easier for
me edit and make changes to a unit or lesson plan if needed. Finally, I am
able to use the computers to communicate with my professors, field
instructor, collaborating teacher and other interns to give and receive
feedback that helps me to shape, improve create, or complete lessons.

0 I use web Sites that are children friendly introduce new ideas and current
events. These sites have been good attention grabbers that the students
later used as research.

. I use it as a research tool. I have access to thousands of ideas and
research that I would not otherwise have. These web sites would give me
unit ideas, what works what does not work, access to lesson plans, cutting
edge research by other educators as well as cutting edge programs such
as TELE, etc that enhances students learning. I believe that access to
such information would make a huge difference in the way that I plan and
the content that I teach. I think that communication with other educators
as well as collaboration is key to the growing process of teaching and
development of unit plans. Without technology, it would be very difficult to
have access to all of the resources that are available. Technology puts
these things at your fingertips. It is difficult to try new things that research
has to offer if you do not have access to it. Also, your teaching can be
transformed by becoming a researcher as well. Your class can become a
source for research that you can use to test the ideas that are presented
from different sources. One example is the research that I am

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participating in with Cheryl Rosaen and James Damico. They are
documenting the teachers working toward standard-based elementary
level classroom practices. Mary Lou and my contributions focuses on the
way that interns plan and teach Literacy and Language Arts. They are
recording this unit being taught along with interview questions. They are
using the reflections that I write after every lesson as well as feedback that
I get from Mary Lou. In the Language arts subject area, materials are
developed that highlight a different cross cutting theme such as:
assessment, teacher knowledge, planning, decision making while
teaching, designing lessons and units that engage children investigating
big ideas/questions, classroom Ieaming community, strategies for
reversing gender/race obstacles, appropriating the discourses and
practices of the discipline. This research will be web-based. Although it is
secure, educators will have access to it from different locations. These
materials will be explored by other teachers candidates, teacher
educators, and classroom teachers in a variety of text.

Imagine the teacher who uses the very traditional approach i.e. Do not
use: collaboration, cooperative Ieaming, technology, ideas presented
from new research. Imagine the novice teacher. I would say that the
above items would transform their teaching. It has for me in many ways. I
have use the research of others and l have access to items such as ERIC
that give cutting edge or recent research. Research enables me to learn
new approaches, techniques. It helps me to understand new
developments in the learning process as well as in the field. These things
influence what and how I teach.

The use of technology provides many options for teaching, teachers who
use it (not just computers) have less limitations than for those who do not
use it.

Collaboration with lesson planning and discussion that would otherwise be
difficult to do due to distance and time.

When I began to plan to teach using one of the book club instructional
models, I did not know a lot about book Club. I knew that one of the
person who’s model I was using was a professor at MSU. I attempted to
look up her e-mail address to ask some questions that would help me to
better understand how book Club might work for third graders Since her
book focused on fifth graders. Email at that time was the only way that I
could communicate with her.

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What will technology allow my students to do or learn that they would not
be able to do otherwise?

The students become inquiry based researchers. They have access to as
tons of information and multiple perspectives. Because of this they can
use judgment, decision-making and critical thinking that is high order.
Current events are readily available to them. They can make immediate
connection from what is learned in the classroom to various electronic
sources. They can produce and Share ideas around they would.

They can Ieam about other communities worldwide and compare and
contrast cultural differences first hand by speaking to other Children in
different communities.

They can see first hand and interact with different students all over the
world.

They can capture teachable moments and Share them with others
(distribution would not be a challenge.

They can create and publish to a broader audience.

They have access to work created and published by their peers that
enables them to make comments to and received comments from a larger
audience.

Students like Arron can continue to learn and use several processes such
as analytical and critical thinking that would othenlvise be impeded without
the use of technology. He could do both take part in the learning process
and at the same time work to increase his hand coordination motor skills
by practicing writing when the emphasis is on writing and not on using the
other processes mentioned above.

By giving students access to technology, they Ieam to use it responsibly
and become comfortable with using different items such as computers,
cameras, video cameras etc. They become computer literate and Ieam
early how to use it to enhance their own learning. They won’t be afraid to
learn new things that include use of technology.

Technology can help students who can’t write to create meaningful stories
and listen to them for enjoyment, editing purposes etc.

Students can work together with a larger audience to solve a problem or
answer a inquiry question.

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Appendix C: Elizabeth’s Story

“Do you think I’m bothered by that?”or“l will survive”:
Elizabeth on growing up and staying alive

I began a research project in a local school, because I was interested in
examining the components of a good technology innovation. Although I could
use certain measures to assess cognitive improvement (i. e., test scores), I chose
to bonow an interview protocol from Dan McAdams (McAdams, 1995; McAdams,
1996) to explore the story of the individual. The hope was that this story-ing
process would allow me to more closely examine how a person Ieamed to work
with technology, as well as discovering and uncovering other gains made through
the interaction with the technology (social, emotional, affective, etc.).

Although the story-ing was meant more as a research methodology, the
process fundamentally changed the way Elizabeth though about herself, her
teaching, and technology. This unintended consequence has important
implications for instructing teacher educators and for teaching technology—
implications that will be discussed in the final chapter. However, Elizabeth ’3 text
(my summary of the co-constructed dance and dialogic interaction we
experienced over the weeks of the research project) is included below because
of the power of her story. .

I normally don’t Share my story. AS a matter of fact, I have not Shared the
complete story until now. It’s much too painful for me. Two years ago, or even
last year, I would have cried this story rather than told it. However, I am starting
to forgive, and with forgiveness comes healing. Healing is strange, though. On
one hand, you want to let go of all the things that hurt you so bad, but on the
other hand you still want to be angry. Then, you realize being mad is hurting you
more than anyone, and so you lie and tell yourself you’re not mad. It’s there,
though. It’s hidden down far enough that you don’t really see it. But, it’s there.

I tell my story because it helps remind me of who I am and why I am here.
Here means alive, surprisingly, at age 28. Here means trying to become a good
teacher. Sharing, and thus putting the pain into words, helps me realize where
and who I am. I tell my story because I want to encourage people to overcome
things and be who they want to be. I have been through so much, I shouldn’t
have my right mind, but surprisingly I do. They can overcome, too.

I wish I knew a good way to share this story with my students—especially
my ‘troubled’ students. I want my life to be an inspiration for them. I want them
to hear my story and say, “There is a way out if I keep trying.” Most students
think you can’t relate. They see us dressing nice, driving nice cars, and getting

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what we need and what we want. It’s hard for those students to believe us when
we say, “I understand.” I do understand because I’ve been through it. There
were times when I didn’t know if my parents were going to come home or when
food was going to be on the table. When you can show that part of you, students
can see where you’ve been and where you are now.

For now, I give them more of a look. When they’re telling their story, I give
them a look that says, “I know. I’ve been there. Here’s what I can do, here’s
what you can do...I wish I could do more. I won’t feel sorry for you, though; we
are not victims. I’m not bothered by those ‘things’ and neither should you be.”

* * *

I was born in Lake City in 1971. I grew up in a family of four with one
older sister, a younger brother, and a younger sister. My father left us when l
was five, so we were very poor. I was very angry when my father left because he
was my best friend—we used to do everything together. (Although they were not
always good times. My earliest memory is of playing with his lighter. He had this
silver lighter with a lid you could flip open. I used to like playing with it. One
time, he let it get really, really hot so when I grabbed it, it burned my hand and I
didn’t touch it anymore.) After my father left, many of my extended family
members grew to hate me. They told me I would never amount to anything
good. I’m sure they told me that because I closely resemble him in looks and
personality.

I remember the day he left. He had become influenced by the actions of
my cousins and started drinking uncontrollably. It got so bad that he started to
mentally abuse my mom. One day, he physically abused her, and She never
came back home. She told him to take us to my grandmother’s house but she
wouldn’t come home. He begged her to come back, but She wouldn’t. Part of
not being willing to return was fear. He told her that if she ever left him, he would
kill her. And, if his anger were anything like mine used to be, he probably would
have. The other reasons included rumors of his infidelity with other family
members.

* * It

My mom returned the day my father moved away, and she raised us as a
Single parent. She had dropped out of school in the 7th or 8th grade (She later
returned to get her GED) and so we were always moving to where she could find
work. Throughout these moves, school was so important and fascinating to me.
I remember growing up seeing school as a way to survive. There were many
times when I had to walk miles to get there. When we moved, I walked to the old
school until either I was able to change schools or school got out. In the 5th
grade, for instance, we lived about two miles away from school. We were in a
not-so-good neighborhood, so I really don’t know howl made it. I probably made
it for the same reason school was important to me—l had teachers in every level
of schooling that made a difference in my life.

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In elementary school, it was my fourth grade teacher. She was actually
one of the only people who I ever remember implementing technology into the
classroom. The local television station was producing a commercial advertising
their news. She arranged for us to go to the station and meet the people, see the
equipment, and practice and record a new song for their commercial. It wasn’t
technology like today’s computers, but it was television and reporting. It really
made a difference in my life because I felt important. I thought, “Wow! She
really cares. She is going beyond math, English, spelling, etc.” I think a lot of
times kids are just looking for just person to Show that they care no matter what
(unconditionally). I was no exception and having my teacher take us to this place
made me realize she cared.

In middle school, it was my civics teacher and my homeroom teacher (who
incidentally died in a car accident before I got out of middle school). It seemed
like she didn’t care if She hurt your feelings, but she just gave you the hard facts.
She didn't try to make you feel good, she just wanted to help you see who you
really were. It wasn’t easy, but it was something kids at that level needed—a

WW they’re in a fantasy world, and they don’t see who they
are, w a they need, or who they want to become, they’re going to be in a world
of hurt come high school and college.

* i *

Both of those teachers influenced my life so much that I see parts of their
teaching philosophies in mine. However, perhaps the most influential person
was my teacher in high school. When I was in high school, I didn’t have the kind
of parental support and guidance that I needed. My mom was a good friend
growing up who cared about us deeply. And, considering everything She had
been through, She was the best mother that she could be. She had her first Child
when she was fourteen. She had her second when she fifteen. She eventually
got married to my father when She was Sixteen just to get away from the abuse
she experienced at home. So, to suffer the abuse in her own house was just too
much for her to take. She didn’t have the outlets that I had. She didn’t trust
anyone including herself. She had so much on her chest and didn’t have the
outlets that I did. All of the hurts and disappointments caught up with her and
she started using drugs. My father was long gone, and everyone else in my
family was addicted to something (crack, cocaine, alcohol...whateverl). They
were always high, while I was just trying to survive (as I’m sure they were; we
just had different ways of doing it).

I was still working at this time and had been Since I was about twelve. I
had to. There were times when my mother would just disappear. We were left
with no food and no money. By this time, my oldest Sister couldn’t stand living at
home anymore; so, it was just me (age fourteen), my little brother, and my
newborn Sister. (When my mom got pregnant with my youngest sister, I knew I
was going to be her built in babysitter). When my little Sister turned one year old,
my mom and her boyfriend moved into an apartment together. Her and her
boyfriend would come and visit us every once in a while (I was about fourteen). I

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was the head of the house while I was trying to be a kid. Luckily for me, the
market down the street had Wand hope that it wasn't
bad)

Needless to say, I was exhausted, scared, confused, and abandoned.
However, I didn’t dare tell anyone. I was afraid, like I’m sure most kids are, that if
I told someone my situation, they would split all of us up into different homes. As
a kid, I didn’t think that was a good thing. That’s when I met my high school
English and drama teacher. When I first met Ms. C., I was afraid to go into the
classroom. It was my first day of ninth grade. She came around the comer and
I thought She was so pretty. She said, “are you afraid to come in here?” I told
her that I couldn't come in because there were too many people in the
Classroom. She said, “I’m afraid, too. Today is my first day teaching.” I thought,
‘Wowl She’s afraid, and I’m afraid. We’ll go in together and we’ll be ok.” I
ended up having her for drama all through high school. It wasn’t that I liked
drama that much; I just wanted to have her for a teacher. (I ended up loving
drama as she got us more and more involved in theatre outside of school.)

Ms. C. got involved in my life beyond just the classroom. She picked me
up and took me shopping. She talked to me about things. She got me out of the
house. She taught me how to be responsible. I remember one time a boy
offered me a donut. He offered me one donut, and I took the whole bag. I would
beat up kids as quickly as I would be their friend, so taking the bag was no
problem. MS. C. came up and Showed me howl was wrong. (Little did she
know, of course, that I didn’t have food at home.) She was just trying to teach
me about being a lady.

I know one of the reasons I liked Ms. C. so much is that I needed
someone in high school and She was there for me. I needed so much attention
and She gave it to me. I had really low self-esteem and was mad at the world. I
felt like if my father could just leave and never come back and my mother leave
me and live with someone else, something must have been wrong with me. No
one wanted to be around me. So, I grew up thinking something was wrong with
me. This teacher Showed me in so many ways that this wasn’t the case. Without
probably even knowing what She was doing, my high school teacher stepped in
at a critical time and it made a difference. I cry when I think of how much She
meant to me. It’s important for me to reflect on that, though, because it reminds
me all over again why I am here.

* 'k *

In high school, things only got worse for me. I was still a pretty good
student considering all that was happening at home. (Incidentally, that’s one of
the reasons I can’t handle students saying they’re bad because of what’s going
on at home. I want to tell them that I’ve been there and done that, and still never
talked to my teacher that way. But, I suppose times have changed. There are
different things on TV. There are other things that probably didn’t exist when I
was younger.) Because of my grades, I received basketball and academic
scholarships to attend a school in Tennessee. Although I wasn’t sure what I

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wanted to study, I knew that I had to go to school to have a Chance.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have anyone to take care of my younger brother and sister.
I was going to try to take them with me, but the school in Tennessee wouldn’t
allow it at the time. I had to turn down those offers.

I also meta nice guy in high school who became my best friend and later
my boyfriend. I met him because I babysat for his aunt’s children. We were so
close and he helped me through so many of my struggles. A month before prom,
he was killed in a car accident. I became so nervous and stressed, that my nose
would bleed profusely ever day around third period. I went to the doctor, and
they wondered how I was walking. They told me I Shouldn’t be alive because of
my blood count.

Things finally hit rock bottom when my mother moved back into the house.
She would steal our food money to get high. One day I came home and saw my
mom and older sister getting high. They looked so bad; they looked like they had
skins over skeleton. I watched my mom and sister go from being very smart,
beautiful women to look like dead women walking. I lost it. I had a nervous
breakdown. It was one thing to know they did it. It was another thing to walk in
and see them using it. When I was able to relate to people again, I went to live
with my boyfriend’s aunt. I didn’t want to leave my mom because I didn’t think
She was going to make it. But, I couldn’t take it any longer. I couldn’t stand the
environment and I knew I wouldn’t survive. If you’re in an environment where
everything is negative and you have no support, it seems like there is little hope.
This is one of the reasons why I think teachers are important.

I did graduate, and continued to visit home to Check in on my brother and
sister. I decided to take them to foster care the day I came home and found no
one there but them. My mother and older sister had gotten high and left them to
fend for themselves. I couldn’t take it anymore, but I couldn’t take the burden
(physically, emotionally, mentally, or financially) of caring for two other people. I
could barely care for myself. Friends of mine who were foster parents agreed to
take them in and became guardians of my younger Siblings.

* i *

With parts of my family gone and the rest in better hands, I decided to
attend Lake City Community College with the help of all kinds of loans and
grants. I tried to focus on being a student but couldn’t because of all the issues I
was dealing with. l was getting B’S and C’s but not applying myself to anything. I
just knew I had to be there. A __,

I did my first year at Lake City CC and then had the summer off.
Everywhere I looked, I saw people being killed, adults and children using drugs,
people going to jail, and girlfriends murdered because of who their boyfriends
were. I needed to escape. l was watching TV and saw the Air Force ad stating
that they would pay for some of your college. I got in my car, drove to the
recruiter, and told him that I wanted to join that day. A month later I was gone.

I had it planned perfectly. I was going to be in the Air Force during the
summer and on weekends, and would go to school during the academic year. I

 

 

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returned from the military at the end of the summer refreshed and convinced that
life was finally going to start going my way.

* * *

When I returned from the military, I went back to live with my boyfriend’s
aunt. While I was gone, due to the influence of her boyfriend, She started using
drugs. I was afraid of the drug use and physical abuse in their relationship, but
her boyfriend actually made me feel safe. One time, he almost killed a guy who
showed up at the house to take advantage of me. He dragged the guy down the
street and was going to shoot him. I begged him not to do it, as I didn’t want his
life ruined.

He also treated me very nice. He was kind and bought all sorts of things
for me. Little did I know that he had his eye on me the whole time. It was almost
a mental rape before a physical one. I was thinking that the guy was looking out
for me. Instead he was just setting me up. It’s hard to put into words, but the
feeling is of ultimate betrayal. I woke up one night and he was in my bed on top
of me. I told him that If he didn’t leave I was going to scream. He left that time
(and I should have as well), but he created a little scheme and sent his girlfriend
away for the weekend.

For a long time after that, I thought it was my fault. I was only a child and
this man knew what he was doing. But, I felt loyal to the aunt because of what
She had saved me from. I also knew that if I told her, she would have blamed
me. She would have told me that it happened because I wanted it to. It’s a hard
thing to live with—someone taking something from you that you don’t want to
give, but afraid if you don’t you’ll get really hurt. That’s a very scary thing

* i *

At that point in my life, I started visiting Churches. I needed something.
The ‘aunt’ was still doing drugs, but had to do them in my room because She
didn’t want her boyfriend to know. I would come home and the same smell 1 had
left (my mom’s home) was the same one I was going to. The boyfriend was
following me to work and continued to try to force himself on me. He kept telling
me that I belonged to him and could never be with anyone else. I needed peace
so badly but I could not find it. I knew that if I stayed where l was (physically and
mentally), I was going to perish. Not as in ‘going to die’, although that was a
possibility. I was going to miss something—probably destiny.

1 went to church one day and told them that I wanted to know Christ. They
took me in a room and made me say all these things and baptized me. I went
home feeling worse and out of place. I still didn’t have a relationship with Christ,
but I was told that I was ‘born-again’ because of the words I had said. So, I
asked Him for a roommate because I couldn’t afford to live all by myself. I asked
for a roommate that didn’t use drugs, didn’t have a boyfriend that sold or used
drugs, and was trustworthy. I wanted a friend to stay with that I could go to bed

125

at night and feel safe. I wanted to know I could Sleep without having things
stolen from me.

That’s when I found my friend and my children’s Godmother. We clicked
right away, and I moved in with her. The only problem was that She had a
standard of and for living and I didn’t. I was still doing things that a good person
doesn’t do. Once I moved in those things began to become a problem. When
She asked if I was bom-again, I said, “Yes!” I had said the words but my life
hadn’t changed. I was still living the life that I had come from. She continually
asked me to go with her to church. I said I would, but I never did. I guess I felt
like I knew I needed something, but Church didn’t do it for me. I had tried that
and it failed. I was thinking the same thing would happen. I didn’t want to go all
the way to where the Church was in Hartford; I knew that if I did, it would be the
same thing as before.

* 'k *

My pain continued, as did my attempts to find peace. One night at New
Year’s Eve, I went to a Mason’s party. I was feeling lonely and just needed
someone to care and someone to listen. I went to their party and drank
everything in sight. The next day I was SO sick. I have never felt so terrible in my
entire life. I thought, “I will never drink again.”

That morning, I was in my room and feeling awful when I felt this
compelling need to go into my living room. When I got there, I just fell on my
knees and prayed. I talked to God like I had never talked to him before. I knew
He wanted to talk to me. There was this urge to get down on my face and pray.

I wasn’t a Church person, so I didn’t know the rhetoric or the things people do in
church. I told him that I really needed Him to guide me, and I opened my life up
to him. It was weird because I felt like even though I was the one doing it, I
wasn’t in control. I knew God was there. My roommate came home from Church,
and I told her what had happened. She was elated because She had been
praying for me all year long. .

Guys were still calling me, but I had really Changed. One friend, an
intimate friend from the past, called and wanted to get together. I told him I
couldn’t see him again, that I had given my life over to Christ. I was talking about
God to everyone (some of them consequently stopped talking to met). I was
experiencing this peace that I had never felt before. I had tried all of these
different things and couldn’t find peace with myself. When I was talking to God
that day, I asked him for it. The pain that was always there was gone. It wasn’t
gone forever, of course, as you always have to deal with what’s causing the pain.
However, I knew that even with that pain, I was going to be ok. I was going to
make it. I was not going to perish. That’s when I started coming to Church in
Hartford.

* it *

126

 

 

Although things were beginning to get better, I was still living in Lake City.
I realized that I would feel good leaving Church in Hartford and then feel awful
during the week in Lake City. There’s a whole different spirit in that city. I can’t
explain it, but I know it when I cross into the City line. I called my pastor (who
was my roommate’s father), and said, “I get this feeling that I’m not going to
survive if I stay here.” He was amazed, because the same time I called him, he
was calling me to tell me that he and his wife wanted to invite me to come stay
with them. They, too, were called to believe I wouldn’t make it if I stayed.

Everyone thought I was on drugs I was out of there so fast. I gave my
roommate her share of the rent, gave my job a one week notice, etc. I knew that
I couldn’t make excuses for leaving or I would never go. I couldn’t even think
about it. If you think about something long enough you can talk yourself out of it.
I was going to stay in my pastor’s house for a couple days, and I didn’t leave until
I got married. They saw my desperation. I got so much nurturing that my life
Changed drastically. If you had known me back in 1990, you wouldn’t have been
able to Sit in the room with me. I was a nice person, but I was so unhappy with
myself that it came out. My whole outlook changed because of the relationship I
had with my pastor and his wife.

I never had a father, but my pastor nurtured me like a father. He treated
me like I was his own daughter. For instance, I was nineteen when I moved in
but I still had a curfew. He tried to teach my responsibility. He is also the first
man that I lived in a house with who didn’t try to take advantage of me. You want
a man (father, husband, etc.) to love you, but you’re afraid because you think all
they want is to hurt you. Besides my aunt’s boyfriend, I had an uncle who asked
me to let him see my body. He said he had been watching me. (When I was 8, I
was fully developed—I was a little girl inside of a woman’s body. That drew
attention to me but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want it to be that way.) He said he
would pay me $100 for every time he could see me undressed. He even put a
hole in the shower so that he could see me. When he said that, it scared me so
bad that I called my mom. She Showed up with her Shotgun, ready to kill him. I
also had a cousin who tried to have intercourse with me when l was 14. He told
me that if I didn’t, he would take it from me. Needless to say, I didn’t trust men
growing up. Living with my pastor, I knew it was just a matter of time before he
tried it, too. One night my Pastor’s wife left town and I knew something was
going to happen. But, nothing happened. He was able to build my self-esteem
in a trusting, daughter-father way. I trusted him like I never trusted anyone
before.

His wife taught me how to be a young lady. She also Showed me how to
be a mother and a wife. I watched them pray every morning faithfully. To live
with your pastor and his wife and see that they’re not playing Church
strengthened me. It was not like the churches I had been to before. They
weren’t pretending to be one thing and then being another. That strengthened
me. I was able Because of that, I was able to open up and share with them who I
was and what had happened to me. That, in turn, started the healing process.
Moving to Hartford ended my pain and started the healing process. The move.

127

 

 

also facilitated two of the most important things In my life: getting married
(having a family) and becoming a teacher.

* * 'k

I remember I had a dream one night before Church. I was in an airplane
and was extremely nervous because of all the air pockets (the plane ride was
very rough). The stewardess couldn’t get me to calm down, and so she went and
got this man to help me. He calmed me down and when the plane landed, we
left together. You can imagine my surprise when I went to church the next day
and met ‘this man” for the first time. I said, “Hey! I know you.” I had never met
him before (outside of the dream), but I knew when I met him that I wanted to be
his wife.

My friend Diane actually set us up on the first date. We went on one date
and the people in the church started talking about how they had dreams about us
getting married. This bothered my husband so much that we didn’t talk for Six
months. One day, I gave a testimony about how God provided work for me in
Hartford when desperately needed to move from Lake City. At the end of the
service, he walked up and had this gleam in his eye—l knew he still liked me! I
called him and he started telling me that he really wanted to go out with me.
Before we went out the second time, he took my pastor out to dinner and asked
him if he could marry me. When he asked me, I was jumping up and down on
the inside. However, I calmly said, “I’ll have to think about it.” I wanted him to
suffer because he made me suffer for Six months. I waited about 30 seconds
and said yes. He was only the second guy I ever trusted. He is a good husband
and a good friend. I couldn’t have chosen to marry a more wonderful guy.

* * *

I was in Hartford in 1992 and was listening to a speaker talk about fulfilling
God’s plan for your life. He told us that, “Your calling is your destiny. Your
destiny is something you can’t get away from. It’s what you’re good at.” I wanted
to be a hair designer, and I knew that I could make good money doing it.
However, with my family’s help, I decided to follow what was deep down in my
heart. After my first son was born, I returned to school to become a teacher. I
had always taught when l was younger, whether that was to my older relatives or
my younger Siblings. My family used to laugh at me because everywhere I went,
Children would follow. I knew in my heart that I could impact children in the same
way that I was impacted. That was my destiny. That was God’s plan for me.

I started in education at Hartford Community College. I was so focused
and at peace with who I was and what I was doing. And, my grades Showed it. I
had all 3.5’S and 40’s. So, I decided to transfer to the major university in
Hartford. They rejected me twice. I was so angry the second time that I called
and made an appointment with the person in Charge of admissions. I told him
that my letter of rejection stated past grades indicated I might not succeed in a
rigorous environment like Hartford University. I asked him how and why they

128

 

dared to judge me without knowing who I was. Did they know what I had been
through or what I had seen based on my academic records? Did they know that I
had to work and support two younger children while I living through hell? I
calmed down a little and explained more of my Situation.

I'm not the type of student who had everything laid out for me. I had to
work and take care of people that I cared for. I had all these things that
prevented me from being the type of student I wanted to be. Now I’m
here, and I'm ready. I know I can do a good job.

His mouth dropped open; he told me that l was the first person who ever
scheduled an appointment to come in and ask them why they got rejected.
Furthermore, he told me that they would Indeed accept me because it was
obvious to him that I was the type of person that would do a good job. “Visiting
me here says something about your character and your willingness to try.” All I
knew is that I wanted to go to school. I fulfilled my dream and graduated from
Hartford University with a 3.67 grade point average (on a four point scale) and a
teaching degree.

* t *

Do you think I’m bothered by that? Don’t feel sorry for me, I’m not a victim. I will
survive.

129

 

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