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dissertahentitled

TECHNOLOGY AND THE LEARNING COLLEGE:
COMMUNITY CQJEGE STUDENT VOICES

presented by
AREND ANDREW VANDER POLS

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirments for the

PhD. degree in Higher, Adult, and Lifelong
Education

 

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TECHNOLOGY AND THE LEARNING COLLEGE:
COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENT VOICES
By

Arend Andrew Vander Pols

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education
Department of Educational Administration

2004

ABSTRACT

TECHNOLOGY AND THE LEARNING COLLEGE:
COMIVIUNTTY COLLEGE STUDENT VOICES

By
Arend Andrew Vander Pols

American community colleges have invested heavily in technology for learning
with the hope that such an investment will advance the transformation of the community
college into the democratic ideal of “The Learning College”, a vision that many
community college proponents advocate. The community college as learning college
focuses all its processes and energies on the learning of all of its members, both students
and staff. Proponents of technology for the learning college assert that technology
enhances learning by increasing access, collaboration, equality, and customization for all
community college constituents. Others advise caution in the wholesale adoption of the
infusion of technology in the educational environment, warning that the introduction of
technology can sometimes have unforeseen and unwanted consequences.

This study focused on the perceptions of seven students about their experiences
participating in computer-assistedacademic literacy classes at a community college
located in the metropolitan area of a large city during the Fall of 2002. Student
interviews, student background surveys, researcher field notes and class and institutional

/

documents were analyzed for common themes using qualitative methods. The study

_._.._..—-*~— -

Mad-W-

E...-

found that the student perspectives revealed that technology infusion did promote the 3/
principles of the learning college and helped to contribute to the creation of a more

democratic, learner-centered, collaborative educational environment. Students valued the

\_

inclusion of technology into their environment and saw technological literacy as essential

“0/

to their academic success and their full participatigrri/in American society as a whole.
However, while technology was indeed instrumental in the shaping of the leamer-
centered environment, it was primarily the “high humanity” involvement of the
instructor, school staff, and classmates and the ways they used the technology, that
guided the formation of a learning-centered environment. The student perspectives also
revealed some unwanted and unexpected consequences of technology infusion into their

educational environment that worked against the realization of the principles of the

leaming college and the creation of a learner-centered learning community.

©Copyright by
AREND ANDREW VANDER POLS

2004

This dissertation is dedicated to
my wife and son
Carole Beth Vander P015 and William Arend Vander Pols
for all your love and patience
——especially patience—
God bless you,
and to community college students, faculty, and staff everywhere

who believe in the promise of democracy's open door.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The completion of this dissertation comes at the end of a long journey, and I have
many people to thank for helping me along the way. My advisor Dr. John M. Dirkx
deserves all the credit for the depth of this work, if there is any depth to be found. Thank
you for inspiring me to look beyond the surface and peer into the hearts of those who
allowed me to share their lives for a few hours.

My committee members and friends Drs. Marilyn Amey, Ann Austin, and
Rhonda Egidio have had to wait a long time to see what would become of me and they
did not give up hope. Thank you for your interest and attention to my project. Special
thanks to Drs. Amey and Austin for the opportunities to work with you over the years in
the Department of Educational Administration and the chance to see two truly dedicated
professionals at their craft.

Thank you to the College of Education at Michigan State University for their
financial support in awarding me a University Graduate Continuing Fellowship Award,
and Walter F. and Mary Jane Johnson for funding the Dissertation Research Award. It is
not the money but the confidence you showed by investing in my research that means so
much to me.

Catherine Therese F laga, your friendship, encouragement, guidance and role
modeling has made all the difference and has helped me through many a crisis. I truly
believe that I would not have finished this work had I had not met you, and I thank God
for you. Sonia Garcia-Lombardini, thank you too for being a co-commiserator and friend.

To the “Msugrandrapidsdissertators Club” Nancy, Sharon, Falinda, and Deb,

thanks for spending your Saturdays getting me through that special dissertating purgatory

vi

that happens after classes are over and you are on your own.

Maxine Craig, I owe you so much and I miss you. Thank you for befriending a
Northern boy with your typical East Texas hospitality and for allowing me to baby-sit an
Apple H for the summer of 1982. You may have started all this.

Thank you to my former colleagues at Houston Community College, where I first
learned to love the ideal, if not always the practice of “being” the community college;
especially Dr. William A. Young, Jr., who took a chance on a fourth grade teacher so
long ago. Thank you Bill! Your dissertation in a refrigerator story has buoyed me many
times in its retelling.

To my parents, Aart and Anna Vander P013, and my parents by grace, Herman
and Helen Scholten, thank you for your encouragement, prayers, and love.

Carole Beth Vander P013 and William Arend Vander Pols, you are my reason for
being and my reason for finishing this project. Thank you for supporting me through the
long stretches when I wavered from my goal. Your own educational journeys have given
me a sense of history, been my inspiration, and are my hope for the future.

And finally, thank you to the community college students, instructors, and
administrators who opened up their educational environments for me to share for a few
hours. I hope that this research and the telling of your stories will help to further the work

of keeping high technology always in service of high humanity.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. xi
CHAPTER ONE PURPOSE OF STUDY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS .................... 1
Background and Rationale ............................................................................................... 3
Statement of the Problem ................................................................................................. 8
Research Question ............................................................................................................ 9
Delimitations and Limitations of the Study ................................................................... 10
CHAPTER TWO CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE .................................. 12
Introduction .................................................................................................................... 12
Scholarly Literature of Technology ........................................................................... 12
Toward a Working Definition of New Tedhnologies in Educafion Literature .......... 13
Metaphors as Lenses and the Educational Literature ................................................. 14
Technology as Tool ................................................................................................ 14
Technology as Text ................................................................................................ 16
Technology as System ............................................................................................ 18
Technology and the Learning College ........................................................................... 20
Evidence of Undesirable Consequences ........................................................................ 21
Summary of the Literature Review ................................................................................ 23
CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY ........................................................................... 25
Research Question .......................................................................................................... 25
Site and Participants ....................................................................................................... 25
f Data Collection .............................................................................................................. 27
Procedures ...................................................................................................................... 27
Data Analysis ................................................................................................................. 3O
Igirriitztticiris ..................................................................................................................... 23]
Role of the Researcher ................................................................................................... 32
CHAPTER FOUR PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF THE DATA ..................... 35
Research Question .......................................................................................................... 35
Student Perspective Categories ...................................................................................... 36
Perception of Self ....................................................................................................... 36
Perception of Technology .......................................................................................... 36
Perception of Self in Relationship .............................................................................. 37
Participant Profiles ......................................................................................................... 37
Bubbly ........................................................................................................................ 39
Jason ........................................................................................................................ 45
Jennifer ....................................................................................................................... 48
John ........................................................................................................................ 50
LaRue ........................................................................................................................ 54
Lynn ........................................................................................................................ 57
Sally ........................................................................................................................ 6 1
Cross Case Analysis of the Data .................................................................................... 63

viii

Perception of Self ....................................................................................................... 63

Self as Student ........................................................................................................ 64
Future Self as Professional ..................................................................................... 65
Perception of Technology .......................................................................................... 66
“Everything is computers”: The Ubiquitousness of Technology ........................... 67
Computer Metaphors: Computer as Object ............................................................ 68
The Third Literacy .................................................................................................. 69
Perception of Self in Relationship .............................................................................. 73
Community of Learners .......................................................................................... 73
Computer as Teacher .............................................................................................. 81
Summary ........................................................................................................................ 82
CHAPTER FIVE CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS ........................................... 83
Overview of the Study ................................................................................................... 83
Conclusions .................................................................................................................... 85
Student Perceptions of Technology Infirsed Into Their Learning Environment ............ 85
High Technology and High Humanity ....................................................................... 86
Student Perceptions and the Learning College .......................................................... 86
Student Perceptions, the Learning College, and the Promise of Technology ................ 87
The learning college creates substantive change in individual learners ..................... 87
The learning college engages learners as full partners in. the learning process, with.
learners assuming primary responsibility for their own choices. ................... 88
The learning college creates and offers as many options for learningas possible ..... 90
The learning college assists learners to form and participate in collaborative learning
activities. ........................................................................................................ 91
The learning college defines the roles of learning facilitators by the needs of the
learners. .......................................................................................................... 92
Theleaming college and its learning facilitators succeed only when improved and
expanded learning can be documented for its l’eamers. ................................. 93
Summary ................................................................................................................. 94
Student Perceptions and Unexpected or Unintended Consequences ............................. 94
Camaraderie of the Troubleshooters ....................................................................... 94
Technology Displacing Human Interaction ............................................................ 95
Technology as Distraction ...................................................................................... 96
Computer as Teacher .............................................................................................. 97
Implications .................................................................................................................... 97
Summary .................................................................................................................. 101
Future Research ............................................................................................................ 102
Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 103
APPENDICES ................................................................................................................. 106
APPENDIX. I... .......... ..... , .............................................................................................. 107
INTERVIEW PROTOCOLS ....................................................................................... 1‘07
BACKGROUND SURVEY ......................................................................................... 108
INITIAL INTERVIEW PROTOCOL .......................................................................... 11 1

Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 11

ix

Interview Questions .................................................................................................. 111

F OLLOW-UP INTERVIEW PROTOCOL .................................................................. 113
Interview Questions .................................................................................................. 1 13
APPENDIX 11 .................................................................................................................. 1 16
PARTICIPANT CONSENT FORMS ............................................................................. l 16
Informed Consent for Background Survey .............................................................. 1 17
Informed Consent for Audiotaped Interviews .......................................................... 119
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................ 121

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Participant Characteristics ................................................................................... 38

CHAPTER ONE

PURPOSE OF STUDY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS

During the past several years community college visionaries, administrators,
policy makers, and other leaders have articulated their vision of the ideal community
college in a concept called “The Learning College” (League for Innovation in the
Community College, 2001; O'Banion, 1997); and they have looked toward “The Promise
of Technology”(O'Banion, 1997, p. 63-80) as the way to achieve this ideal. Proponents of
this push toward ubiquitous computing, in the community college environment see the

“~--..

technologies of computers, software, computer networks, and the Internet, as a major tool

J“

to be used in achieving the ideal of the American community college as a leamer-

centered, learning-centered and democratic institution (Milliron & Miles, 2000;

RR.

O'Banion, I997). The 2001 National Community College Snapshot indicates that 95% of
American community colleges are lntemet connected (American Association of
Community Colleges, 2001b). The 2000 report of the Campus Computing Project reports
that the use of email in community college classes rose from 2 to 40 percent in the period I
from 1994 to 2000, and that over 20 percent of community colleges indicated Web pages
were used in instruction during 2000 (Green, 2000). Billions have been spent on building
telecommunications infrastructure, updating computer hardware, and purchasing,
developing and implementing software, and providing training to administrators, faculty,
staff, and students. (Olsen, 2001). The true monetary costsof maintaining the technology
and keeping it current are difficult to determine, but likely number in the millionsper

year (Finkelstein, Frances, Jewett, & Scholz, 2000; Jacobs, 1995; Olsen, 2001).

That American community colleges have invested in the “Promise of

Technology” is plain to see. However, critics argue that the influences of technologies
within an environment, both intended and unintended, are often are counter to the core
values proponents of “The Learning College” claim to hold—values of democracy,
personal determination, and freedom—~values inherent in a leamer—centered environment
(Carstens & Worsfold, 2000; Ellul, 1990; Norman, 1998; Speck, 2000). There is evidence
to suggest that technology infusion can help to perpetuate existing inequities in
educational environments. For example, there is growing concern that a so-called “digital
divide” may exist, and that differing opportunities for access to emerging technologies
may have helped further the polarization of the “haves” and “have-nots” in society
(Galdieux & Swail, 1999; Warschauer, 2000) and Zuga (1999) argues that most
technology arises out of male dominated environments and its infusion into an
educational environment serves to intensify gender inequities in that environment.
Scholars have used several lenses through which to examine the effects of
technology infiision in higher education. Previous scholarly work has focused on the
perspective of faculty and the implications for faculty work (Bebko, 1998; de Vry &
Hyde, 1997; Gilbert & Geoghegan, 1995; Neal, 1998; Okpala & Okpala, 1997; K. L.
Smith, 1997). Work has also been done from the administrative and policy maker
perspective concerning the changing nature of the higher educational institution as it L
enters an age marked by the transforming effects of new technologies (Duderstadt, 1997 /’
Graves, 1997; Moore, 1995; Pelton, 1996; Van Dusen, 1997). "
But less evident in the literature are pieces thatfexamineLthe impact of the
integration of emerging technologies on the unique learning environment of the

American community college, particularly from the student/leamer's perspective. While

glowing anecdotal reports of technology integration in the classroom abound, the
troubling aspects of technology infusion into the educational environment have remained
largely unexplored in the community college literature, and the voices of those most
affected and whom proponents of the “Learning College” profess to serve, its students,
have yet to be heard. If American community colleges hold becoming learning and
leamer-centered organizations as a core value and engage emerging technologies as a
major tool for gaining this goal, the perspective of their key constituents—students—
must be explored. The purpose of this study was to develop a deeper understanding of
students' perceptions of their experiences in American community college learning

environments that are characterized by the integration of the “new” technologies.
Background and Rationale

The American community college is unique among higher educational institutions
because of its broad mission of access and service (American Association of Community
Colleges, 2001a). It serves a more diverse student body that attends school for a wider
variety of reasons than any other American institution of higher education (American
Association of Community Colleges, 2001b; Griffith & Connor, 1994; Phillippe &
Valiga, 2000), and has been characterized by its focus on serving student, community and
workforce needs through teaching and learning (American Association of Community
Colleges, 2001a; A. B. Smith, 1994).

Called “Democracy's Open Door” by Griffith and Conner (1994), the community
college ideal is as an avenue to higher education for all Americans, regardless of class,
race, gender, academic preparation, or disability. It serves as both springboard and

safety net for the inevitable millions who wish to move upward as well as those who

missed earlier opportunities and are ready to try anew.” (Griffith & Connor, 1994, p.
131). The community college mission, broad and comprehensive, has at its heart the goal
of a democratic institution whose purpose is to foster broad participation in higher
education and in society as a whole.

In recent years, following trends in education as a whole, the language of
community college mission, vision, and value statements have been revised to include
phrases reflecting current thinking of what it means to be a democratic institution,
phrases such as “communities of leamers”, “leamer-centered”, and “collaboration”.
While its effectiveness as a democratic institution is in dispute (Dougherty, 1994; Rhoads
& Valadez, 1996), there is general agreement that community colleges are institutions
that work toward fulfilling these visions by focusing on teaching, learning, and access
(Doucette, 1993; Griffith & Connor, 1994; O'Banion, 1997; A. B. Smith, 1994).
Community college leaders across the nation are embracing the ideal of the community
college as the leWon (League for Innovation in the Community
College, 2001). Terry O'Banion (1997), a leading proponent. of the community college as
learning-centered institution, coined and popularized the phrase “The Learning College”,
and it has become a rallying cry for many in the community college community (Evelyn,
2001). The learning college, explains O'Banion in the foreword to his book A Learning
College for the 21“ Century, is a new concept, but it is built on long-established
values in the community college (p. xvi).

The learning college, according to O'Banion, is both “learning-centered” and
“learner-centered”. O'B'anion distinguishes between the two as being separate but

important components of the learning college (O'Banion, 1999). A leaming-centered

institution focuses all its functions on learning outcomes. A leamer-centered institution
puts the student first. The learning college strikes a balance by integrating “...these
concepts and requires both care and service for the individual and attention to quality
learning outcomes.” (O'Banion, 1999).

O'Banion states that “The learning college places learning first and provides
educational experiences for learners anyway, anyplace, anytime.” (O'Banion, 1995-96, p.
22) and is based on six key principles (O'Banion, 1997, p. 45). These principles are:

0 The learning college creates substantive change in individual learners.

o The learning college engages learners as full partners in the learning process, with ,
learners assuming primary responsibility for their own choices.

0 The learning college creates and offers as many options for learning as possible.

0 The learning college assists learners to form and participate in collaborative
learning activities.

0 The learning college defines the roles of learning facilitators by the needs of the
learners.

0 The learning college and its learning facilitators succeed only when improved and
expanded learning can be documented for its learners.

Boggs & Michael (1997) state that at a learning college one can expect the
promotion of collaborative learning; learning communities; focus on learning
outcomes; better use of technology; recognition of the importance of everyone's role in
promoting, supporting, and facilitating student learning and a new unity of purpose
among all the college's people.” (p. 198).

Instructional technology and its impact on learning has been studied for a number

.‘———'--.-—-

of years, primarily utilizing the metaphor of technology as a tool for teaching, but new
technologies that are being integrated into the current community college environment
are dramatically different from the technology of the past. Previous instructional
technology consisted primarily of presentation technologies such as television, filmstrip,
slide, and film projectors. New emerging technologies, primarily computer and lntemet /
based, offer capabilities for interaction and communication as well as presentation. There
is growing realization that technology in general, and the new technologies in particular,
must be understood in the contexts into which they are integrated, using metaphors or
constructs more complex that that of “technology as tool” (Nardi & O'Day, 1999). For
this study, “new technologies” were defined as those centered around computer
technology and information technology, or the hardware, software, communications
infrastructure, and associated training and contracted services that enable local or global
presentation, exchange, storage, and transmission of information in digital or analog form
for teaching, learning, student support services and administration.” (Clagett, 1998, p. 2).
Emerging technologies have been integrated into the community college with enormous
speed but with little attention paid to possible unintended or unexpected consequences.
Integration of technology with such enhanced capabilities into a learning environment
may influence learning environment dynamics in very new ways (Bruffee, 1993; Kirsch,
I988)

O'Banion and other proponents of the learning college see the new emerging
technologies as a key building block in creating a firm foundation for the learning
college; it has many characteristics that support the goals and principles of the learning

M

college.” (O'Banion, 1997, p. 70; see also Joseph, 1988). Among the qualities proponents

of technology cite as its promise for the learning college is that it seems to increase
access and accessibility to Ieaming experiences. “The learning college places learning
first and provides educational experiences for learners anyplace, anytime, anywhere.”
(O'Banion, 1997, p. 70). New communication technologies allow learners to participate
from a distance, always open web—based classrooms and asynchronous learning networks
free learners from time constraints (Lever-Duffy, 2000; Milliron, 2000). Proponentism 7 '
claim that technology improvesgtufld‘entlearning by facilitating the individualization and
customization of learning through computer-based testing and learning modules
(Doucette, 1993; Ehrmann, 1995; O'Banion, 1997),by providing forums for collaborative
work (Doucette, 1993; Gordon, 1996; Milliron, 1998) and facilitating the creation of
learning environments based on constructivist pedagogy, where learning is learner-
dirEEted rather than instructor-lead (Frank, 2000; Gordon, 1996; Milliron, 1998). ,/

For O'Banion, particularly important among the characteristics of technology for

the learning college is that it is a time- and place-free medium and usually an ism-free

.....,-m-.-.«

M" *****

barriers of time, place, racism, ageism and sexism in the learning college. There is doubt,

_ 7,», “Lu-Hw.
,.,_.._. i..-—__A.-... w;,. w an»...

howevei’jhat technology istrcan ever‘bfleflan “ism-free” medium. O'Banion himself
alludes to this: "Unless it is designed into the system on purpose, or unintentionally,
technology is free of racism, sexism, and ageism." (O'Banion, 1997, p 72). As
technologies are introduced into an environment they become more than simply a new
part of that environment; technologies become infused into an environmental system and
are both influencing and influenced by that system (Nardi & O'Day, 1999; Sclove, 1995).

Sclove (1995) argues that technologies are polypotent social constructions that bring with

them cultural and political contexts, effects and meanings. Cooper (1999), Norman
(1998), Ellul (1990) and others, have argued that most emerging technologies are
technology-centered, arising out of a privileged technologist/engineering context, and are

designed to serve the machine rather than the user.
Statement of the Problem

The integration of new technology into society as a whole and into the
educational environment in particular seems destined to increase (Apps, 1988; Graves,
1997; O'Banion, 1997; Parnell, 1990). Community college administrators andfaculty are
integrating new technologies into learning environments as a way to achieve the ideal of

learner-centered and leaming—centered institutions. Community colleges have spent

W

 

 

 

 

millions on technology infrastructure, much less on faculty development in the area of
technOI-ogy integration, and even less on hearing the voices of their key constituents:—

m“"

their students.

‘20?“va

Research in education and technology has been ongoing, but primarily focused
on technology as atgglflfonteaching, asking the question “Does it increase learning or
not?”. However, scholars have noted that the implications of technology infusion into any
environment are too complex to be understood with simple metaphors, and some caution
that most technology arises out of a technology-centered context and that integration
often carries with it unexpected and unintended consequences. This study widens the

focus by looking at the integration of technology in the broad context of the learning

environment, asking the question: "What do students say is happening here?"

Research Question

The primary research question guiding this study was: “How do students
participating in a community college learning environment perceive their experience of
the infusion of new emerging technologies into their learning environment?”

This study used a qualitative approach in gathering and analyzing data. An
understanding of an educational environment—with its complex web of relationships
between participants, content, and artifacts—~lends itself to the type of exploration that a
rich narrative from the student perspective of his/her experience can provide. An analysis
of “what is happening” from the perspective of the students in the educational
environment where technology is integrated may result in important insights into
consequences that are intended and expected, or unintended and unexpected. The results
of this study help to fill an important gap in the “Learning College” literature, and may
help the community college community to assess the fit between its technology
integration and achievement of its vision of the ideal institution. Such insights “from the
field” can have implications on the individual student level, the classroom level, the
institutional level, and public policy level, but also in the realms of instructional design
and hardware and software design. For students the results of this study may have
implications for strategies in surviving or succeeding in an educational environment
characterized by technology integration. Results of this study may have implications for
faculty and administration's choices about types of software and hardware, its method of
integration and deployment, the extent of technology integration, and the types of learner-
SUpport that are needed. For instructional and technology designers, the results of this

study add to the growing literature base of technology usability, and may aid in the

 

development of products and environments generated with a leamer-centered approach.
Delimitations and Limitations of the Study

While the infusion of technology into the learning environment is likely to have
impact at any level of education, its implications in the developmental education
environment are of particular interest because of the large part developmental education
plays in the fulfillment of the vision of the American community college as democratic
institution. This study focused on students enrolled in developmental classes in the
community college.

A large number of students attracted to the “Open Door” college are students who
have few other choices for higher education because of a number of reasons (Griffith &
Connor, 1994; Walker, 2001). One identified group of students who flock to the
community college because of its open access has been identified as the “underprepared”
(Johnson, 2000; R. H. McCabe & Day, 1998; Walker, 2001) or “at-risk” (Roueche &
Roueche, 1999). These are students not ready for college level work, students who enroll
in developmental classes such as writing, reading and mathematics. It is this group in
particular that the community college has traditionally served (R. H. McCabe & Day,
1998), and that the learning college has made a commitment to serve (League for
Innovation in the Community College, 2001 ). It is this group of students to whom
“access” to higher education is of primary importance, and as McCabe (2000) states,
“Access and developmental education are inseparable.” (R. McCabe, 2000, paragraph
14). Underprepared students often come from families considered “low income”
(Phillippe & Valiga, 2000), and have less experience with computer technology , both at

home or school, than students that come from families with higher incomes (Galdieux &

10

 

Swail, 1999).

This study confines itself to in-depth interviews with a small number of
community college students at one community college. Given the widely diverse student
body of the typical community college—students with differing educational goals,
preparedness for college-level work, socioeconomic levels—and the unique way
community colleges reflect and respond to the communities in which they are situated,
the scope of this study is limited. While the results of this study may give in-depth insight
into the perceptions of the participating individuals, further research involving a number
of community colleges from various rural, urban and suburban communities, and a larger
number of students, in a wider array of educational programs is needed. Implications

from this study for the community college population at large should therefore be made

with caution.

ll

CHAPTER TWO

CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Introduction

To provide a context for this study, several bodies of literature must be examined
for items that intersect at the coordinates of “new emerging technologies” and “the
learning college”. First, the long tradition of scholarly writing on technology and society
will be examined and, through a definition of the “new technologies”, its wide scope
focused on the literature of education. Second, the literature of the learning college as it is
to be realized through technology will be surveyed. Third, evidence in the literature of
undesirable consequences of technologically-enhanced learning environments will be

explored.
Scholarly Literature of Technology

The scholarly literature examining the impact of technology on society and
education has a long history and rich history. In Phaedrus, Plato records the Egyptian tale
of Theuth, the inventor of writing. When Theuth shows his invention to the god Thamuz,
he is told that its use would only spoil men's memories and take away their
understandings” (J owett, 1911, para. 21). Monsma (1986) argues that the scholarly
literature examining technology can be grouped into three differing approaches working
with three differing definitions Of “technology”. The anthropological approach defines
technology as being at "the very heart of what it means to be human" (p. 13), and it is

“nothing more than the area of interaction between ourselves and our environment”

12

(Kranzberg and Pursell, Jr., 1967 as cited in Monsma, 1986, p. 13). The epistemological
approach defines technology as a special form of knowledge: “bodies of skills,
knowledge, and procedures for making and doing useful things” (Merrill, 1968 as cited in
Monsma, 1986, p. 15). The sociological approach defines technology as the mark of
modern society, and focuses on its effects on society (Monsma, 1986). The discourse on
technology and society from these three perspectives is wide-ranging, deep, and varied
(Alfino & Pierce, 2001; Ellul, 1964, 1990; Hauptman, 2001; Jowett, 191 l; LaTour, 1995;
Minasi, 2000; Monsma, 1986; Nardi & O‘Day, 1999; Priest, 1995; Sclove, 1995; Tenner,
1996) and will be drawn on to inform this review of the literature for the purposes of this
study. In order to focus the scope of this review of the literature on the technology used
by the participants in this study, however, a more narrow definition of “technology” is

needed.
Toward a Working Definition of New Technologies in Education Literature

Reiser (2001a; 200 lb) states that in education, “technology” has come to be
commonly understood as “instructional media”, which he defines as “the physical means
via which instruction is presented to learners” (para. 9). In the early part of the 20th
century the instructional technologies of the day were known as “audiovisual”: such
presentation tools as filmstrips, slides, charts, and audio and film, with the advent of
instructional television around the 19505 (Reiser, 2001a). By the late 19705 “instructional
technology” began increasingly to mean “computers” (Molnar, 1997 ; Reiser, 2001a).

In the early 21St century the wide-spread use of more powerful, networked,
multimedia computers, e-mail, and the Internet marked a shift in the use of computer

technology toward the merging of computers and telecommunications (Reiser, 2001a;

13

Roschelle, 1995). The definition of “new computer technology” in the educational
literature was modified to include its expanded telecommunication capabilities (Bruffee,
1993; Molnar, 1997; Nardi & O'Day, 1999; Reiser, 2001a). The “new emerging”
technology has several labels in the literature, including “collaborative technologies”
(Roschelle, 1995) and “information technologies” (Alexander, 1999). Participants in this
study, “Technology and the Learning College: Community College Student Voices”,
qualify, in part, because they are in community college classes that utilize, at minimum,

the collaborative technologies of networked computers and the lntemet.
Metaphors as Lenses and the Educational Literature

Nardi & O'Day (1999) argue that common metaphors have been used to explain
the impact of technology on society and individual lives. These metaphors—technology
as tool, as text, and as system—provide a set of lenses through which to examine the

educational literature concerning the “new” technologies.

Technology as Tool
The most common metaphor used has been technology as a tool (Nardi & O'Day,

-_ Liam-- arr-1"

1999). Tools are used for making work easier, to lower costs, and increase productivity.
Technology—aEZTOOl suggests that when a user chOOses the‘ right” toOl for the job, and
uses it skillfully, productivity 1ncreases based on some measure (Nardi & O'Day, 1999).
Research from this perspective abounds in the educational literature. Numerous studies
examine the “amount” of learning as the dependent variable and the use or non-use of

various types of technology as the independent variable (Lockee, Burton, & Cross, 1999).

One such reference archive of these studies is the book No Significant Dijfiarence

l4

(Russell, 1999), along with its companion websites “No Significant Difference” (Russell,

2002a) and “Significant Difference” (Russell, 2002b), both housed on the TeleEducation

_,

New BrunSWIck Websne. Primarily an apology Qr distance education versus trad1t1onal

W N—*_——-._ _

face-to-face education, the “No Significant Difference” site and book list research dating

runaway-r—rau-‘at ‘1 W“ ‘

 

from 1928 that concludes the amount of student learning ushingflboth instructigpal methods
is virtually the same. The appearance of the “Significant Difference” site is new relative
toihg“N:Significant Difference” site, and no doubt Russell's answer to criticism that
studies showing significant differences were being ignored (Lockee et al., 1999).

The titles of citations on these sites mirror the advances in instructional computer
technology as it developed from stand alone units to networked and lntemet connected
computers. In 1973, the first mention of pomputertechnolggy‘as anginstructional tool

replaces television and radio as the instructional media for study, and in 1993' (computer .\1
conferencing is mentioned. In late 19903 and early 2000s, the research cited increasingly ,
involved the new technologies of lntemet-enabled computers and collaborative
technology.pne such study by LaRose, Gregg and Easton (1998) examined the test
scores of 49 students enrolled in an introductory telecommunications course. Students
were randomly assigned to two groups. One group attended traditional “live” lectures
during a semester, the other attended a “virtual” class that consisted of Web pages and
recorded lectures available via a Web browser. Student achievement was measured by
scores on three multiple choice exams. The authors concluded that there was no.
significantdifference in student achievement between the groups.

The research from the perspective of technology as tool is by no means limited to

the field of distance education. An oft-cited summary of research on computer assisted

15

instruction by Kulik & Kulik (1991) reported a 20 percent increase in learning.
Yaverbaum & Nadarajan (1996) reported no significant differences in a study of the test
scores of university students in a telecommunications class, who used a multimedia
tutorial and those who did not. For a dissertation completed in 2001, Hagen found no
significant differences in the overall performance of piano students who practiced using
computer software and those who did not.

Lockee (1999) terms these types of studies “media comparison” and argues that
their popularity with researchers has grown as computer technology has achieved
widespread use in education, but that often their methodology is flawed, their
measurement of “increased learning” is in many cases problematic, and the conclusions
drawn from them-technology increases/decreases/does not influence learning—reflect
positivist assumptions about the nature of knowledge and learning. Since productivity, as
measured by test scores, is the focus of these studies, student perceptions if mentioned at
all, are only mentioned as anecdotal comments in the findings.

While the knowledge gained from “technology as tool” research studies can be
useful—in hardware and software design, technology usability, and even measuring some
types of learning (Nardi & O'Day, 1999)——the positivist “factory model” view of
education is being challenged (F enstermacher & Soltis, 1992; Serafini, 2002; Tisdell,
1993). Constructivist theory about the nature of knowledge and education demands a

technology metaphor that broadens the lens to encompass the communicative aspects of

technology and its impact on the educational enterprise.

Technology as Text

Constructivist theories of education acknowledge at least a two-way interaction

16

 

between the learner and text (Alexander, 1999), but the metaphor of technology as tool
only allows for the one way action of“user with tool results in product”. For example, the
construct of technology as tool does not address the notion that while a person may
perform a task with a technology, the interaction may in part be prescribed by the
technology itself (LaTour, 1995). A person may hammer or drill in order to puncture an
object, but her choice may be prescribed by the tool at hand.

The metaphor of technology as text helps to take into account this two-way
interaction between technology and user. Many technologies are designed by their
creators to communicate their proper use, and some technologies communicate messages
unintended by their designers (Norman, 1998). Nardi and O'Day (1999), in explaining
this metaphor state: “Now we are encouraged to read the technology to understand its
messages and imperatives.” (p. 32).

Examples in the educational literature using the technology as text metaphor are
scarce, perhaps because researchers examining technology in educational contexts
acknowledge that its impact goes beyond a two-way interaction. One technology that
would seem ripe for research from the perspective of the technology as text metaphor is
“computer-mediated communication”. Defined as a medium that results from the
convergence of telecommunications, computers, and computer networks (Hollenbeck,
1997), computer-mediated communication in education consists primarily of text-based
communications via the computer network between students and instructors and student
to student. Hollenbeck (1997) states that such text-based environments will soon be
"historical artifacts" (p. 215) as computer communications are now incorporating the

multimedia capabilities of sound and video, capabilities which may carry with them their

17

own prescriptive and social impacts. Hollenbeck's opinion is shared by several authors

(Bruffee, 1993; Reed, Spuck, & Bozeman, 1996).

Technology as System

Most studies of computer-mediated communication and other educational
technologies that go beyond the technology as tool metaphor incorporate the idea that
technology use occurs in a context, and they incorporate data that help to examine
technology in educational contexts that go beyond test scores. Nardi and O'Day (1999)
describe such studies as using the metaphor of “technology as a system”. The context in
which users interact with technology (and technology interacts with users) can impact its
meaning. The construct of technology as imbedded in a system can help to address this
aspect of technology integration. Technology is seen as part of a system on which it acts
and is acted upon. Human beings are a part of this system and are impacted by
technology in ways that go beyond task completion or technology communication.
Norman (1998) further develops this concept by talking about systems that exist within
systems, the human system and the technology system.

Richard Sclove (1995) examines the construct of technology as part of a social
and political system in his book Technology and Democracy. Sclove introduces the idea
that technologies are social products, brought about by forces within the system.
Technologies are “polypotent”, they impact and are impacted by the system in a.
multitude of planned, unplanned, foreseen, and unforeseen ways. The system (social,
political, educational, personal environment) is altered because of the technology system
within it and because of human interaction with technology. The system adjusts, adapts,

re-balances, and everything within the system adjusts, adapts, re-balances, because of

18

what is introduced, how it is used, not used, and the meanings given to use/non-use.
Humans do certain things in certain ways because of the technology available to them
(and because of the way they perceive that technology), and they do or do not do things
because of technology. The technologies created and developed come about in part
because of the same dynamics in the system (Sclove, 1995).

Research studies from the perspective of technology as system are becoming
more prevalent in the educational literature as researchers respond to the shift in
educational thinking from positivist to constructivist, and the shift in technology from
stand-alone presentation hardware to networked multimedia communication hardware
and software. Researchers attempting to examine the multi-layered impacts of technology
in an educational environment are increasingly using qualitative data as well as
quantitative data to make meaning of the complex environments.

Many researchers are focusing on a “purely virtual” environment—~the “new”
distance education—where all interaction with others, content and technology occurs in
an online environment. Such learning environments are being labeled as “virtual”
classrooms, universities, campuses, (Blake, 1997; Burks, 1996; Do & Lee, 1997;
Galdieux & Swail, 1999; Mateas & Lewis, 1996; Resnick, 2000; Turoff, 1997; Twigg &
Oblinger, 1996; Van Dusen, 1997) where virtual teaching (Schutte, 1996) takes place.
Other labels include “on-line” (Carstens & Worsfold, 2000; L. Cooper, 1999; Gilbert &
Geoghegan, 1995; Moeller, 1995; Speck, 2000) and “cyberspace” (Davis, 1997; Sotillo,
1997) or “Web-based” (Gray, 1998; Raineri, Mehrtens, & Hubler, 1997; University of
California- Berkeley, 2003).

In one such study, Frank (2000) looked at the perceptions of ten community

19

college. teachers using computeramediated communication. Using qualitative methods,
she explored. perceptions teachers had about changes in content, teaching methods, and
their beliefs through the preparation for and use of a computer-mediated learning
environment, and found that teachers reported the experience helped move them toward
becoming more leamer-centered and that online learning empowered students.

Some studies have focused on classes where the lines between a face-to-face and
virtual educational experience are blurred. Students are expected to attend class in the
traditional sense, but also participate in computer-mediated communication environments
such as email, online discussion groups, and the like. For example, Thorpe (1997) found
that community college faculty in his study who used technology to in their teaching did
not change their teaching methods toward a more leamer-centered approach.

Student perceptions in this body of literature are becoming more a focus of study
than before, perhaps as a result of the shift in educational thinking from teacher-centered
to learner-centered. Weeks (2000), in a study of advanced dental hygiene students who
used a Web-based game to practice skills reported students' positive perceptions about
their own learning using technology, along with findings of higher post-test scores.
Sankaran (2000) examined student perceptions of Web-based courses versus traditional

lecture courses and found no differences for preference for either based on ethnicity.

Technology and the Learning College

Research identified by the researcher as technology in the learning college exists
mostly in the form of self-descriptive case studies. O'Banion (1997) includes six such
reports in his book: each mention the role of technology in bringing about the

transformation of their college toward becoming a learner-centered organization. In

20

O'Banion's book, Moskus (1997) describes the email systems, lntemet classes, student
services telephone system that Lane College has put in place in an effort to become a
learning college, and Elsner (1997) states that at Maricopa “many faculty are using
electronic forums and Internet protocols as the central learning scaffold to build a cyber-
learning system” (p. 184). But only one report in O'Banion's book (McClenney, 1997)
includes information about student feedback about the colleges' movement toward
becoming learning centered. None include information about student perceptions about
technology use in the learning college.

In a major work on technology in the community college titled Taking a big
picture look @ technology, learning & the community college, (Milliron & Miles, 2000),
no mention is made of student perceptions of technology enhanced environments. The
book is edited by the current president of the League for Innovation in the Community
College. The League is a major sponsor of the “Learning College Project” (League for

Innovation in the Community College, 2001).

Evidence of Undesirable Consequences

The consequences of technology are many, and they can be described with many
adjectives. But, as Nardi and O'Day (1999) point out, much of the literature, and
especially opinion pieces, can be characterized as being breathlessly for, or raging
against, technology——polarities they term "Technophilia and Dystopia" (p. 20). Perelman
(1992), at one extreme, argues with glee that new technologies will cause the death of
education as we know it. More moderate authors look at the “Promise of Technology” as
a vehicle for educational reform (O'Banion, 1997; Pelton, 1996), while others argue that

technology is, at great financial cost, being used to simply maintain the traditional factory

21

model of education (Cuban, 2001; Pepi & Scheurman, 1996), or worse, causing the loss
of many of the benefits of traditional education because of the educational community's
fascination with anything technological (Resnick, 2000).

But some authors argue that the consequences of technology infusion go beyond
the polar opposites of “positive” and “negative”. Ellul (1990), states that “All technical
progress has three kinds of effect: the desired, the foreseen, and the unforeseen” (p. 61).
Tenner (1996) writes of “"revenge”, “rearranging”, “repeating”, “recomplicating”, and
“recongesting” effects, where a technological solutions to a problem causes newer,
different, and more numerous problems. For example, Hauptman (2001) credits the
convenience of email and the lntemet with causing educational institutions to have to
spend time and money to deal with increased student cheating and harassing email. He
cites the easy access to online literature as a force in changing the nature and product of
research. Online documents will have greater authority than those not online because “No
one, not even a serious scholar, will be willing to waste time tracking down hard copy or
microforms when the same material is available at one's office or home terminal.” (p.
435)

Research studies in the educational literature that examine undesirable effects of
technology infusion into a learning environment are far outweighed by studies that seek
the desirable aspects. Since much of the research is produced by practitioners examining
their own experiences in their own learning environments, it could be that practitioners
having positive experiences and who see positive results may be motivated to report, but
those having negative experiences are more likely simply to give up or are reluctant to

report negative results because of an institutional “pro-technology” institutional climate

22

 

(Neal, 1998).

One area of study particularly applicable to the learning college has been access.
Several studies have. lookedat access in the traditional sense, that is being able to get to
technology, and have found differences in access by economic and ethnic factors
(Galdieux & Swail, 1999). Green (2000) found differences in access by institution type.
Community colleges where classes used email as an instructional tool lagged behind
other higher educational institutions by almost half, and while two-thirds of public and
private universities provided free off-campus lntemet services for students, more than
four-fifths of community colleges provided no off-campus lntemet services at all (Green,
2000)

But, as Galdieux(1999) points out, access is not only about being able to get to a
computer terminal or having one in one's home. Previous use (Cuban, 2001), skill level
(Hauptman, 2001), critical thinking skills (Hauptman, 2001), learning styles (Bird & Gill,
1987), gender (Christie, 1996; Zuga, 1999), and other cultural factors (Warschauer, 2003)

also effect access .
Summary of the Literature Review

Research on technology in educational environments has utilized at least three
metaphors as lenses for understanding: tool, text, and system. As technology has
developed from a presentation tool toward a communication medium, and educational

thinkinghas moved positivist to a constructivist, so has research moved from studying

 

the one-way interaction of user-to-ol-pmduct to the complex and multi-layered

u" 'M m
. -- 4.! want

 

W .

examination of theeducational environment characterized by the infusion of technology.

Research on-student perceptions of technology infusion into the learning

23'

 

environment has begun to appear in the literature. However, the community college
literature. on. the learning college and technology consists mostly of descriptive and
anecdotal reports from the field. Research on the perceptions of community college
students in technology enhanced learning environments will help to fill this important gap
in the literature.

The literature on access and technologically-enhanced learning environments is of
partiCular importance to a study of the learning college. The current literature consists
mainly of analysis of statistical data regarding the availability of technology by
socioeconomic factOrs. Research on access by other factors is less prevalent, and remains

an area where more work is needed.

24

CHAPTER THREE

METHODOLOGY

This was a qualitative study that examined student perceptions of technology
infusion into a community college learning environment. Planning for the study began
with a revised version of Wolcott's (1977) basic question for the ethnographer: “What is
going on here?” Since the primary focus of this study was student perspectives, this
question was refined to “What do the students think is going on here?” The question lent
itself to a qualitative approach, as the answers to it were bound to be complex. Only a
rich narrative could hope to capture student perceptions of an educational environment

infused with technology.
Research Question

The research question guiding this study was “How do students participating in a
community college learning environment experience the infusion of emerging
technologies into their learning environment?” Data collected were primarily in-depth
interviews with students participating in a community college learning environment
where “new” technologies were employed. As Seidman (1991) observes, “At the root of
in-depth interviewing is an interest in understanding the experience of other people and
the meaning they make of that experience.” (p. 3). A background survey, site visits, field

notes, and institution and classroom documents provided additional data.
Site and Participants
The site for this study was one campus of a large multi-campus community

25

college located near a major urban area in the Midwestern United States. On its website,
in its. catalog, and in other promotional materials the institution boasted a prime focus on
open admissions, learner centered instruction, and a flexible curriculum.

The section of the country where the campus was located was culturally diverse
but unique in that its ethnic mix included a larger percentage of African-Americans than
the United States as a whole. Median income for the area was somewhat higher than the
national average, with wide variations across smaller sections of the area. The region's
educational levels were very similar to national averages.

Participants in the study were students who were in their first semesters of
community college and who were enrolled in at least one developmental class. For this
study, developmental classes were defined as classes at the community college taken in
preparation for college'level work, such as reading, writing, and math. Students in
“English as a Second Language” classes, also offered at this institution, were not part of
this study. Class sections chosen for this study were those identified by the college
system's Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs and a department chair as
those where emerging technologies were being employed in the educational environment.
The selected classes were two sections of Academic Literacy 11, both on the same campus
and led by the same instructor. Both were morning classes held on different days of the
week in the same. classroom, a computer lab outfitted with a local area network with
lntemet access and a presentation podium equipped to give the facilitator access to the
student network, an LCD projector, DVD player, and VCR. The lab was one of two such

outfitted classrooms on the campus.

26

DataCollection

Procedures

Inquiries to administrators of several community colleges in the state were made
seeking classes qualified for inclusion in the study. Institutions holding classes that fit the
requirements of the study were somewhat difficult to find. An institution holding such
classes was identified‘and', in accordance with institutional procedures, a letter detailing
the study was sent to the Vice Chancellor for Academics and Student Affairs. A formal
letter of approval for the study was issued to the researcher. Following approval of the
project, the Vice Chancellor identified campus administrators and instructors who had
knowledge of classes meeting the requirements detailed in the study proposal. Access
through these individuals provided the researcher with contacts to individual instructors
whose classes met the parameters established in the study proposal.

Several classes at Maple City Community College met the criteria for inclusion in
the study were identified and invitations to the instructor participate in the study were
issued. The classes were both facilitated by the same instructor, and she expressed
willingness to provide access to her classroom. Arrangements for site visits and data
collection were made. The instructor offered access to two separate classes that met on
the same campus but on different days and times.

The researcher attended both classes and made a short presentation describing the
study and" participant rights to each of the selected classes. Students, instructors, and
student aides were asked to sign an informed" consent document detailing the study and

their rights as participants in the study (See Appendix II). A background survey was

27

administered to all students who signed the informed consent form (See Appendix 1).
Two students. in, each, class. section declined. to participate in the study. The background
survey was based on a survey developed and utilized for a previous study (Dirkx,
Kielbaso, Mishra, Smith, & Vander P015, 2001). The survey collected information on
student characteristics (age, gender, ethnicity/race, classes in which students were
enrolled, and previOus technology experience).

Twenty-nine background surveys were completed. Data from the surveys was
compiled and analyzed. Student participant selection was made on the basis of the
background surveys. An effort was made to select students of diverse backgrounds such
as ethnicity, age and gender. Eleven students were identified as possible participants and
invited to participate in the study. Invitations to participate in the study were given first to
six students with little previous computer technology experience, however three of the
invited students declined to participate further, and two of the students who agreed to
participate failed to appear for interviews at their scheduled times. The students who
participated fully in the study therefore ranged in (self-reported) skill with technology
from» novice to expert.

Students selected for participation in the interview portion of the study were
offered a stipend of twenty dollars for their full participation. Full participation was
defined as completion of the background survey, an initial interview at the beginning of
the semester, and follow-up interview at the completion of the semester. Participants
completing the background survey and one interview were offered five dollars.

Interviews with the six student participants who kept appointments were held on

campus within the first two weeks of the beginning of the Fall Semester of 2002‘.

28

Interviews were conducted in a. quiet but public area of the campus where privacy could
be maintained. The interviews were semi-structured following the protocol developed by
the researcher and based on a protocol from a previous study (Dirkx et al., 2001). Initial
interviews ranged from thirty to forty-five minutes in length and were audiotape-recorded
with consent of the interviewee (See Appendix II). The interviews were transcribed by
the researcher and summaries of the interviews were constructed from the transcripts.
Interviewees were emailed a summary of their interview for review and comment.

Follow-up interviews were conducted several weeks after the end of the Fall
semester of 2002'. Five of the six participants participated in follow-up interviews that
were conducted by telephone and were audiotape -recorded. The sixth student declined. to
participate further without explanation. The follow-up interviews were semi-structured,
following a protocol developed both from the protocol previously mentioned (Dirkx et a1,
2001) and from information provided by the participant in the initial interview and
background survey. A seventh student was offered an invitation to participate in the study
to compensate for the participant who declined a follow-up interview. The seventh
student accepted the invitation and was interviewed by phone using a modified version of
both the initial and follow-up interview protocol. F ollow-up interviews ranged from thirty
to forty-five minutes in length and were audiotape-recorded.

Two classroom observations were made. by the researcher. and observations were
recorded in field notes. Documents were collected pertaining to the institution, classes,
and student life and consisted primarily of printed documents such as college catalogs,

course schedules, classroom handcuts, and student newspapers.

29

Data Analysis

Analysis of the data followed qualitative principles. David M. Fetterman (1993)
states: “Ethnographic analysis is iterative, building on ideas throughout the study.” (p.
359). Hubemran and Miles (1994) define data analysis as three linked sub-processes: data
reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification, that occur before and during
a study, and while writing a final product. Since this study was focused on the
perceptions of lived experience of students, data analysis benefited from a
phenomenological approach. The methods identified with grounded theory, where theory
arises from themes in the data, also guided the analysis (Strauss & Corbin, 1994).
Analysis concurrent with data collection included the keeping of a running log of
researcher impressions, summaries, and ideas about emerging themes and constructs
arising from the data as it was collected and analyzed.

The computer software program Atlas-ti was used as a data management and
analysis tool. The program allows for the organization of large amounts of data in
varying formats, sophisticated methods of data chunking and manipulation, as well as a
variety of data display formats and matrices.

In order to maintain confidentiality, the participants chose pseudonyms to be used
in the reporting of findings. A pseudonym was also given to the institution and location
of the institution. The pseudonyms were applied to all raw data throughout data analysis
and in any reports of the findings of the study.

Interviews were transcribed verbatim from audiotape. Field notes, observational
schematics, documents and log entries were reviewed. A “grounded” coding scheme——

categories, patterns, and themes arising from the data (Miles & Huberrnan, 1994)——was

3O

 

 

 

generated as data were collected and reviewed. The transcripts were coded using the
initial coding scheme, and then repeatedly reviewed. Additional codes were generated
during the primary document review sessions and applied to the transcripts.

Profiles of the participants were constructed using interview transcripts as primary
documents. The themes emerging from the coding of the data provided a framework for
the construction of the profiles. The profiles consisted of thick descriptions of
participants' perspectives of technology infused into their educational environment and
included extensive quotes from participant interviews.

A cross-case analysis was conducted using the participant profiles, the emerging
themes, and coding scheme. The findings of the analysis were organized according to a
framework modified from the framework used in constructing the profiles: Perception of
Self, Perception of Self in Relationship, and Perception of Technology.

Verification of the data occurred through data triangulation with the varied
sources of data (Janesick, 1994), and through the member checks (Seidman, 1991) of

student comments on their interview summaries.
Limitations

This study focused on “what is going on here?” (Wolcott, 1977). “Here’ was two
community college classes at one community college campus. Data were gathered from a
small number of informants during a short amount of time. The findings of this study,
therefore, are of limited use in understanding what is going on in other classes or in other
community colleges. It is hoped, however, that insights emerging from this study may

provide a foundation for further research on this t0pic.

31

Role of the Researcher

In my former life as a community college educator, I must confess to having been
held, as O'Banion describes it, in the “rapture of the technologies” (1997, p. 63). Some of
my most rewarding experiences have involved helping students and colleagues discover
the value of technology in the educational environment. I have seen the empowering
effect of technology in the lives of differently-abled students and colleagues; I have
witnessed the excitement of a researcher first experiencing the power of the on-line
database; and l have seen the wonder of students making connections with colleagues
through email across the world.

On the other hand, I have seen the terror new technology can foster in those
unfamiliar with it, the frustration caused by unfruitful enc0unters with an uncooperative
machine, the defeat of a failed computer/human interface. Having worked with
populations that span the spectrum of technological literacy, socioeconomic level and
education, I worry about the widening breach between technology haves and the have—
nots (Galdieux & Swail, 1999; Priest, 1995), especially as it plays out in the community
college———an institution dedicated to being the “open door” to higher education (Griffith &
Connor, 1994). I see parallels between access to technology and to education and
similarities in ways they can be designed to empower or to alienate. With Nardi and
O'day (1999), I consider myself a “critical friend of technology” (p. 14).

I am also a friend of the American community college and believe deeply in its
mission of becoming a democratic institution of higher education. As a community
college counselor I was proud to be a first contact and mentor for many students of

diverse backgrounds who were first generation college students and I actively promoted

32

the community college as an open-door institution and pathway to a better life for its
constituents. Yet I also know from my experiences that the mission of the community
college can be thwarted by the very institution itself, and that the warnings of such
scholars as Dougherty (1994)and Rhoads and Valadez (1996) must lead me to be a
“critical friend” of the American community college.

I am an experienced user of technology and I have always enjoyed using
technology, especially in the learning environments in which I have been privileged to
participate. I believe that technology has increased my access to and participation in
society as a whole and that it has facilitated my scholarly and day-to-day activities. My
bias then is my belief that technology properly infused into the community college
learning environment can do the same for community college students. My hopes are that
technology can promote the movement of the community college toward fulfilling its
ideal of being a democratic and leaming-centered institution.

As a qualitative researcher I am a novice. My training as a counselor—in active
listening (Egan, 1982) and person-centered therapy (Meador & Rogers, 1984)—helped to
case my way in the interviewing process, but it was a struggle not to follow a therapeutic
path, particularly with some of the participants. As a former career counselor it was
particularly difficult while discussing the participants’ career goals, and my biases as a
career counselor color my findings.

My intent in this study was to be “leamer—focused” in data collection and analysis,
and to allow the student voices, rather than my biases, guide the study. My view was that
each participant brought to her/his learning environment experiences and contexts that

helped them make sense of their educational experiences, that formed their learning and

33

 

their perceptions. Each participant had a self-constructed story to tell about their
experience in the learning environments under study, and it was from these stories that I
attempted to identify themes that would help to inform my consideration of my research
question. My role and practices as a researcher were guided by the methods of Grounded
Theory Methodology (Strauss & Corbin, 1994), and Phenomenology (Holstein &
Gubrium, 1994). Using an iterative process I repeatedly returned to the data as I
attempted to put aside my biases and my construct about the reality in the learning
environment and to allow the stories of the whole of the participants’ to emerge as an
interpretation of “what was going on” in the technology-infused learning environments

under study.

34

 

CHAPTER FOUR

PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF THE DATA

Research Question

A student's perceptions of his/her educational environment are complex and based
on previous life experiences, a person's sense of self, and thousands of student and
learning environment interactions. An environment is a system of many agents, none of
them existing in isolation nor inactive in affecting an individual's perception of the
environment as a whole or any of its parts (Nardi & O'Day, 1999). In this study, a main
focus is students' perceptions of the technology infused into learning environments, but
these perceptions cannot be examined in isolation. The research question guiding this
qualitative study of the use of technology in a community college classroom is:

How do students participating in a community college learning

environment perceive their experience of the infusion of new emerging

technologies into their learning environment?

Implicit in this question are questions about how a student's perception of the various
parts and subsystems of the learning environment affect a student's perception of
technology infused into it. A listing of these parts and subsystems could never be
exhaustive, and an attempt was made to allow the data to suggest broad categories of
those worthy of focus in this study.

An initial code list for the data was derived from the interview protocols and
additional codes emerged as the data were repeatedly examined for recurring themes. The
primary documents, code lists, and coding of the data were managed using Atlas/ti

(Scientific Software Development, 1997) software, a qualitative research software tool.

35

 

Atlas/ti allows the user to link segments of data to words or phrases that then can be
retrieved and manipulated in many ways. Three categories of student perceptions
emerged. from data and the codes that emerged were grouped using these categories. The
categories were:

0 Perception of self

0 Perception of technology

0 Perception of self in relationship
Student Perspective Categories

In this section an overview of the framework of perspective lenses through which
the data were examined is given, with explanation of how they were derived from the

data.
Perception of Self

The initial and follow-up interview protocol questions, while mainly focused on
the participants' perceptions of technology infused into his or her educational
background, also explored the participants' family, educational, and work backgrounds.
From the corpus of data, a profile of each participant‘s perception of sense of self was
constructed. A participant’s answers to questions about life or educational goals, family
and educational background, and interactions with the instructor, classmates and

technology, helped to inform constructs of a participant's sense of self.
Perception of Technology

Interview protocol questions focused on the infusion of technology into the

36

 

participant's classroom, and also on participant's previous experience with technology in
both formal educational settings and in daily life outside the classroom. In this study
“Technology” is conceptualized as “other”, that is a discrete part of the participants’
learning and other environments that is singled out for special examination in this study.
The site and participants selected for data collection where chosen in part because of the
reportedly high level of technology infusion into the classroom setting. The data were
examined for the convergences of participants' perception of self or perception of other
and perceptions of technology as they occurred both explicitly and implicitly.
Participants' perceptions of the generic “other” were compared to participants' perception

of technology and implications were drawn from the similarities and differences.

Perception of Self in Relationship

Data from interview transcripts were examined for participants' perception of self
in relationship to “other”. “Other” in this study is defined according to systems theory: as
a component in the system other than the self (Bimbaum, 1988). A working definition of
“other” for this study was conceptualized using the parameters of learning environment
as a guide. Discrete entities within the learning environment were identified from the
data: instructor, classmates, technology, course content, the school as a whole. In
addition, data about participants' background were examined for perceptions of the
relationship itself and other, and discrete entities such as family, work, and previous

educational environments were added to the working definition of “other”.

Participant Profiles

In this section the seven participants in the study are introduced. First, an

37

 

overview of the participants' descriptive statistics is given. Second, the stories and

perceptions of the participants are presented.

The participants ranged in age from fifty-one years old to eighteen years. Of the

seven participants, two were male, and four identified themselves as “Black/African-

American Non-Hispanic”. The following table presents an overview of the participants'

descriptive statistics:

Table 1: Participant Characteristics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Participant Age at Gender Ethnicity Educational Goal
time of
interviews

Bubbly 31 Female White/Caucasian AAS Hospital Pharmacy
Non-Hispanic Technician

Jason 26 Male Black/African Business - Own clothing line
American Non-
Hispanic

John 18 Male White/Caucasian Medical Degree - Emergency
Non-Hispanic Medicine

LaRue 26 Female Black/African Ph. D., Science
American Non-
Hispanic

Lynn 51 Female Black/African Bachelor's Degree -
American Non- Management
Hispanic

Jennifer 18 Female Prefer not to Psychology - mental health
answer worker

Sally 18 Female Black/African Medical Degree
American Non-
Hispanic

 

The following participant profiles are overviews of comprehensive profiles that

were constructed during the data analysis from the data provided by the participants on

the background surveys and the initial and follow-up interviews. The profiles are

presented in alphabetical order of the participants' chosen pseudonym.

A data audit trail is used in the participant profiles as a way for the reader to put

38

 

into context quotes from the participants. The auditing scheme takes its structure from the
use of the Atlas/ti (Scientific Software Development, 1997) software as a data
management aid during this study. Participant interview transcripts were assigned
primary document numbers by the software and each line in the transcript were
numbered. All transcripts were numbered beginning with line 0001 and generally
extended into the 0400’s. Audit numbers in the participant perspective profiles are in
parentheses after each quote and reflect the numbers assigned by the software. Most of
the participants in this study participated in two interviews, which are termed an initial
interview and a follow-up interview. The indicator used to differentiate the interviews is
an “I” for initial interview and a “F” for follow-up interview. For students who
participated in only one interview, the notation “1*” is used to indicate that the single
interview was conducted with the initial interview protocol or the notation “F*” to
indicate it was conducted with the follow-up interview protocol. For example, in the audit
notation (2F, 2012203) the reader would interpret a quote as being from primary
document 2, which was a follow-up interview, and that the quote was at line 201 to 203

in the transcript.

Bubbly

Bubbly was a 31-year-old White Caucasian female attending Maple City
Community College at the urging of her supervisors at work. She was employed at a local
hospital as a patient escort and hoped to attain an Associates Degree in Hospital
Pharmacy Technology. After graduation she hoped to move into a position at the hospital
pharmacy. Bubbly had graduated from high school eleven years ago and this was her first

college experience. She tested into the Academic Literacy II class on the college

39

 

assessment test and chose to take this particular section because the campus was close to
her home. At the time she registered for the course she was unaware that the class would
be “computer-assisted”. Bubbly knew she faced some difficulties in reaching her
academic and vocational goal of becoming a hospital pharmacy technician:

I'm one of those students who have a little hard time comprehending

information, so I need that extra one-on-one help to understand the
material better. (II, 15: l 7).

Bubbly perceived herself as the driving force in achieving anything positive in her
life, and she believed that whatever she had accomplished was in fact in spite of most
others in her life. She felt resentment at how others in her life had let her down, and she
was open about her opinions during her interviews. Toward the conclusion of her initial
interview she said "I got a lot of negatives, don't 1? Oh well." (11, 366). However, Bubbly
chose a pseudonym with positive connotations because “people” said she had a bubbly
personality. And, she was optimistic she could reach her goal:

I thought, I can do this, go back to school, take some classes, get
certified, I can do this (1 1, 104:105).

Bubbly's family background contributed to her sense of having only herself to
rely on. She described her family background as "rough" (11, 125) in that she came from
a divorced home where she was one of four children in the family. Her comments about
her family often followed the theme of how unable or unwilling her parents were to care
properly for her and how she had to fend for herself:

I learned from, I learned from growing up not to depend on my parents for

anything because there wasn't much money growing up in the family

(11, 1272128).

While Bubbly credited her mother with at least offering to help, it was her father

who played a key role in her feeling as though she could not depend on her parents: "...

40

my dad wasn't one for giving, that's for sure ..." (11, 148: 149). The strain of trying to
provide for a family of six almost proved too much for her father:

my dad did all the working, and my dad kind of lost his mind in a sense,
and became mean, cruel, and abusive and all that." (11, 1301131)

One of the objects Bubbly's father was stern about was his computer:

Um, well my dad had computer, but he wouldn't allow anybody to touch

his stuff. He was one of those people, you couldn't touch his stuff. But

there was a computer in the house but you couldn't touch it. (11, 2091211).

In her previous educational experiences, Bubbly's feelings of being on her own
had negative effects on her learning:

I never did like high school, it wasn't, I don't know I just didn't fit in, so

uh, I think that's why I had a little kind of hard time learning and

understanding in high school. (2F, 65:67).

By the end of her first semester at college, Bubbly felt she had changed as a learner:
And then when I went back to college it was like a totally new
experience—like I actually learned something from this class, I actually
gained some information I never knew. So, um, it just really, it really
changed me. (2F, 67:70).

But Bubbly's perception of herself in her learning environment was not totally
positive. On the one hand, she felt as though she fit in more with her classmates at the
community college than she had in high school and she responded positively to a
question about whether she felt her class was working together as a community of
learners. She described the many times she worked with other students in and outside of
class. But at times she also felt ignored and rejected by her classmates:

Um, I would start talking to them, "How was your weekend" or "How is

your work coming?", "O it's fine, I'm kinda busy right now. " They'd be
bothering with the computer than to talk to me! Yeah. (2F, 397 2399).

Well, yeah, it's like I was bothering them because I was asking them a
question. So I learned on my own, just say forget this, I'll learn some way,
and I did." (2 F, 476:478).

41

Bubbly's perception of her instructor also ranged from the positive to negative. On
the one hand, she described Ms. Archer as an educational leader who made sure the class
moved through the course content and as a guide who stepped along side to allow
students to learn on their own:

Ms. Archer didn't always, she didn't always, you know, was the leader for

us as students. We didn't always follow her, she just gave us the tools and

the steps and wejust did it on our own. (2F, 736:738).

But on a personal level, Bubbly felt neglected and devalued by Ms. Archer:

I always felt like, you know, I never felt happy after I talked to her. (2F,
209:210).

She thought that Ms. Archer looked on her as a student who just couldn't catch on
because she asked so many questions. Bubbly felt she deserved more one-on-one
attention from Ms. Archer, but that Ms. Archer did not have the patience to work with
her.

Bubbly's relationship with other parts of her educational environment also ranged
from the positive to the negative. She had had a bad experience with the counseling
department that made her feel as though she was being treated as a second-class student,
but found much support in the "Information Commons" where the staff and tutors were
always available to help her. The Information Commons was also where Bubbly had the
after-class access to computers she needed since she did not have a computer at home.
Bubbly felt that the technology tools provided by the college showed how much the
college valued its students. She had a sense of pride that as a Maple Community College
student she had access to technology tools that the general public did not have:

And, you know, knowing that you are an MCC [Maple City Community

College] student, that kind of gives you, urn, a sense of you know, a little

bit of pride, you know college students can come and use, can only come
and use these computers I'm a college student and I can go and use this,

42

 

rather than someone that's just off the street can't just come and do what

ever they want in the computer area, you know. So you know what I'm

saying, it kind of gives you a burst of ego, you know? (2F, 748:755).

Bubbly was one of the seven participants in this study (out of the twenty-nine who
completed the background survey) who marked “very uncomfortable” on the background
survey item "How comfortable are you in working with computers?" Her immediate
response to a question about computers during the initial interview was "I don't know

anything about computers." (11, 162). Among her descriptor words for computers were

"overwhelming" and "stressful."

But by the end of class, Bubbly’s perception of computers had changed. In her

follow-up interview, Bubbly began with:

Uh, well, I just told myself the first of the year I'm going to go purchase a
computer. (2F, 27) uh, because everything is computers now and I just
need to know computers, I mean just with my job, my job and to further
my education, urn it just, I can just see the next you know, twelve thirteen
years everything is going to be computers so you are going to have to
know it. (2F, 36:40).

Her increased comfort with the technology was very evident during the follow-up
interview. She chose herself when asked who in the class benefited the most from being
in a computer-assisted course, and her awareness of the usefulness of technology had
increased to the point that she considered it as essential: ".... I wouldn't be able to get any
of my ideas on paper if I didn't have access to a computer. " (2F , 296:297). She even
described working on the computer as being a stress-reliever:

Another positive thing about the computer it was like kind of a stress

reliever too. I would leave class really uptight, you know, there were a

couple times I left the class uptight. And I would go and start up my

homework on the computer, and it would be like, "Ahhh" you know. Just

by typing and focusing on my work, it was, it made me unstressed (2F,
274:282).

But despite her increased comfort level with technology, Bubbly saw some

43

negative effects of technology infusion in her educational environment. Bubbly felt that
she and perhaps one other classmate were at the low end of the technology skill scale
compared to her classmates. Her classmates were like whizzes at it " (2F, 591) and
she attributed arrogance to some in the class who had good computer skills: "Well, some
of them thought they were better than anybody." (2F , 388:389).

Bubbly saw other negatives in her classmates' relations with technology. She saw
that for some having lntemet access during class was a distraction from learning, because
they would be browsing the lntemet for what Bubbly considered non-educational
purposes. The technology was also a hindrance at times to Bubbly's sense of community
because at times her fellow students would decline to converse with her because "They'd
be bothering with the computer than talk to me! " (2F, 398:399) and "... everybody did
their own thing." (2F, 436).

Bubbly experienced change during her experience in a technology-infused
educational environment. Her self-image as a learner was enhanced by feelings of
belonging to a community of learners and by the acquisition of technology skills she
came to see as essential to academic success. While she clung to her initial assertion that
everything she achieved she achieved on her own, she acknowledged the help she had
received over the semester from her classmates, her instructor, the school staff, and the
technology.

The final question in the follow-up interview asked the participant to imagine
what the Academic Literacy 11 class would be like in twenty or fifty years in the future.
Bubbly imagined a class taught by robots, with all the student work done on computer.

“Yeah, I figure that everything will be computerized—your books, your teacher, the

44

 

college, yeah.” (2F , 782:784). And she saw herself as finally catching up to her

computer-savvy classmates: “Um, well, I'd be a computer whiz by then!” (2F, 764).
Jason

Jason was a 26-year-old Black/African-American Non-Hispanic male who was in
his first semester of attending Maple City Community College. Jason had taken college
classes at another institution several years ago but did not continue his education because
he was unsure of his educational goals. He enrolled at Maple City with a better idea of
why he was attending, though he had not yet declared a major. Jason was focused on
obtaining skills he thought he needed to reach his career goals rather than on gaining a
particular degree. One of his career goals was to design and sell a line of clothing and he
was in school to work on developing his communication skills so that he could attract
investors. Also, Jason wanted to be a role model for his two sons. The boys’ mother had a
degree and Jason wanted one as well so that "... they can say later on, you know, 'my
mom and dad went to college.” (P3, 405;406).

Jason tested into the Academic Literacy II class on the college assessment test and
chose the particular section because he lived in a building near to the campus. He was an
experienced technology user, having begun using computers in elementary school, and he
owned a custom-built computer system that he used for design work and game-play.

Jason thought his fellow students saw him as being at the top of the class, and he
wasn't so sure they were wrong. "I mean, I'm not dumb or anything." (31, 313,314). In his
final interview he reported that "I did get the highest grade in the class." (4F, 181). But
Jason did not accept this high view of himself without some reservation. In his initial

interview Jason expressed some discomfort in his role as one of the top students in the

45

 

class:

Ms. Archer, she'll give examples of my papers, and stuff like that, and
so everybody in there got the misconception that I'm just like real smart
(31, 311:313).

And helping his fellow students was not always easy:

Yeah, I mean to an extent, cause I don't want to tell them the wrong thing.
I mean like criticism, some people can't take criticism well, so, if you say
well, you know, you going to have to do this on your paper or something,
you know, they might sometimes they get a little attitude about it, and
then they go to Ms. Archer and she says the same thing, you know
sometimes I don't like saying stuff like that because I don't want to hurt
people's feelings or something. But like me I can take criticism so if
somebody says they didn't like my paper because of this I'll you know
revise it or you know, something like that. But you know, some people
they don't take criticism well at all. (P3, 319:327).

But usually Jason enjoyed the atmosphere of being in a group learning environment — and

he readily acknowledged that while he might have a reputation as “t0p student” he also

learned from his fellow students and his instructor. He felt comfortable with and had a lot

of respect for his instructor Ms. Archer. He especially admired her patience and
willingness to help her students, and her thoroughness in presenting material. Jason
credited Ms. Archer for structuring the class to include a lot of group work:

The students you know are real nice, she have us get into groups and have
a lot of different discussions—get a lot of different opinion on things, I
think that's a good thing, because sometimes you have an outlook on one
thing, but when you have somebody else talk about it, you have a better
understanding or outlook on it, so... (31, 36:40).

Jason also received help on technological issues from his fellow students. When Ms.

Archer assigned the class a project involving a PowerPoint presentation Jason found a

fellow classmate to help him because he had never worked with the PowerPoint program

before:

Ms. Archer asked had anybody ever done a PowerPoint, and there was like
maybe five people that raised their hand, and I was like, “I know I'm

46

gonna need help,” I had kind of made a comment and she [a fellow
student] said, “Well I'll help you.” (41, 400:402).

Jason enjoyed the extensive use of computer programs such as PowerPoint and
others in his class. He had not noticed the class was listed as a “computer-assisted”
section when he registered but he believed that the technology in class helped to foster
relationships among his classmates:

Uh, yes. I think that you know working on computers and everything, I
think we got a broader outlook on things instead of j ust focusing on the
papers and you know. A lot of our conversations, even when we joke,
we'd be on the computers, you know, showing each other how to do this
it really helped us to develop relationships with each other. (41,
380:386).

Jason saw many other benefits to having technology available in class, for himself
and for others. He saw using the computer in class as helpful in remembering things:

Yeah, I think that if the computer wasn't in the class or whatever, most of
the people in the class would have forgotten most of what was being said,
you know, [if they] didn't get a chance to work right then, or ask us for
help (41, 2281230).

When Jason answered the interview question about choosing a metaphor for the
computer, he likened the technology to a person:

Computer is like a person, that uh, you kind of like, write things out like
you telling a person, like you writing a person a letter, you can kind of
write it out even though it can't respond back to you, you know as like
sometimes you can write your thoughts down, that's what a lot of times I
use my computer, to do things or whatever, and it helps me remember a lot
of things, because my memory is kind of like bad, I kind of like try to use
my computer, try to remember. (31, 148: 154).

Technology improved the presentation of material in class:
Well, she [Ms Archer] didn't have to write on the board, you know, she

got to type it up and show it on the projector, a lot of stuff, it was just
faster actually, just writing it out. (4F, 136: 138)

And Jason believed the technological skills he gained from his experience in this class

 

would continue to benefit him:

It's gonna help me in my next class, it's going to help me when I need to
do things at home, and I know a few programs that I want to install that I
know are going to be useful for me in the future. (4F, 95:97).

Jason saw no negative effects from the emphasis on technology in the class he took or at
Maple City Community College as a whole. He saw the access to technology at the
college as fostering community among his classmates and as empowering students who
might not otherwise have access:

Yeah, I think they are really helping a lot of people out, 1 maybe been in
there [Information Commons] like four or five times, I had to finish my
Plato, we had to do that there. It seemed to be like a lot of students there
typing their papers, you know some people can't afford computers at
home, you know, so I think that that's a good thing, they won't always
have to go to a friend's home, you know they can take an hour or two out
of the day and go up there and use computers, I think that really
beneficiary to the students. (4F, 346: 352).

While Jason saw only positive things about the use of technology at Maple City
Community College, his view of the future of the human/technology interface was more
cautious:

Yeah, you might like put on a headpiece or something and just thought, I
know they got that thing now where you just tell it, but I think then it'll be
you just think it, you know, like it probably pick up brain waves or
something I think that it will be good but it will probably have a
negative effect on your brain, you know a lot of times, something
like that, your body starts to get weak in other things, like the hand eye
coordination, like you may never learn how to type because you just think
things out, like that finger speed that you have, that you been using on like
everything, you won't have because you aren't typing. Like with video
games, they get so advanced, if they do every get a thing where you do
just think it out, that hand eye coordination is just going to be lost.
(435:448).

Jennifer

Jennifer was a 19-year—old female who was in her first semester of taking classes

48

 

at Maple City Community College. She declined to indicate her ethnicity on the
background survey. Jennifer was invited to participate in the study at the end of the
semester after another participant chose not to continue. Her participation was limited to
the background survey and an interview using the follow-up interview protocol and
several questions from the initial interview protocol (Appendix I). The interview was
conducted by phone because of time and travel constraints and this could have
contributed to Jennifer being uncomfortable with the process. Her comments during the
interview were somewhat brusque and brief. Many of the answers to the interview
questions included the phrase "I have no clue." (5F*, 167; 171; 322; 336; 351).

Jennifer was attending Maple Community College because she wanted to become
a mental health worker or psychologist. While Jennifer answered that she had no clue
about many things, she was quite certain that her presence in Ms. Archer's class was a
waste of time:

I think it a waste of time for me but I had to take it but my score was for
[Academic Literacy 11]. (5F*, 2762277).

She did not know that the class would “computer-assisted” when she registered and was
surprised on the first day to see that class was being held in a computer lab. When asked
about her best learning experience was in the class, she replied, "Actually? Nothing. "
(5F*, 272).

It wasn't too bad. I mean you know, the students were fine, the teacher was
good, the computer was OK. And that's it. (5F*, 1172118).

Despite Jennifer's statement that everything was OK she admitted that her instructor,
"Sometimes, she makes no sense, sometimes." (5F*, 239).
Jennifer wavered between taking the technology in her educational environment

for granted and saying it should be banned from the classroom:

49

It would be the same thing to have the computer or not have the computer,
because you still have to go home and type the homework, so it wasn't
very important to have computers in the class. (5F*, 176: 178)

Jennifer felt herself very skilled in using computer technology and stated that she often
gave technology assistance to her fellow classmates:

Oh yeah, especially from me, because I took computer for six years. And I
work at a computer place right now too. (5F*, 203 2204).

Oh yeah, you know, how to save, how to open a file, you know. And other
stuff. (5F*, 2122213).

Jennifer's estimation of her classmates' technology skills was not high. She estimated that
half of her classmates had never used a computer before, and that those students were the
ones who most benefited from being in a technology-infused classroom. For Jennifer, any
time the class spent on learning how to use the technology was a waste of time for her,
and she saw that her fellow students were sometimes distracted by the Internet access in
the classroom. The “chatting” she mentions in the following quote refers to an online

Internet chat room.

I think you shouldn't have computer in the classroom I don't know, I
just don't like it. Cause we do, we would splitted and stuff, I don't like
it. And the students was chatting and stuff too. (5F*, 385:391).

Jennifer chose the words "like the human brain." when she answered the
interview question about choosing a metaphor for the computer. (5F*, 61). "Yeah! I mean
it's a smart thing, I like computers." (5F*, 65). She did not have much to say about the
future of computing in education other than to say that the classes will look the same with

" You know, more new stuff, more technology." (5F*, 413).
John
John was a l9-year-old male White Caucasian who was in his first semester at

50

Maple City Community College. John was a pre-medicine major and he was hoping to go
into emergency medicine. In explaining his choice of colleges, John stated: "I had to
come over here pretty much ..." (61, 51). He was following in the footsteps of several
family members, including his mother, who had attended the school in the past. The
family history made the school a comfortable fit for John. However, the primary reason
he was attending a community college rather than a university was that he had to pay for
his first year, and the relatively low tuition and the fact that he could live at home made
this choice the most affordable. John saw living at home as somewhat distracting from
his studies but he was resigned to being at home and going to a “commuter' school”:
it's good enough, I have to pay for my first year, so good enough.” (61, 5:6).

John enjoyed the sense of community and open learning environment he felt in
his Academic Literacy 11 class:

Um, it was kind of laid back and I think it was kind of a open
environment, we had a lot of Open conversations. (7F, 40:41).

I mean, people would sit next to you and ask questions if they needed
help, it was pretty open that way. (7F , 120: 121).

Urn, that class, I definitely felt like we were all, it was kind of a
community learning together (7F, 38 1 :3 82)

He felt that Ms. Archer was: "... a leader, but she's one of those leader people who steps
along side you and helps you when you need it.” (7F, 73:74).

John enjoyed using the technology in the classroom, especially being able to look
up facts on the lntemet during group discussions:

I mean let's say you're having a discussion and somebody brings up a point

and you are not sure if it was true we'd turn around and look it up online or
whatever and just double-check your point. (7F, 52:54).

He thought that having the technology in the classroom made things more

51

interesting, was a time saver for both students and instructor, and increased his learning:
“Definitely I would say that having computers made learning a lot easier.” (7F , 301:302).

While John considered himself to be technologically literate, he felt that a major
benefit of having technology integrated into the classroom was the impact it had on the
many of his classmates who were not.

there's like some kind of older people who kind of really haven't used
the computer before and they're kind of like struggling (61, 366:367).

I mean some of them just didn't know how to use the computer, it was a

great learning tool for that, it was good for them to step into that and now

they have tools to maneuver their way around (7F, 1011103).
John thought the disparity in computer skills among the class created opportunities to
interact and fostered a feeling of communal learning among his classmates:

I'd almost say that with the computers people are more open to ask for

help and stuff like that, then there aren't really that much chances to ask

for help or kinda interact like that not knowing something at a

computer is not as embarrassing as when you're not using a computer

when you have a question like that. (7F, 2282231, 2362237).

John had almost always had technology in his life, in large part due to his parents.
His father worked as a computer analyst who worked with technology all day and wanted
little to do with it when he came home. Still, when John was eight years old, his father
brought a computer home to the family. John remembers an orange and black screen and
a computer version of the game "Wheel of Fortune." His mother and sister were the
family members who encouraged John to use the computer and the lntemet for
schoolwork, and he later helped to guide his younger siblings in using the computer.

John described his view of the computer as it's like a tool. I mean, it's kind of

like a toy almost it's more of a fun thing but there's also like work you do with it (61,

217:228). At home, John family had two computers, one that had lntemet access was

52

 

located in a common area and another computer without lntemet access was located in
his room. John did not do much with the computer in his room, since it held mostly
games for the younger children in his family.

Along with using the computer for schoolwork, John used it to run a small
construction business. He used the computer to make business cards and invoices for
work completed but not for keeping track of his business finances. For that he preferred
to use a ledger book, since he saw the setup and maintenance of finance software on the
computer as not worth the time and effort.

In his personal dealings John also had reservations about using the computer.
Rather than use email to contact his fellow students, he preferred to call them. He valued
the face-to-face contact with his instructor, and said he would never consider taking an
online course because of the lack of personal contact with the instructor and classmates.

John also saw some negative aspects to having technology in the classroom. In
contrast to his perception that the technology helped to foster interaction among students
John suspected that the computers in his learning environment may have displaced some
of the personal contact opportunities between the students and instructor. He speculated
that had he been in a class section without computers in the classroom:

Maybe it might have been, a little more personal, maybe it'd be more
interacting with the teacher, instead of like working on computers. (7F,

204:205).
John also observed that there classmates who were distracted in class by easy
access to the lntemet and that Ms. Archer

had this thing that turned the computer screens black anyway, so it kind
of helped her out. And everybody would just turn around. (7F, 182: 183).

John himself was able to resist the lure of the lntemet during class, “. . . cause I was kind

53

of intent on listening to what she had to say, and learning that.” (7F, 169: 170).

John valued the personal contact with his instructor and classmates during class
time, but his speculations about the future of education included more technology and
less personal contact:

Well, I mean you’ll get to a point where like, there are no teachers, or and

you're just learning from a computer, almost like online classes (7F,
371 :372).

LaRue

LaRue was a female, African—American student whose enrollment in Maple
Community College marked a return to school after an eight years absence. She was 26
years old at the time of her interview and working the third shift as a laboratory assistant
doing blood testing. LaRue was very clear about her reasons for coming back to school —
she wanted to obtain a PhD. and return to the community college to teach, but she was
less sure about the exact subject she wanted to teach: .. probably in science.” (81, 76).
She was glad to be in an academic literacy class because she believed she needed the
review of reading and writing skills in order to be successful in college and beyond, to "...
to better my life education-wise." (81, 68). She felt the discipline of attending classes was
good for her, and she often came to campus straight from her job since she knew that if
she went home she would go to bed and not get up in time for class. LaRue’s honest and
wry assessment of herself was that “I really prefer to be in school, cause I'd be lazy at
times.” (9F, 426).

LaRue's wry attitude also extended toward her classmates: "I liked my class
though I couldn't stand a couple of people." (9F,442), LaRue said with a laugh in her

follow-up interview. Things worked out well by the end of the semester, however, and

54

LaRue ended up feeling as though her class was a learning community where she
received support:

The group, the group. Like when we would go into groups and proofread
our work, and brainstorm and come up with ideas. (9F, 368:369)

LaRue felt Ms. Archer was both a leader and a helper in class. She took control when the
class needed direction but gave opportunities for peer interaction. She valued Ms.
Archer’s expertise and guidance:

She cared. She was very knowledgeable in her profession, and with the

technical part of writing, which I had never really experienced. (9F,

40:42).

LaRue had not noticed that the class was listed as “computer-assisted” when she
enrolled and she felt a little overwhelmed when her return to school after eight years
brought her to a classroom computer lab. LaRue had a history with technology that
stretched back to elementary school, she was heavily into computers as a hobby five
years ago, but when she began a full-time job she only worked with specialized computer
technology related to her work and did not continue with home computing as a hobby.
When she returned to school she was amazed at the developments in computer
technology available to students and a little worried she would have a difficult time
catching up.

it's like when I start to use the computer again it's like so much has

changed, somehow and I might not be able to grasp it, like with the

lntemet, you know, with the lntemet, instant chat, you know, it was kind

of basic when l was using it at first but now its, like one of the girls

yesterday or Tuesday was talking about a chat area line and I was, well

what is that, you know, and you know you can make like your own

personal web page now, my goodness it's gotten too fancy for me.

[laughs].(81, 1452151).

But, "Everybody loves computers." (9F, 220) stated LaRue, and she saw many benefits to

having the technology immediately available in the classroom rather than sequestered

55

 

somewhere off in a separate lab:
You know, like before, it being a lab, now they have them in the

classroom, which I think is good, because for that time period, you have
access to the computer. (81, 543:545).

LaRue saw the availability of the Internet in the classroom as a great benefit to improving
her research skills, and as a motivating factor for her fellow students:

Well, as far as being able to go online, as far as newspaper articles, being

able to do the research, um, as opposed to having to go to the library, look

up the papers, microfiche, you go right on line and just print off the
articles. (9F, 1322134).

With the, with the research. A lot of people don't like to do research, it
takes a lot of time. So, people probably would be stuck in that [without the
technology], you know the research part. (9F, 209:211).

Having lntemet access had its downside, however, both for LaRue and for her
classmates, in that it sometimes lured them from their work. Moments afier LaRue stated
how it was an advantage to have lntemet access in the classroom, she said:
I don't think the lntemet should be in the classroom. It did distract

some people, sometimes me, sometimes you know, I would want to go
online instead of doing my work. (9F, 174:176).

But LaRue also saw other personal benefits from the use of technology in her
educational environment. One was being able to organize her thoughts and ideas by using
the "Inspiration" software Ms. Archer had introduced to the class. She also felt she
benefited from the work she did reviewing her literacy skills with PLATO software.

LaRue‘s choice of a metaphor to describe technology reveals that she saw
technology skills not only as a help to her and her fellow classmates in school, but also as
an essential skill for success in society as a whole:

I will say money...like money. I mean it's because like you need it in

society right now, because everyone, even on my job, they use computers,

everything is computers, and if you're not taking part in using it, then
you are kind of losing out. Just like money, if you don't have it, you kind

56

3f lose out. (81, 364:369).

LaRue was uncertain of the future of technology in the community college

inal environment, but she was certain it would play an important role: "There will
ybe a computer teaching us," (9F, 384). LaRue envisioned students in the future
e taking all their classes at home, but she wasn't sure that was such a good thing
e personally found coming to class and interacting with classmates and the

)r a source of motivation for her. She thought that instructors would become the
Lmers of the new teaching computers.

don't know, it will probably be interesting. After all the kinks be worked

rut. It'll be like "Total Recall", or one of those science fiction movies. (9F,
l92z393).

it 51-years of age, Lynn, an African/American female, was the oldest participant

udy and indeed the oldest member in her Academic Literacy 11 class. Lynn was

1 as a result of her participation in a program that helped non-traditional students

school after an absence. She had worked for many years as a cosmetologist but
open her own day care center in the future. Lynn saw herself as experienced in
but lacking in the communication skills necessary in order to raise capital to
own business. Her goal was to earn a university degree in management and she
such a degree would earn her credibility in the business world.

ynn described herself as being like the community college she attended: “...it's

3 my personality, laid back.” (101, 50:51), but during her interviews she was

1 emotional and often referred to her frustrations with "... being fifty-one and

he kids..." (101, 121), with not being able to keep up with the coursework, with

57

struggling with the computers, and with dealing with her past.

Lynn saw many of her frustrations as the lingering effects of a difficult childhood
home life. Early in her first interview, she emotionally described herself in one sentence:
"I come from a divorce." (101, 97). She and her siblings were placed in foster care and
stayed "...in the system for a year." (101, 111). The family breakup:

helped, affect my schooling because when I, it was just, at a crucial time

when I just began to go to school and I wanted to work hard to show my

dad you know, only a kid, you know be the individual he expected of

me it was devastating. (101, 117, 120).

Lynn's difficulties at school continued through junior and high school.
I had issues coming up that I experienced in junior high as well as high
school, so, I quit and never wanted to return because it was uncomfortable,
it was frustrating (101, 28:30).
Now that she was back in school after an extended absence, Lynn noted
limitations she attributed to her past:
I know that I am, lower and it takes more work, and I do, I do a lot of
work. For this one class, this one paper, it takes me like, I mean we're
talking about hours [pauses] and it can be so very (101, 361,363).
But though Lynn struggled, she was committed to succeeding in school. She felt as
though at Maple Community College she had found a place where she could flourish:

I felt that if I started back at a level where it's more mature individuals,
maybe I could regain the confidence I need and the help that I need to start
this process and to remain." (101, 31 :34).

"I made up my mind to just get through it, no matter what comes out of
it." (101, 1262128).

Lynn saw around her a network of support and help. Though her family was
broken by divorce and there were troubles with her siblings in the past, she now relied
heavily on them:

I have help I have people in my life who have pushed me to better

58

myself, always motivating, you know, to reach for my dreams, no matter
what the results, because sometimes failure is something that you have to
do in order to get what you need (101, 130: 133).
11 also found support at Maple Community College.
Well, I want to comment to the fact that the school and how it provided
me with so many extra tools that I never expected until I learned how
to reach out by listening to the instructors and you know taking the advice

telling me to ask if I didn't understand, and that inspired me. And the class
1 just took, Ms. Archer, oh, she was just an angel in disguise. She went

over and beyond her call of duty as a teacher, as an instructor, to try to
provide the information, the information so that we would be successful in
her class. (11F, 17:23).

\nd, though Lynn initially felt out of place because of her age and being “with all the
kids” (101, 125)

as time went on, I felt a part of, because they kept making me feel a
part of, you know, the class, because I was part of the class, just because

of the age difference, you know, it was minor, we're still [here for]
reason. (11F, 70:73).

Lynn learned that she could rely on others, despite her previous experiences with her
parents' divorce, troubles with her sister, her school history, and the age differences
between her and her classmates. While she used to be afraid to ask questions, she would

now ask anyone for help: "I used to be kind of afraid to be wrong. I'll never know if I

don't ask”. (101, 2922293). By the end of the semester Lynn felt her class was a

community of learners, all supporting each other:

learners, working together I loved that course because we were put
into groups so we can hear others, other group’s insight into the same
topic but different views, so it was more broader. (11F, 349, 351).

Lynn felt herself nested in a web of support that helped her deal with the tensions
she felt from her past history and from being back in school at her age. The technology
used in the Academic Literacy 11 class was at first a part of her tension, but later it

became a support for her self-esteem and a valuable tool to help her succeed:

59

Cause I know, I don't want to fail, and I'm unsure of myself and what was
expected of me—could I cut the mustard [the computer helped] Yes
it did, because I could be more sure of myself, be more accurate. (11F,
274:279).

Some of Lynn’s first computer experiences were in classes she took at Maple City
mmunity College the two previous semesters. In her first semester she learned that her
k of computer skills would impede her progress and on the advice of her instructor she
olled in a keyboarding class the next semester. After she began school at Maple
nmunity College Lynn decided that she needed her own computer and she went to a
rnshop and purchased a laptop computer. She was largely self-taught on the computer
she learned by playing:

Well, I just follow the rules, you know. Cut it on, you know, I'll see, if I

don't know, you know, I just try and learn, playing with it. I don't know if
it's good or not, you know. ((101, 431 :433).

1 also used her network of support in order to learn about computers. Many of her
ly members owned computers, including her mother. She had a brother who was a

)uter expert, but at times his explanations of computer procedures overwhelmed

Lynn used the word “tool” as a descriptor and metaphor for the computer several
in her interviews: .. it's a vital, vital tool now. I can't live without it now, you
.” (101, 266:267). Lynn saw the computer as a resource and repository of
ledge, something to help her in her schoolwork by being more accurate in fact
ing, but also to help her complete tasks in her daily life, such as paying bills,
Lng her credit report, and seeking job information.
Though working with the technology could be a source of frustration to Lynn,

' access to computers and the lntemet during class was also a way to increase her

60

:lf-esteem and her comfort in class. She relied on the technology in order to increase her
edibility in discussions, to help her organize her thoughts and to learn independently of
e instructor.

Yes, because any information you need, you can always pull it back up.

Like a lot of time we, were like looking for a conjunction, and you can

pull it right up. And you don't have to ask a whole lot of people, you can
do it on your own. (11F,l 262:264).

Lynn saw the technology as instrumental in fostering interactions between her
assmates and thereby increasing her feelings of belonging to the class:
I don't believe we would have had as close a relationship at the end of the

semester without the computer, the use of the computer. So the class had
more togetherness.(1 1F, 253:255).

re attributed some of the increased interaction fostered by the technology to the mix of
perts and novice computer users in the class:

Well, I can say that we all that it enhanced us in some way even if it

wasn't nothing but to give us a chance to help others, you know. Cause

some was more advanced, and we could go to them and ask, you
know.(11F, 167—169).

Lynn’s response to a question about the future of technology in the community
llege learning environment was limited to saying that things would be “faster” and that

yone without access would be lost.

”y

Sally limited her participation in this study to the background survey and the
tial interview at the beginning of the semester. The Academic Literacy 11 class at
tple City Community College was her first college class. Sally had graduated high
1001 the year before and had not wanted to move from her parents’ home to attend a

iversity. She planned on attending the community college for two years. She was the

61

it in her family to attend college and her goal was to get a medical doctor degree, with
ossible specialization in pediatrics. Sally liked the small classes and one-on-one
:ntion she received at Maple Community, and was glad she enrolled. She chose Maple
l Community for no particular reason:

Um, just one day I was deciding on what, um, school I wanted to go to and

I knew that I wanted to do a community college first, for two years, and 1
just said Maple City, just a random out the hat kind of. (121*, 48:50).

y tested into Academic Literacy II on the basis of the Maple City Community College
ement test and enrolled in the particular section of the class because it was the only
with openings for new students. She did not know that it was a computer-assisted
on until she entered the classroom on the first day.

Sally seemed to feel that her instructor was attentive to her and a good guide
rgh the course. She also appreciated the staff in the Information Commons and their
‘ulness.

I've seen this one here and the one upstairs and they're nice, they have

comfortable chairs and if you ask somebody they'll answer a question for

you, they're nice. (5F*, 258:260).

Sally was impressed as well by the technology available to her as a Maple City

runity College student:

Yeah, yeah, they're up to date, they aren't, you know, old dinosaurs, so
they're up to date. (121*,264z265)

Sally saw technology all around her:

everywhere you go to the library—it's computers, everywhere you
go it's a computer. To the store (121*, 292:294).

Sally saw limitless opportunities in the use of technologies. She called the
:er an "information station" but it was clear from her enthusiastic responses that

1 computers and the lntemet as much more than an information retrieval system:

62

A computer is like, like information station, I would say. Cause you can
do anything on it. There's the Internet, you can talk coast to coast, or
country to country, so I think it's like an information station. (121*,
154:156).

A computer is like endless opportunities, you can do this, talk to your
friends, you know, wherever in the country, you can do so much—~you can
go to the doctor, even that's on the computer, about everything you do now
has something to do with a computer—even school now. (121*, 160: 163).

Cross Case Analysis of the Data

In this section themes derived from the data are presented through the lenses of
rree perspectives of self, technology and self in relationship. According to systems
y nothing can be truly examined outside of its context, but there is value in
ifying particular elements of systems and focusing on them (Nardi & O'Day, 1999;
3, 1990). In this analysis participant perspectives of self and technology are
ined first and then perspectives of self in relationship to the technology-infiised

ng environment are considered.

prion of Self

The interviews, background surveys and researcher observations provided
lent data for researcher-constructed profiles of the participants that give a sense of
rticipants’ past histories, family lives, life and career goals, and their perceptions of
elves in the context of their daily lives. The focus of this study is the participants’
rtions of their experiences in their learning environment and the general profiles of
rticipants help to inform an examination of the roles the participants felt they

. in their learning environment.

63

Self as Student

It is no surprise that in their interviews five of the participants—Bubbly, Jason,
John, Jennifer, and Lynn—referred to themselves or their fellow classmates as
“students”, and this term is used in the course catalog and other official documents of
Maple City Community College to describe the participants in its learning environment
who are not instructors or administrators. The term “student” carries with it many
connotations, especially as it relates to the student in relationship with instructors in a
learning environment (Brookfield, 1995; Freire, 1990), and the perceptions of
participants with a focus on themselves as students in these relationships are examined in
a subsequent section.

One of the perceptions the participants had of themselves as students was that of
learner, of taking on the role of a student going about the tasks of learning:

To better my life, education wise yeah. (81, 68).

You know, just coming to class and listening to Ms. Archer and you know,
getting myself comprehend what I need to know and do. (11, 71 :72).

I'm just trying to do my best, pass this class and go on to the next one. (11,
32:33).

Well, we had to take a placement test and on one part of the placement test

I didn't do so well, so I had to take this class, I had to take this class before
I could move on to [the next course]. (31, 21 :23).

While the data do not support an in-depth analysis of the participants’ concepts of what it
meant to “learn” the quotes above suggest that the participants saw their task as learners
to comprehend the material presented in class so as to acquire the skills needed in order
to move on to other courses.

How well the participants perceived they were doing in their roles as learners

varied from thinking they were at the top of the class to being “... one of those students

64

who have a little hard time comprehending information (ll, 15: 16). Somewhat
sheepishly, Jason took his cue that he was a top student from his classmates—who
continually asked him for help; and from his instructor—who held up his work as
exemplars. Bubbly understood herself as being “...one of those students who have a little
hard time (11, 14: l 5). Her assessment of herself as a slower student was reinforced by
what she perceived to be the impatience of her instructor and classmates with her when
she asked questions. Lynn also saw herself as a slow student, something she attributed in
part to her age:

I know that I am, lower and it takes more work, and I do, I do a lot of

work. For this one class, this one paper, it takes me like, I mean we're
talking about hours (101, 3612363).

Other participants perceived themselves to be somewhere in between the range of top
learner and slow learner. Jennifer considered the course a waste of her time, LaRue saw
herself as being where she needed to be: “I knew that I needed [a] refresher course ...”

(81, 99).

Future Self as Professional

While the participants had perceptions of themselves as learners that ranged from
top student to slow student, each of the study participants attending the Academic
Literacy 11 class at Maple City Community College had. educational goals that would lead
to professional careers,. some of them involving many years of study. Table 1 lists the
participants and the educational or life goal they hoped attending Maple City Community
College would help them achieve. At least four of the seven study participants had as
educational goals degrees or careers that required study beyond that offered at the

community college level, and three participants had advanced graduate degrees as goals.

65

 

Two of those participants, John and Sally, hoped to attain medical doctor degrees, and
LaRue hoped to obtain a PhD in some sort of science. Only one participant, Bubbly, was
attending the community college in order to obtain a two-year associate's goal in order to
qualify for the corresponding occupation in her work setting. Two participants, Jason and
Lynn, were attending to improve their communications skills, in hopes of becoming
entrepreneurs and business owners. None of the participants were undecided about their
goals, each answered interview questions about their reasons for attending the community
college without hesitation. The Academic Literacy 11 class in which the study participants
were enrolled was a prerequisite to College Composition 1, requiring that students do a
semester's work before moving on to college level courses. One of the participants had
previously completed several semesters of pre-college level work in which she had taken
the Academic Literacy I course twice. At least three of the participants, according to the
background surveys they completed, were also enrolled in pre-college level math courses,
entailing at least one semester of work before the first college level math courses offered

at Maple City Community College

Perception of Technology

A unique aspect of the learning environment under study was that it was infused
with technology. The course was listed in the Maple City Community College course
offerings as a “computer-assisted” course and the class was held in a computer lab. The
participant interviews, background surveys and researcher observations provide data rich
enough to examine the participants’ perceptions of “technology” in general. The analysis
of participants’ perceptions of technology in general helps to inform the analysis of

participants’ perceptions of technology in the context of their learning environment.

66

“Everything is computers ”.2 The Ubiquitousness of Technology

During the interviews several of the participants voiced opinions with the theme
that “everything is computers.” (81, 367; 2F, 37). Lynn, Bubbly, LaRue and Sally saw
technology everywhere they looked—at home, at work, at school, and in taking care of
their daily tasks:

Lynn: [If] I want some information I will [browse the lntemet]. On um,
ok, about my car, which, uh, my credit report. I pay my bills online. Uh,
any information you want. (101, 2792281)

Bubbly: Well, I go on the Internet finding an article, finding out what's
offered on programs, just you know finding movie tickets, whatever, you
know, just lntemet. Going learning how to find it, ordering it on computer.
(11, 3822384).

Sally: about everything you do now has something to do with a
computer—even school now. (121*, 162 : 163).

LaRue: Yeah, I mean basically it have everything on it. I always
remember, um, I can't think of what it was called, I think it was computer
man, he was the man that stayed in the house and ordered everything...
remember that, and he did everything on the computer. So, I mean that's
how I kind of see it, you know eventually, to me, everything is going to be
based on computer. (

They felt a need for technology skills in order to understand their world, and the world of
the future:

Bubbly: because everything is computers now and I just need to know
computers, I mean just with my job, my job and to further my education,
um it just, I can just see the next you know, twelve, thirteen years
everything is going to be computers so you are going to have to know it.
(2F, 36:40).

LaRue: I mean it's because like, because to me, you kind of, to me, you
need it to and to in society right now, because everyone, even on my
job, they use computers, everything is computers, and if you're not I
guess, taking part in using it, then you are kind of losing out. Just like
money, if you don't have it, you kind of lose out. (81, 365:369).

Jason: Oh yes. They probably will have something so fast you will just
think about it and it will pop up. But um, well, I mean, um, everyday, you

67

 

know every couple of minutes a new technology pops up. I think, you

know, the computers we're using now will be like the Apples we used to

use in like '85, '86 or whatever. You know, the students will probably be

a little more smart on computers, because you know the people grow up

now with computers in their homes, you know, you got them all day, you

know when probably me and you was growmg up we didn't have

computers in the house, you know so. I mean when we was real young. So

I think in twenty years the students will be much more computer smart.

(4F, 421:430).

Computer Metaphors: Computer as Object

One structured question in the interview protocols asked students to fill in the
blank in the following sentence: “A computer is like Several of the participants
used some variation of the word “tool” to either complete the sentence or find some other
way to describe how they saw technology. John said: it's a great learning tool.” (7F,
102) and Lynn called the computer a resourceful tool (110, 265). John also
described technology as a “toy” (61, 233) and Sally used the phrase “information station”
(121*, 154):

John: I mean you can play around on the lntemet, you can play games,
you can do a lot, you can put more money into it, I mean it's like a game.
(61, 217: 219).

Sally: A computer is like, like information station, I would say. Cause you
can do anything on it. There's the lntemet, you can talk coast to coast, or

country to country, so I think it's like an information station. (121*,
1542156).

Sally also saw technology as “endless opportunity” (121*, 160). while LaRue said
technology was like “money” (81, 36)—both referring to the importanceiof being able to
use technology in order to succeed in today's technological world. In contrast, Bubbly’s
choice in completing the sentence during the interview was to say that computers were
“Very overwhelming” and “kind of stressful” (11, 221).

Most of the metaphors for computers offered by the participants revealed a

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perspective on technology as an object to be used by them to accomplish tasks or succeed
at attaining goals. Two other metaphors offered by participants hinted. at a consideration
of technology and its potential as something more than as an object to be used:

Jason: Computer is like a person, that uh, you kind of like, write things

out like you telling a person, like you writing a person a letter, you can

kind of write it out even though it can't respond back to you (31,

1481150).

Jennifer: Like technology. I don't know. Like the human brain [laughs]
Yeah! I mean it's a smart-thing, I like computers. (5F*, 61:65)

The Third Literacy

The participants enrolled in the particular sections of Academic Literacy 11
because the campus it was held on was conveniently located or the time it was offered fit
into their schedule. None of the participants enrolled in the Academic Literacy 11 classes
because of the “Computer-Assisted” notation listed in the Maple City Community
College course schedules. In fact, some of the participants were surprised at the computer
hardware when they walked into class the first day:

Bubbly: I'm like, oh my God a computer. I'm like, my God, we're going to

be working on computers, I don't know anything about computers (11,
2292230).

Jennifer also said she was “surprised” (5F*, 94) to see computers, and though LaRue
noticed the notation “computer-assisted” she chose the class only because it fit her
schedule:

Ummm, at first I didn't realize, until when I was looking in the brochure, I

thought maybe we was just going to be using computers, but as far as what

is going to help you, no, I didn't know it at first. (81, 112:114).

Some of the participants came to Maple City Community College with few computer

skills, and there was no formal effort by the college or instructor to assess the

69

participants' technology skill level.

Bubbly: Ms. Archer didn't really ask about our computer knowledge, she
just said turn them on and then we would work with her, but, and I would
ask questions frequently, how do you do this and how do you do that, and
then she reco said maybe you should take a computer class while you're
here, so that's what she said, that's what she said. So. (11, 2352239)

LaRue agreed that no one asked her before she enrolled if she knew how to use a
computer, but : “I knew the basics...:” (81, 498). Lynn’s lack of computer skills hindered
her progress in her first semester and caused her to have to retake the Academic Literacy
1 class:

By me not having any computer skills, the last part of program, you know,
the course, I found out that I needed to have computer skills, and I took an
incomplete. So, I, you know, went through the whole process and I re-
enrolled, and I took a computer, a keyboard class. (101, 61 :64).

Lynn expressed the belief held by several other participants that being
technologically literate was essential for success in school and success in society in
general.

Well, any way they [the school] could find out how, how, you know,
where a person is at, what level they are at, in their computer skills,
because without THOSE tools, you know, they going to be lost, later on,
in the class. I don't care how bright you are (101, 3212324).

LaRue: I mean it's because like, because to me, you kind of, to me, you
need it to and to in society right now, because everyone, even on my
job, they use computers, everything is computers, and if you're not I
guess, taking part in using it, then you are kind of losing out. Just like
money, if you don't have it, you kind of lose out. (81, 3642369).

Sally: about everything you do now has something to do with a
computer—even school now. (121*,1622163).

Several participants felt that the technology skills they gained or improved as a
result of attending the Academic Literacy 11 class would help them attain their

educational and life goals:

70

Jason: It's gonna help me in my next class, it's going to help me when I
need to do things at home, and I know a few programs that I want to
install that I know are going to be useful for me in the future. (4F, 95 :97).

Lynn: Well, it has enhanced, and I have been playing more with my
computer and I'm learning more about the computer. It's intriguing. It's
exciting knowing, learning new things and tools that I can do with, you
know, tools that I can use that will help me in everyday life—the
computer. (11F, 29:32).

Bubbly: Well, it helped me pass my class! Well, that presentation that I
had to do? It was called Powerpoint. Well, I never learned Powerpoint
ever, until I learned it in just the last sixteen weeks. And without learning
Powerpoint I would have never been able to do my final and pass the
semester. And, I you know I do my homework on the computer, I did my
papers on the computer. (2F, 2532257).

Though none of the participants were seeking a computer-assisted class when they
enrolled for the semester, by the end of the class they acknowledged the importance of
the access to technology and the development of their computer skills to their academic
success.

Bubbly: Uh, yeah, the class actually made me make the decision [to buy
my own computer], uh, because everything is computers now and I just
need to know computers, I mean just with my job, my job and to further
my education, urn it just, I can just see the next you know, twelve, thirteen
years everything is going to be computers so you are going to have to
know it. (2F, 36:40).

The increased sense of technological literacy Bubbly and others developed in the
educational environment of the Academic Literacy 11 class enhanced their assessment of
themselves as learners and at the same time opened up to them new possibilities for
learning.

John: Definitely I would say that having computers made leaming a lot

easier. Just for like lecturing and looking at the notes and stuff like that.

(7F, 3012302).

Bubbly: Yeah, it did, cause I got the chance to kind of like have a little

free time one night before class started and I was just playing on the
computer and I was just like wow, like this had a lot of opened my mind

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up really big, you know, wow it's like all this information I can know
about, you know, I mean, like go beyond your horizons, you know what
I'm saying? It was interesting. (2F, 93:98).

Jason: I think it has shown me other angles to do things, you know, she
give us little brochures or handouts that on how to get to certain things that
I never thought about getting to before, you know sometimes things can be
real tricky—you be looking for something, you got to be direct, you put
one thing that's wrong and it send you to a whole ‘nother area, you know.
She's pretty good at showing us how to get to certain things, so... but I
wasn't expecting to use a computer as much as we do in class.

(31,277 2283).

Lynn: whenever we were learning, we can always learn more if we put it
in the computer and or we had any doubts we could put in the computer
and it would broaden, you know, give us more information so that we
have the more information, the more ways you have to, you know, to see
and utilize whatever it is. (11F, 3602364).

Lynn also felt that the technology skills she gained in the Academic Literacy 11

class helped her to be an independent learner.

Lynn: Well, it helped me when I know she [Ms Archer] was busy and I
had to, you know, some knowledgeable things she taught me how to go to
the source and to the dictionary, so you know it helped her, me with not
having come and interrupt her the computer has so much knowledge,

and to, you know, it's just about learning the resources, how to get the
knowledge.(11F, 2202223, 233:234).

Lynn: because any information you need, you can always pull it back
up. Like a lot of time we, were like looking for a conjunction, and you can
pull it right up. And you don't have to ask a whole lot of people, you can
do it on your own. (11F, 262:264).

Both John and Lynn commented on the advantage of having the technology available in

class:

John: And even when she wanted us to look up a word you just turned
around and looked it up right away the looking things up in
conversation, how backing things up, and that way yes I mean I really
like it being at my fingertips during the class. (7F, 16: 17, 46:47, 96297).

Lynn: I don't want to fail, and I'm unsure of myself and what was expected

of me—could I cut the mustard. [The computer helped]I could be more
sure of myself, be more accurate (11F, 279).

72

While the participants were enrolled in the class on the basis of the Maple City
Community College test of academic literacy, and the course was intended to help
students improve two literacy skills—reading and writing—the students gained skills in a
third literacy of technology that they felt would help them reach their academic and life

goals.
Perception of Self in Relationship

In this section the scope of the analysis is widened to examine participant
perceptions of the self and technology in the context of the learning environment and in
relationships with “other” as defined earlier in this chapter. Participant perceptions of self
in the learning environment as a whole are examined, and in particular participants’
perceptions of the influence of technology on self in the learning environment are

discussed when it appeared in the data.

Community of Learners

“Comfortable” was a word used by several of the students to describe how they

felt in the leaming environment:

Jason: Oh, I felt comfortable, everybody in there was real nice. They
didn't have like bad attitudes, or what ever, everybody always asked
everybody for help and everything, I really felt comfortable in the class.
(4F, 39241).

Jason: ...Ms. Archer, she made me feel real comfortable and the student
made me feel real comfortable (4F, 2432244).

Lynn: made me feel more comfortable, and it made me feel more
comfortable when I was called on by being in small groups I had a
chance to express myself, I HAD to express myself and put some input,
where I normally sit back and listen, I had to put more into it, the class and
I found out that I, also had something to say that they didn't see, you
know, or wouldn't know if I hadn't put something in with it. (11F, 83:89).

73

John used a slang expression to describe his comfort in the learning environment:

it was kind of laid back and I think it was kind of ah open environment,
we had a lot of open conversations. (7F , 40:41).

Even Bubbly, who had many complaints about her treatment at Maple City Community
College expressed her comfort: “... I just felt like I fit in with the other, uh, people that
went there.” (2F ,83 :84).

Though Jason thought his fellow students considered him the top student and
Bubbly thought they looked on her as a slow student, they and the other participants
perceived their learning environment as a community were they learned from each other.
Jennifer described the class as a group all together (5F*, 364).

John: that class, I definitely felt like we were all, it was kind of a
community learning together, so (7F , 3812382).

Lynn: learners, working together I loved that course because we were
put into groups so we can hear others, other groups’ insight into the same
topic but different views, so it was more broader. (11F, 3492351)

Bubbly: Yeah, cause we would get in small groups before we would get on
the computer, and talk, it's called peer review—and everybody would help
each other out, and then after we would get our ideas and thoughts out,
then we would all go to our computers and go do what we had to do. So,
and it was you know a learning thing, you know, Ms. Archer didn't
always, she didn't always, you know, was the leader for us as students. We
didn't always follow her, she just gave us the tools and the steps and we
just did it on our own. (2F, 7322738).

LaRue: Everybody working together. Everybody, we got in our groups,
we discussed a lot of things, you know, we talked outside of class, about
you know work and stuff, I think we really got together and tried to help
each other out.

Jason: Everybody, we got in our groups, we discussed a lot of things, you
know, we talked outside of class, about you know work and stuff, I think
we really got together and tried to help each other out. (4F , 3682370)

The open and sharing atmosphere in the Academic Literacy classes was apparent

during two site observations conducted by the researcher. The two three-hour classes

74

observed were composed of short large-group sessions where the instructor presented or
reviewed material. A large portion of the class-time was devoted to structured small-
group interaction, where groups of five or six participants met with a peer facilitator
while other students devoted themselves to individual work-time at computer stations.

The tenor of collaborative learning in the classrooms seemed in large part to be
due to the teaching style of Ms. Archer. Her emphasis on group and individual work
rather than lecture and presentation appears to have led to an environment where the
students were encouraged to help each other and use the technology in order to do their
academic work.

Jason: The students you know are real nice, she [Ms Archer] have us get

into groups and have a lot of different discussions—get a lot of different

opinion on things, I think that's a good thing, because sometimes you have

an outlook on one thing, but when you have somebody else talk about it,
you have a better understanding or outlook on it, so... (31, 36:40).

Jason echoed Bubbly’s comment that “... Ms. Archer didn't always, she didn't
always, you know, was the leader for us as students. We didn't always follow her (2F,
7362737):

I think she's a leader, but she's one of those leader people who steps along
side you and helps you when you need it. (7F, 73:74)

Jennifer, in discussing Ms. Archer and her roles as leader and helper, said, “Well,
actually she was a little bit of both.” (9F, 107). Ms. Archer would take the lead when the
class seemed to need direction:

LaRue: I mean she, sometimes the class would get out of hand and then

she would get us back on track, and then if we had questions, she always

answered them and helped us. (9F , 1112113).

Bubbly: she was a leader, she led us through the class. You know,
taught us what we needed to learn. (2F,2282229).

Several of the participants were also impressed with Ms. Archer's caring attitude

75

toward her students. Lynn waxed poetic:
Ms. Archer, oh, she was just an angel in disguise.(l 1F, 20:21).

Oh, she displayed leadership, she displayed urn, ability to, um
understanding, you know, cause a lot of times a lot of teachers get
frustrated when you ask the same, you know, the same thing over and
over, um, she put a lot of love into the course. You know, you could see
that she loved what she was doing cause she never displayed frustration
with us, always willing to give us extra time, even during her lunch
break—I've seen her countless of times, not only during my class, I had.
went to her, to her classroom after I got through with my tutor session, and
she was in there helping students, you know. And another thing that I
observed, she gave all of her students time, she wouldn't, you know, have
one special student, she would cut it up so everybody would have a
chance. (11F, 1202129).

Jason and LaRue agreed with Lynn about Ms. Archer’s caring attitude toward her
students:

Jason: Ms. Archer was a little more personal with me. You know, she
really was real patient, you know if I really needed help she sat with me
and talked.(4F, 31 :32).

LaRue: She, uh, she cared. She, um, and she knew, she was very
knowledgeable in her profession, and with the technical part of writing,
which I had never really experienced. (9F, 40:42).

Besides LaRue, other participants commented about Ms. Archer’s expertise and teaching
technique:

John: I mean she was a very good teacher, very knowledgeable and that
aspect. (7F, 67:68).

Lynn: Well, uh, she was really knowledgeable of the programs, she
showed us how to utilize, and she demonstrated them as she introduced
them to us, so it was helpful, and if she had to go back she would always
be willing to go back and stop, even stop, so that we can grasp and ask
questions, so that no one would be left out. (11F, 1342138).

Some of the participants thought the technology infused into the classroom acted
as a Catalyst for student interaction; that people felt comfortable asking for help with a

computer problem because, as J ason—the participant with the custom-built computer

76

system—observed: “... don't nobody know everything about computers...” (3], 97:98).

John commented that:

PeOple might be a little more that not knowing something at a computer
is not as embarrassing as when you're not using a computer when you
have a question like that. (7F, 2352237).

The participants felt that communication increased because of difficulties encountered by

their classmates in working with the technologies.

1 think that I wouldn't have as much conversation because a lot of times
they would call on me about the computer, about the papers and stuff like
that if they was typing, or whatever, without the computers in the class
they would have been doing it at home then, you know I wouldn't have
had as long a conversation as I had. (4F,16l : 166).

Several participants recalled instances of helping or being helped with technology by a

fellow student during class:

Bubbly: Yeah, Lynn had a hard time, me and Lynn and I were kind of like
on the same wavelength when it came to stuff like that, really didn't know
how to use the computer either, so then I would show her, told her I'm
learning how to do it, so (2F,604:609).

Jason: ...like this was my first time doing a Powerpoint, there was this girl
in there, she was showing me how to do it, and you know showing me
how to do the sounds and that stuff, yeah, it really helped us to develop
relationships with each other. (4F, 383:3 86).

Jennifer: Oh yeah [they got help], especially from me, because I took
computer for six years. And I work at a computer place right now too .....
Oh yeah, you know, how to save, how to open a file, you know. And other

stuff. (5F*, 203213).

John: Yes. I mean, people would sit next to you and ask [computer]
questions if they needed help, it was pretty open that way. (7F, 120: 121).

Lynn summed up the experience of working with technology together with her
ClassInates this way:
Yes, we were able to, you know, laugh and it brought us closer Well,

I don’t believe we would have had as close a relationship at the end of the
semester without the computer, the use of the computer. So the class had

77

more togetherness. (11F, 249: 255).

But some of the participants questioned the role of technology in fostering a sense

of community in their educational environment. Bubbly stated that at times her
classmates would ignore her attempts at conversation and “They'd be bothering with the

computer than to talk to me! Yeah.” (2F, 398:399). John, speaking of the negative effects
of having computers so readily available in the classroom commented that maybe in

the long run you may have more computers than you have human interaction

otherwise.” (7F, 366:367).

Bubbly saw other instances of technology as being a distraction in the learning
environment from the work of learning. In commenting on seeing some classmates

surfing the lntemet for what she considered purposes not related to the class she said:

you know, you're not learning anything. You are supposed to focus on
the teacher and what you are learning, you're not learning. I mean, the
Internet's always going to be there, you know. You can take at least just an

hour to learn, you know? (2F, 3342337).
Jennifer stated flatly: “I think you shouldn't have computer in the classroom.” (5F*, 385).

I don't know, I just don't like it. And the students was chatting [in on-
line computer chat rooms] and stuff too. (5F, 389:391).

LaRue also commented on students being distracted during class time:
Ah, a couple of girls, one was [name], um, I think it was [name] I can't

think of the other one's name, there were a couple that I seen that were
distracted by the lntemet. Yeah, that were doing the lntemet, yeah, we

had things to type and they weren't doing it—it put them behind a lot. (9F,

274:281)
And while the participants enjoyed a camaraderie with their classmates and often

COmmented on the relaxed and collaborative environment that was their classroom, the
data also suggests that the participants in this study often felt superior to their classmates,

especially in their perception of their own computer skills compared to those of their

78

¥

classmates. The assessment participants made of their fellow classmates' computer skills

were not high:

John: there's like some kind of older people who kind of really haven't
used the computer before and they're kind of like struggling, and so... (61,
366:367).

John: I mean some of them just didn't know how to use the computer
(7F, 101).

Jason: a lot of people are computer illiterate (4F, 335).

Jennifer: Some of them didn't know how to use the computer at all. (5F*,
199)

LaRue: some people were kind of, uh, remedial when it came to using
computers. (9F , 150: 151).

Lynn: I can't even think of her name right now, one of my fellow
classmates, she was kind of computer illiterate, and I seen her get kind of
frustrated (11F, 2942296).

Jason was one of the few participants who related being helped by a person other
than the instructor when it came to computer skills. More participants related instances

Where they were the person helping others. In some cases this was a source of pride, and

for others just a matter of fact:

Jason: I mean I think there's a lot of people who get a better understanding
of computers, cause some people be asking me a lot of stuff in class, like
this this, this (31, 303:305).

Jennifer: Oh yeah, [they got help] especially from me, because I took
computer for six years. And I work at a computer place right now too.
(5F*, 203 :204)

EVen Bubbly, who considered herself at the bottom of the technology skill continuum,
saw herself as being the helper to a fellow classmate:
Yeah, Lynn had a hard time, me and Lynn and I were kind of like on the
same wavelength when it came to stuff like that, really didn't know how to

use the computer either, so then I would show her, told her I'm learning
how to do it, so (2F, 6042609).

79

Several participants commented on the campus of Maple Community College
outside the classroom, particularly the “Information Commons”, formerly called the
library. It was there that students went before or after class to work in small groups or, for
some participants, to access technology that they did not have at home.

Bubbly: Yeah, we even went up to the library to the computer lab, she was
sitting at a computer and we would work together. (2F, 619:620).

Bubbly: Oh yeah, I spend all my time there. Well, that's where I get most
of my computer access, so. (11, 325:326).

Jason: I think they are really helping a lot of people out, 1 maybe been in
there like four or five times, I had to finish my Plato, we had to do that
there. It seemed to be like a lot of students there typing their papers, you
know some people can't afford computers at home, you know, so I think
that that's a good thing, they won't always have to go to a friend's home,
you know they can take an hour or two out of the day and go up there and
use computers, I think that really beneficiary to the students. (4F,
3462352).

LaRue: I go to the [public] library. I really don't use the computer at home.
Cause my dad, I mean he's good with computers, but he‘s got too much
stuff on his desktop [laughs] But other than that I go to the library, or
here [Information Commons]. (81, 424:432).

Participants described the staff in the Information Commons as very helpful:

Jason: they probably got to go help a lot of people out, getting them
started with this or getting started with that, that's probably the only
negative for the staff, but they are very nice, I mean I never seen them
getting mad at someone or get frustrated, so (4F, 356:359).

Bubbly: very, very good. About fair, you know, about equal. Very good, I
have to admit. Yes. Whenever I needed something I got help. (11,
320321).
The participants perceived the availability of technology in the Information Commons to

be indicative of how much the college valued them as students and cared for their

Success:

Bubbly: I don't think anybody off the street could come and just go use
the [computers], you know what I'm saying, I'm a college student and I

80

 

can go and use this, rather than someone that's just off the street can't just

come and do what ever they want in the computer area, you know. So you
know what I'm saying, it kind of gives you a burst of ego, you know? (2F ,
7512755).

Computer as Teacher
The participants not only saw technology integrated though out their lives, they
also believed that technology integration would increase as they got older. Some of them
envisioned educational environments dominated by technology rather than humans. A
final interview question in the follow-up protocol asked participants to envision the
community college classroom of the future:

Bubbly: Um, I don't think we'd have a teacher any more, I think we'd just
have a computerized instructor—it'd be like one of those robots you see.
And that would be teaching the class. And then we'd just be doing our
work on our computers, to be honest with you. It'd be computerized
instructors. (2F, (769:772).

John: Well, I mean you get to a point where like, there are no teachers, or
and you're just learning from a computer, almost like online classes so.
(7F, 3712372).

LaRue: There will probably be a computer teaching us [laughs] I don't
know, it will probably be interesting. After all the kinks be worked out.
It'll be like Total Recall, or one of those science fiction movies. (9F,
384:394).

Three of the seven participants saw a classroom where technology displaced a human as
an instructor. Jason saw a direct human/computer interface in the future, with detrimental
effects:

. .. you might like put on a headpiece or something and just thought, I
know they got that thing now where you just tell it, but I think then it'll be
you just think it, you know, like it probably pick up brain waves or
something I think that it will be good but it will probably have a
negative effect on your brain, you know, um, a lot of times, you uh, try the
[7??] thing or something like that, your body starts to get weak in other
things, like the hand eye coordination, like you may never learn how to
type because you just think things out, like that finger speed that you have,

81

 

 

that you been using on like everything, you won't have because you aren't
typing. Like with video games, they get so advanced, if they do ever get a
thing where you do just think it out, that hand eye coordination is just

going to be lost. (4F, 4352448).

Summary

The participants in the study perceived the infusion of technology into their
learning environment as a necessary and normal process that enhanced their learning and
their sense of moving toward attaining their high educational and life goals. They saw all

around them the influence of technology in their daily lives and deemed technological

literacy as an essential element for success in school and in society at large. They credited
their school, their instructor, their fellow classmates, and themselves for creating a
learning community enhanced by enabling technology. Their perception of the

technology infused into their learning environment was that of enabling tool and

resource, bent to the service of their learning by the human inhabitants of the learning

environment.

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CHAPTER FIVE

CONCLUSIONS AND INIPLICATIONS

Overview of the Study

The American community college has adopted the concept of the “Learning
College” as its ideal and it has invested large sums in the promise of technology as a
transformative agent in order to reach this ideal (Milliron & Miles, 2000; O'Banion,
1997). Proponents see technology infusion into the community college as a force that will
revitalize the democratizing mission of the community college for a new age and result in
increased access and opportunities for the American public. While technology proponents
have heralded the transforming effects of technology in education, other scholars caution

that the infusion of technology into environments can also have unexpected and
unwanted consequences——such as decreased access and opportunities (Burbules &
Callister Jr., 2000; Hauptman, 2001; Resnick, 2000). While research has been conducted
on the effects of technology in education, much of it has focused on the use or non-use of
technology by teaching faculty, or attempts to measure the “difference” between learning
with technology and without. Little research exists on the effects of technology in the
educational environment from the student perspective. If the community college is going
to indeed become the learning college, an understanding of the effects of the technology

from the perspective of its key constituents—its learners—is needed.

This study is an attempt to add the voices of the community college student to the

discussion of the effects of technology in educational environments. The primary

research question guiding this study was: “How do students participating in a community

83

 

college learning environment perceive their experience of the infusion of new emerging
technologies into their learning environment?”

The study was conducted using a qualitative design and data were collected at two
points during one semester at a community college located in a metropolitan area in the
Midwest United States. Seven students from two classes, both classes facilitated by the
same instructor, were interviewed at the beginning and end of the Fall semester in 2002.
The interview protocols were semi-structured and the interviews were audiotape-recorded
and transcribed. The transcripts and other data—background surveys, field notes of site
visits, and collected documents—were analyzed for common themes related to the
research question. These themes were categorized into three broad perspectives:
Perception of Self, Perception of Technology, and Perception of Self in Relationship.

Participant profiles were constructed using the framework of the three broad perspectives
and using extensive quotes and rich thick descriptions drawn from the interviews and
other data. A cross case analysis of the profiles was conducted and a summary of the

perceptions of the participants about the infusion of technology into their learning

environment was constructed.

The students in this study perceived the infusion of technology into their learning
environment to be consistent with the ideal of the community college as a democratic,
learning-centered institution. The technology infusion, guided by the human actors in the
environment, served to enhance their access to higher education, the course content, and

society as a whole. They saw the technological literacy they developed in their

educational environment as essential to their academic success and their fiill participation

in American society as a whole.

84

However, while technology was indeed instrumental in the shaping of the leamer-
centered environment, it was primarily the “high humanity” involvement of the
instructor, school staff, and classmates and the ways they used “high technology”, that

guided its formation.

Conclusions

Student Perceptions of Technology Infused Into Their Learning Environment

The primary research question guiding this study was: “How do students
participating in a community college learning environment perceive their experience of
the infusion of new emerging technologies into their learning environment?”

The participants in this study perceived the technologies as an essential part of
their educational environment and as an opportunity to learn the technology literacy skills
they deemed essential to their academic success. They believed that the infusion of
technology into their educational environment reflected the Ubiquitousness of technology
in the greater society.

They ofien repeated the mantra “Everything is computers”. Their belief in this
mantra was reinforced wherever they looked in their daily lives, at work, at home and at
school. While many of them learned some technology skills in informal ways through
family members, work colleagues, or just playing on their own, the community college
educational environment offered them a unique opportunity to learn to bend technology

into the service of helping them achieve academic success.

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High Technology and High Humanity

Bubbly: I don't think it's necessarily always the computers. It's the
people—the teachers, the counselors. The computers are just there to be
another resource to learn or buying something. (2F, 696:698).

Jason: the computers probably didn't have any effect on me wanting to
come to class, it was more, you know, I wanted to get a good grade. She
made me feel real comfortable, Ms. Archer, she made me feel real
comfortable and the student made me feel real comfortable, so, I don't like
to uh, be absent I want to be there, you know everyday. (4F, 241 :245).

The participants in this study had a positive experience in a classroom
environment characterized by a feeling of community and collaborative learning. The
environment, while infused with technology they found enabling, was less shaped by the
hardware and software than by their instructor, their classmates, and themselves. Ms.
Archer facilitated the class in a manner that emphasized group work, collaboration, and
personalized instruction, supported by technology. The students themselves felt a
camaraderie in working to overcome technical difficulties. The college staff in the
Information Commons were a human infrastructure to the library, now overrun with
computers. The participants saw the school's investment in technology as a vote of
confidence in their value as students, and they saw their instructor's infusion of
technology into their learning environment as evidence of her caring about their success.
It was the “high touch” of human interaction that shaped the participants' perception that
the technology infused into their learning environment helped to foster a leamer-centered

environment.

Student Perceptions and the Learning College

While the participants were relatively unaware of the educational jargon

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surrounding the concept of “The Learning College”, “leaming communities”, and
“leamer—centered institutions”, they were very aware of Maple Community College as the
college that focused its resources on them as students and their efforts to reach their
goals. The participants were appreciative of their educational environment, their
instructor, the staff in the Information Commons, and the technology resources made
available to them. They understood that Maple City Community College was a learning

college because of what they had experienced during the semester.

Student Perceptions, the Learning College, and the Promise of Technology

A thorough understanding of the role of technology and its efficacy as a means in
reaching the ideal of the learning college as envisioned by O'Banion (1997) and others
(Milliron & Miles, 2000) requires the insights of some of the most important key
constituents of the community college—its students. Such insight can be gained by an
evaluation of the educational environment at Maple City Community College according
to O'Banion's (O'Banion, 1997, p. 45) six principles of the learning college through the
lenses of the perspectives of the participants in this study. This examination can help lead
to insight about how the promise of technology was being realized in the educational

environment they inhabited during the Fall semester of 2002.

The learning college creates substantive change in individual learners.

This study benefited from a two data collection point design. Interview data were
collected from students at the very beginning of an educational experience and a few
weeks after the experience had concluded. It was therefore possible to examine the data

for evidence of change. O'Banion provides an explanation of how the principle of

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creating substantive change should be an embedded value in the learning college that
drives all its processes. He sums up his definition of substantive change in this sentence:
“Learners will be exploring and experimenting with new and expanded versions of what
they can become.” (O'Banion, 1997, p. 49). Some of the participants did perceive
substantive change in themselves, and for some of the participants, the change had to do
with the possibilities they saw with the technology skills they gained during the class.
One such participant was Bubbly, who was transformed from a person “overwhelmed”
by the computers she saw on her first days of class to a person who, by the end of the
semester, found technology so essential that she was going to purchase a system for her
very own. Another participant, LaRue, became excited by the possibilities of some of the
software she encountered in the educational environment, and saw potential for
harnessing her creativity through the software. These learners were exploring and
experimenting with new and expanded versions of what they could become” (O'Banion,

1997 , p. 49), enhanced by the technology they learned to use at school.

The learning college engages learners as full partners in the learning process, with

learners assuming primary responsibility for their own choices.

In O'Banion's ideal learning college, learners are met by a host of services that
help them construct personal profiles that “... illustrate what this learner knows, wants to
know, and needs to know.” (p. 50). This profile is then used to help learners develop
goals and action plans, and to put them in charge of their own learning, with each
participant following custom paths and timelines to achieve their educational and life
goals. In O'Banion's scenario, technology takes on the task of coordinating the enormous

amount of administrative overhead such an enterprise would entail. Technology also

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changes the role of faculty in ways that suit the learning college:
In the learning college, the instructor no longer has to be the sole
knowledge expert trying to keep up to date with an exploding field of
information. Information is simply there. It is readily available to
everyone, immediately accessible, easily compiled, and creatively
presented. The instructor in the learning college is now free to become a
learning facilitator, assisting learners in accessing and organizing
information, and, more importantly, assisting them in analyzing and using
that information for their personal learning. (O'Banion, 1997, p. 75)

Few community colleges in the United States have realized the dream of a system
that completely customizes learning experiences for its constituents. The participants at
Maple City Community College were assessed and placed into the Academic Literacy 11
classes based on their performance on a placement test. Typically, beginning community
college students have no choice but to take the courses required as prerequisites based on
their performance on the institution's placement test, and in fact the course catalog of
Maple City Community College states that “The College reserves the right to
administratively drop students from courses for which they do not meet the
requirements.” While this system does serve to customize a student's educational
program somewhat, it certainly does not allow for customization to the degree O'Banion
envisions.

Maple City Community College does offer further customization of a student's
study path though the use of technology, however. One of the course requirements in Ms.
Archer's Academic Literacy 11 classes was that students spend time with the PLATO
Learning System (PLATO Learning Inc, 2003). The PLATO website page for “Two and
Four Year Colleges” describes its product as follows:

With an increasingly diverse student population, these institutions are

presented with many challenges, including how to provide individualized
instruction to meet specific needs.

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Whether your learners are recent high school graduates or adults
continuing their education, a growing number will need to improve their
basic skills before they can proceed with their studies.

Our learning technologies can assess skills and prescribe quality, self-
paced, interactive instruction that allows learners to acquire the
competencies they need. (PLATO Learning Inc., 2003).

The PLATO courseware at Maple City Community College was available to
students in its Information Commons. Also available in the Information Commons was

access to other types of educational software, as well as Internet access.

The learning college creates and offers as many options for learning as possible.

O'Banion relies heavily on technology in his description of how the learning
college will offer Options for learning. He describes
Stand-alone technological expert systems that respond to the

idiosyncrasies of a specific learner, guiding and challenging the learner
through a rich maze of information and experiences. (p52).

According to O'Banion, technology will also be the management system that tracks all
the learners taking advantage of all the options.

Among the learning options at Maple City Community College were the PLATO
software system and other learning options provided through technology in the
Information Commons. Another of the learning options available at Maple City
Community College is distance education through online courses. the College offers a
variety of distance learning opportunities to students who need, or want, an alternative to
the traditional classroom experience.” (college catalog). Online education has created a
fervor in the literature, with proponents heralding it as the death knell of higher education
as we know it (Perelman, 1992) to those who see it as the path to efficiency and

transformation of higher education. (Collis, n.d.; Mendenhall, n.d.; O'Banion, 1997).

90

O'Banion sees online education as one of the ways the learning college fulfills its mission
of providing “... educational experiences for learners anyway, anyplace, and anytime.”
(O'Banion, 1997, p. 70). The participants in this study, however, were not so sure. John
and LaRue were quite certain they would not enjoy taking online classes because of what
they perceived as a loss of human contact in the educational environment. To them
interaction with an instructor was a very important aspect of their educational
environment.

Implicit in this principle of the learning college is an answer to critics who
question the role of technology in creating a digital divide (Galdieux & Swail, 1999;
Warschauer, 2000). The participants in this study overcame barriers to physical access to
technology in many ways, from purchasing a laptop at a pawnshop to going to their local
public library, but primary among their sources was the technology provided at Maple
City Community College. And, perhaps even more importantly, the other barriers to
access, such as those of technological literacy and context (Warschauer, 2003), were
lowered by the participants' involvement in the educational environment at Maple City

Community College.

The learning college assists learners to form and participate in collaborative learning

actirdties.

The study participants did participate in collaborative learning activities through
the peer review groups and the ways that they worked together informally during class.
Novices found experts and students moved from novice to expert and back, depending on
the situation. The role of technology in promoting collaborative activities as envisioned

by O'Banion (1997) and others (Gay & Grosz-Ngate, 1994; Huynh, 1999; Moeller,

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1995), however, was not realized in the Academic Literacy 11 classes in this study. In
these two classes technology served to make the participants part of a learning
community, not because of the ways it facilitated communication and collaboration, but
because of the difficulties the students faced in using it. In some instances, the students
had to collaborate with each other, with Ms. Archer, and with the staff in the Information
commons in order to overcome the technology. The perception was that everyone has
trouble with technology from time to time and there was no shame in asking for help in
overcoming a computer related problem. As Jason commented: you know I don't

know everything about it, don't nobody know everything about computers (I3, 97:98).

The learning college defines the roles of learning facilitators by the needs of the

learners.

“Everyone employed in the learning college will be a learning facilitator.”
(O'Banion, 1997, p. 45). O'Banion's vision of instructors at the learning college are
people who have many roles, ranging from the traditional lecturer to guide, tutor, coach,
to the nurturer of interpersonal relationships (p. 58). In the educational environments in
this study, Ms. Archer did indeed vary her facilitation of participant in ways that were
dictated by the need of the learners or of her need to get content out to the class.
Participants saw technology as making part of Ms. Archer's life as a teacher easier. Lynn
used the technology and her classmates as a content experts, and felt she did not have to
“bother” Ms. Archer as often for questions on content. In a similar way, John and Jason
saw that the way Ms. Archer used technology to present content freed her up from having
to rewrite material for every class. They also enjoyed the access to the Internet and other

resources during class that they could use to consult if they had questions. These

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participants saw Ms. Archer freed up by technology to spend more time giving students
personalized instruction.

Another way participants saw technology help Ms. Archer assume her changing
roles as an instructor was through her use of the computer software “Synchroneyes”
(SMART Technologies Inc, 2003). This software allowed her to seize control of the
entire classroom network and each student's computer. While the software has many
capabilities, Ms. Archer used it primarily to gain the attention of the class by blanking the
screens of the student's computer and displaying the message “Eyes to the Front Please.”
One participant found this very annoying:

That's stupid. That is so stupid. I mean, you're in college, you have to put

that on there? I mean if it's that serious, then they shouldn't have the
computer in there. (81, 585:587).

Others, realizing the lure of the computer screen, saw the technique as a useful way to get

the class on to the business at hand.

The learning college and its learning facilitators succeed only when improved and

expanded learning can be documented for its learners.

O'Banion states that the framework for assessing student learning can be stated by
asking two questions: What do learners know and what can they do? O'Banion sees many
options in the future of documenting expanded learning, such as student contracts and
portfolios. Examining documentation of expanded learning in the learning college is
beyond the sc0pe of this study, but it is clear from the data that students did perceive
expanded learning as a result of their experience in the educational environment. A
significant part of their learning, they felt, was in their use of technology and their

discovery of the opportunities it offered.

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Summary

The examination of O'Banion's (1997) six key principles of the learning college
through the lenses of the perceptions of the participants in this study demonstrates that
the participants perceived some aspects of the ideal of the learning college to be realized
in the classes they attended at Maple City Community College during the Fall of 2002.
Further, they perceived the technology infused into the environment to be an important
aspect of and contributor to that learner-centered environment. Of significance, however,
is that they valued the contribution of “high humanity” over “high technology” in the
environment. It was not the technology that helped to create the leamer—centered

environment, but the people who facilitated and interacted in it.

Student Perceptions and Unexpected or Unintended Consequences

Scholars such as Hauptman (2001), Kirsch (1988), Nardi & O'Day (1999), Tenner(1996)
and many others have argued that the infusion of technology into any environment often
carries with it unexpected or unintended consequences. While the participants in this
study perceived mostly positive effects from the infusion of technology into their
environment, analysis of the data did highlight some aspects of the effects that warrant

further scrutiny

Camaraderie of the T roubleshooters

One of the proposed advantages of networked computers via the lntemet or local
networks in the educational environment is the use of the computer as a collaborative
technology (Laurence, 2002/2003). The dream is that such networked technologies would

foster increased collaborative work and communication between students and instructors

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and help to create a learning community.

However, in the educational environment under study, a large part of the
collaboration that occurred or was fostered by the available computer technology can be
classified as the camaraderie of the troubleshooters. Students felt that communication
increased because of difficulties encountered by their classmates in working with the
technologies, rather than because of the academic work:

People might be a little more that, not knowing something at a computer is

not as embarrassing as when you're not using a computer when you have a
question like that. (7F, 235:237).

But this type of collaboration—not about the content but because of the context—is the
same as that which would be experienced by students in a sewing class, where students
struggle with the sewing machine to get it to do a complicated stitch. The potential
collaborative work on content was not fiilly realized or fostered by the technology.
Collaborative academic work did occur in the class, but it primarily came about as a
result of working groups set up by the instructor, with the work directed by peer
facilitators:

we would get in small groups before we would get on the computer, and

talk, it's called peer review—and everybody would help each other out,

and then after we would get our ideas and thoughts out, then we would all
go to our computers and go do what we had to do. (2F, 732:734)

Technology Displacing Human Interaction

The participants perceived some negative consequences caused by the infusion of
technology on their relationship with others in the environment. John commented on
human interaction being displaced by technology and hinted that his interactions with
Ms. Archer may have increased had there not been technology in the classroom:

Maybe it might have been, a little more personal, maybe it'd be more

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interacting with the teacher, instead of like working on computers. (7F,
2041205).

But Lynn saw this in a positive light, having a computer to consult gave her

independence:
Well, it helped me when I know she [Ms Archer] was busy and I had to,
you know, some knowledgeable things she taught me how to go to the

source and to the dictionary, so you know it helped her, me with not
having come and interrupt her. (11F, 220:223)

Work at the computer stations was often viewed as work in isolation, where students
perhaps consulted on computer problems but rarely on academic work. Two participants
commented that the presence of technology may have hindered the feeling of being in a
learning community, in that students sometimes chose interacting with the computers
over interacting with classmates. Bubbly stated that at times her classmates would ignore
her attempts at conversation and:

They'd be bothering with the computer than to talk to me! Yeah. (2F ,
398:399)

John, speaking of the negative effects of having computers so readily available in the

classroom commented that

maybe in the long run you may have more computers than you have
human interaction otherwise. (7F , 366:367).

Technology as Distraction

Several participants mentioned the lure constant access to technology in class had
for some of their classmates to engage in what they considered non-instructional
activities. These included constant checking of email, engaging in instant chat and
messaging, and visiting websites unrelated to the tasks at hand:

Yeah, a lot of them a lot of them would just go on the Internet too, some
of them were on the lntemet during class, that wasn't the right thing to do

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either. Some of them abused the purpose... Well, you know, you're not
learning anything. You are supposed to focus on the teacher and what you
are learning, you're not learning. I mean, the Intemet's always going to be
there, you know. You can take at least just an hour to learn, you know?
(2F, 323:327).

Ah, a couple of girls, one was [name], um, I think it was [name] I can't

think of the other one's name, there were a couple that I seen that were
distracted by the lntemet. (9F, 274:276).

Computer as Teacher

In contrast to the participants' valuing of the high humanity that shaped the
infusion of technology into their educational environment is the future vision of several
of the participants. In responding to the interview question about what they thought a
community college classroom such as theirs might look like in twenty or thirty years, two
of the seven participants responded that they believed that computers would replace
human instructors in the future, and one thought students might be connected directly
from brain to computer. One of the three commented further that the uses of current
technology probably out down on “unnecessary instructors” (11F, 3262327). The very
participants who valued high humanity above high technology in their educational

environment envisioned a future without the human touch.

Implications

The American community college has traditionally seen its mission as providing
access to educational opportunities for a wide variety of learners. As society at large
increasingly adopts new technologies in every aspect of life, the community college must
react by equipping its learners with the tools, skills and knowledge required in order to be

about the business of“... exploring and experimenting with new and expanded versions

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of what they could become.” (O'Banion, 1997, p. 49). The integration of high technology
into the lives of all that it serves, must be done with the high humanity that has
traditionally been a part of the community college environment. The participants in this
study believed in the promise of technology, for their daily lives as well as for their
academic success. It is clear that while at the start of the semester they were not focused
on honing their technology skills, by the end of the semester they considered that work to
be integral to becoming academically successful. The implications for the American
community college are many. If technological literacy has become “the third literacy”
that is required for a citizen to be able to fully participate in society, as the participants in
this study perceived it to be, it is the duty of the community college to make the
technological literacy of its learners a priority.

At Maple City Community College placement testing for its students was required
in reading and math—the “Academic Literacy”, and students who scored below certain
levels were required to attend developmental classes in order to bring their skills up to
college—level. However, there was no formal attempt to assess students' technological
literacy. A third literacy implies that a third evaluation should be done, and those falling
below minimum should be required to attend remedial technology literacy courses.

While Ms. Archer, her students, and the staff at Maple City Community College
did an admirable job of integrating the technology into the educational environment, the
question that must be asked is how much material can be covered in one class. For some
of the students, the time spent on technological literacy was time they considered wasted.
This is not to argue that technological literacy should be sequestered only into a sequence

of courses, but there will be some students who will benefit from such courses.

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The integral part that technology does play in the realization of the learning
college suggests that technology, and technological literacy, should permeate every
aspect of and every learning opportunity provided by the learning college. This is not to
argue that a leamer-centered educational environment is not possible without
technological integration. But it has been argued that faculty resistance to utilizing new
technologies in their teaching practice is sometimes related to resistance to implementing
the new pedagogies embraced by proponents of the learning college (Hirumi, 2002;
McKinney, 1996). And instructional staff who neglect the resources of technology
neglect a large number of the learning options envisioned by the proponents of the
learning college. But the resources of technology are being neglected by many
community college staff. The selection of a site for this study was hindered by the few
developmental classes in the community colleges around the state that met the criteria of
a technologically-infused educational environment. In Maple City Community College
itself the two classes facilitated by Ms. Archer were unique in the way technology was
infused.

The technology infused into the educational environments under study fostered
interaction among the students because of the difficulties they had in getting the
technology to do what they wanted it to do. Perhaps this was just a stage in learning of a
complex set of tools. However, many critics have argued that much of the technology in
use today has been designed for the designers rather than the users (Minasi, 2000;
Norman, 1998; Tenner, 1996) and it was clear that the technology in the environments
under study did not create a “connected community” through technological collaboration

tools envisioned by proponents. Designers of technology must move beyond the “one

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user, one machine” mentality and come up with technologies that support learning
communities and collaboration. One screen, one keyboard, one seat works to restrict
interaction and must be balanced, as it was in Ms. Archer's class, with opportunities for
face-to-face interaction. Designers should seek ways technologies can be developed that
will support this interaction in the educational environment in transparent ways that do
not add a layer of complexity to subject areas that students already find challenging.

Technology is powerful. It has caused sweeping changes in today's society and is
doing the same in our educational institutions (Burbules & Callister Jr., 2000; Ellul,
1964; Rochlin, 1997). Some of these changes are obvious, such as the ubiquitousness of
personal computers in homes and businesses, and institutions of higher education
(Grabow, 1996; Green, 2001; Rosenberg, 1992). Some changes are less obvious, as
Sclove comments:

Sometimes technologies shape behavior and relationships less through

brute compulsion than via subtle, psychological inducement. (Sclove,
1995,p.13)

From where does the vision of the study participants of a future educational
environment dominated by technology arise? Some theorists would argue that our
society's worship of capitalism and efficiency drives everything that happens and the
replacement of human learning facilitators with computerized ones would logically
follow (Rochlin, 1997). Others argue that the development of technology is heading in
the direction of artificial intelligence and the development of such sophisticated hardware
and software that it will challenge humans for the jobs where cognizance is required, just
as technology has displaced human workers in other types of jobs (Base, 1997; Bailey,
1996; Emerson & Forbes, 1989; Kizza, 1996).

The participants with future visions of computers as teachers may have been

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watching too many science fiction movies, but their vision had echoes in the unwanted
consequences experienced by the participants who saw fellow students choose to interact
with the computer screen rather than with them, and who saw students choosing to
interact with their email or instant chat rather than joining with their classmates in
engaging the course content. The lure of lntemet access in class is a growing problem
(Schwartz, 2003) and Ms. Archer's use of the “Synchroneyes” (SMART Technologies
Inc, 2003) program is one solution, albeit an inelegant one. lntemet surfing and email
checking is a high technology form of doodling, an age old problem, and seizing control
of a student's computer through computer network control seems to amount to a high
technology seizing of a student's pencil and paper. The challenge then is for designers, of
both technology and instruction, to develop strategies and technologies that honor the
principles of the learning college, that engage the learner, and put responsibility for
learning with the learners.

Finally, though the technology’s expected and promised (Microsoft Corporation)
role in fostering collaboration was not evident in the learning environment under study,
students freely shared their expertise and their ignorance about computers. The
willingness of students to admit that, as Jason said, don't nobody know everything
about computers (31, 97:98) should give those instructors hesitant to integrate
technology into their learning environments because of their own lack of skills courage to

add the third literacy to their curricula.

 

Summary

Technology is powerful enough to be technology—centered rather than learner-

centered (Rochlin, 1997) and its infusion into any environment should be examined with

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caution (Eriksson, 1996). The American community college, then, while embracing the
benefits of technology for achieving the transformation into the learning college, should
institute an ongoing and formal evaluation program of the effects of technology on its
educational environment and its inhabitants. The standard against which technology
should be held, as should every object and process in the learning college, is leamer-
centeredness. As Murphree (1980) argues, technology may sacrifice humanity for a
variety of reasons, but humanism [or learner-centeredness] will never sacrifice humanity

for any reason.

Future Research

As the technology now infused into educational environments matures, topics for
further research will certainly never be exhausted. If technology does reach the level of
artificial intelligence, a whole new area of what it means to learn, to know and to be, will
be created. What this would mean for the learning college, for higher education, and
indeed for humanity as a whole would mean new areas of inquiry in every discipline.
Already there are those who argue whether such a future exists and what it may mean
(Bailey, 1996; Dietrich, 1994; Eriksson, 1996; Kizza, 1996; May, 1996). If technology
does not reach such levels of intelligence, it will reach levels of such sophistication that
will require constant inquiries into its effects on human societies, including higher
education (Rochlin, 1997).

While the future will hold numerous areas of study on the effects of technology
infusion into educational environments, the areas in need of focus that will shape that
future are present now. There is a great need for those in education to understand all

aspects of technology infusion in order to be able to guide its development and infusion

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(Sneiderrnan, 2002; Talbott, 1995; Tang, 1991 ). This study focused on student
perspectives of technology infusion, but the investigation in this area leaves much to be
explored. Studies of larger numbers of students, enrolled in different classes, and in
different types of community colleges would serve to deepen the understanding of their
important perspectives. An interesting focus would be the future visions for education of
the participants and the sources of belief about technology, education, and learning that
shaped those visions.

The almost exclusive focus on student perspectives in this study was important in
that it may have quieted the traditionally louder voices in the literature of faculty and
administrators so that the voices of students could be heard. But the narrow focus may
also serve to limit the value of this study in understanding the educational environment as
a whole. The literature would benefit from a similar inquiry into the perspectives of
instructors and their understanding of technology infusion into the educational
environment of their learners.

Finally, this study has brought to light the importance of an investigation into
technological literacy as the third literacy for community college students. While
increasing numbers of incoming community college students come with a history of
technology infusion into their lives, educators can not assume that experience with
technology means literacy. Helping students with this issue of access to higher education

fits in perfectly with the mission of the American community college as learning college.

Conclusion

The vision of the American community college reaching toward its ideal as a

democratic institution by transforming itself into the learning college has made clear the

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importance of understanding the perspectives of its key constituents—its students.
Technology and its power to transform is seen as a major mechanism for achieving this
transformation, but the power of technology—while immensely powerful and potentially
transformative—can have unforeseen and unexpected effects. This study examined the
effects of technology infusion in an educational environment from the perspective of the
students inhabiting the environment and explored their experiences of technology and the
learning college in action.

The study found that students valued the inclusion of technology into their
environment and saw technological literacy as essential to their academic success and
their full participation in American society as a whole, a democratic ideal (Dewey, 1916).
The student perspectives revealed that technology infusion did promote the principles of
the learning college and helped to contribute to the creation of a learner-centered,
collaborative educational environment. However, while technology was indeed
instrumental in the shaping of the learner-centered environment, it was primarily the
“high humanity” involvement of the instructor, school staff, and classmates and the ways
they used the technology, that guided its formation. The student perspectives also
revealed some unwanted and unexpected consequences of technology infusion into their
educational environment. These consequences were effects that worked against the
realization of the principles of the learning college and the creation of a leamer-centered
learning community, but they were outweighed by what the participants saw as the
positive effects of technology infusion.

The participants in this study perceived the infusion of technology into their

educational environment as a democratizing and empowering force that enhanced their

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access to learning, to self-understanding, and to participation in higher education and in
American society. From the student perspectives, the negative effects of technology
infusion were few, and those that did appear were outweighed by the positive effects. In
the educational environments in this study, the “Promise of Technology” (O'Banion,
1997) was at least partially being fulfilled.

High technology in the service of high humanity is the primary lesson to be
learned from this study. Technology can be used to foster more democratic educational
environments, but it must be guided by humanity. Community college students need
technology skills, it is true, but for so many of them, it is the human touch that will help

them through democracy's open door.

105

APPENDICES

106

 

APPENDIX I

BACKGROUND SURVEY

INTERVIEW PROTOCOLS

107

BACKGROUND SURVEY

I am conducting a study about student's experiences with computers in school and
I am hoping to learn how community colleges can use computers to best help students. I
am looking for about eight students who are willing to participate in my study. A student
participating in this study could expect to be interviewed twice by me (about 45 minutes
per interview), read a summary that I write about his or her interview and give comments
on it, and be observed during a class session.

No one has to participate in this study, and anyone participating in this study does
not need to be a computer expert at all. Students chosen for this study who complete the
requirements will be paid a small stipend of $20 for their time.

Thank you for filling out this survey.

 

Name:

 

Date

 

Best way to contact you Email ?Phone ?

(please include Tel no/ email
address, etc.)

 

Name of this course

 

 

In what year did you first
begin using a computer?

 

 

 

 

 

 

How comfortable are you in (Very uncomfortable) I 2 3 4 5 6 7 (Very
working with computers?
(Circle One) comfortable)
Do you use a computer for: College work: (a little)l 2 3 4(a lot)

. . W k: littl 1 2 3 4 1 t
(Circle one: 1 = a little, 4 = or (a _ e) (a 0)

Fun: (a httle)1 2 3 4(a lot)

Where do you usually use a
computer? (circle all that Home Classroom at school School library
apply) School computer lab Work Public Library

Other (please write in)

 

 

 

 

 

108

 

If you have a computer at
home, how old is it? (fill in
the blank or circle don't
know)

years old

Don't know

 

Do you have lntemet access
at home? (circle one)

yes no

If yes, who pays for the access?

 

How many hours a week do
you use computers for the
items listed? Write 0 for an
item if you don't use
computers for the item.

 

 

 

 

 

Games hrs Desktop publishing hrs
Word-processing Data Search &
E-maj] MUD / MOOS / IRC
Chat rooms, instant messaging Spreadsheets & databases
Browsing the lntemet Other (Please mite below)

 

File sharing via the lntemet

 

 

 

Web page design

 

 

 

Are you Male or Female? (circle one) Male Female

 

In what year were you born?

 

 

Are you (circle):

1) White/Caucasian Non-Hispanic
2) Black/African American Non-Hispanic
3) Chicano/Mexican American

4) Hispanic

5) American Indian/Alaskan Native

6) Asian/Pacific Islander

7) Note: if you are multiracial, please circle number 7 and the number of the ethnic/ racial group

you most identify with or the ethnic/racial group to which you are usually regarded in the

community as belonging. For purposes of this question you are multiracial if you have
parents from more than one of the categories listed above.

8) Prefer not to answer.

 

Are you currently working?

Yes No If you are working what is your

 

occupation? (Write below)

 

What classes are you taking this semester? (Write in titles and Course numbers).

 

 

Do you have a college major? Yes No If yes, what is it?

 

 

109

 

 

What are your reasons for attending this school?

 

 

Write any other comments you would like to make in the space below.

 

 

 

Thank you for filling out this survey. Any information you give will be kept private to the
maximum extent of the law and used only for the purposes of reporting the findings of

this study.

110

INITIAL INTERVIEW PROTOCOL

Introduction

I am conducting a study about student '5 experiences with computers in school and
1 am hoping to learn how community colleges can use computers to best help students.

I wanted to meet with you/ust to talk a bit about what ’s it likefor you to be in this
class and to go to school here. With your permission, I'd like to tape record this so that I
don 't have to worry so much about taking notes while we talk. I'll keep what you tell me
as confidential as possible and I won ’t put your name or any other identifying comments

you might make on any reports. If you prefer not to answer a question, feel free to tell me.

Interview Questions

1. Tell me what it's like to be a student at this school? What's a typical day for you like?

2. What courses are you taking and what have you taken so far?

3. How did you come to be at this school and in this class?

4. Describe your family background for me.

5. What is your family's experience with computers?

6. What kind of a neighborhood do you live in?

7. What experiences do the people in your neighborhood (friends, schoolmates) have
with computers?

8. When did you first use a computer? What was it like for you?

9. Finish this sentence for me. “A computer is like Explain

 

what you mean by that.

111

 

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

What kinds of uses do you see for computers?

If you need to use a computer outside of class time, what do you do? What if you.
need to use the Internet?

What do you expect from using computers in this class?

What advice would you give the teacher to help you in using computers for this class?
What advice would you give the school to help you in using computers for this class?
Are there any comments you would like to make about what we have talked about so

far? About anything else?

112

FOLLOW-UP INTERVIEW PROTOCOL

1. -Inform participant that this interview is being tape recorded.
2. Ask participant’s preferred pseudonym.

3. Ask for address and if personal check presents a problem.

Interview Questions

1. Are there any changes you would like to make regarding your first interview?

2. Now that the semester is over, what are your thoughts about the use of computers in
the class you just completed?

3. In what way, if any, was this experience different from other educational experiences
you have had?

4.What would you say the overall atmosphere of the class was like? How did you feel
most of the time during the class? Did having computers in the class have anything to
do with that feeling?

5. What word would you use to describe Ms. Archer? A helper, a leader, a manager, a
dictator, your own word. What does that word mean to you? What effect do you
think her use of computers in the class has on your choice of words?

6. What were some positive benefits for you of using computers in class this semester?
What do you think were some of the benefits for your fellow students? For your
instructor?

7. What were some negative things for you about using the computers? What do you
think were some of the negatives for your instructor? for your fellow students?

8. How do you think having computers in class changed your relationship with your

113

 

teacher? How would that have been different had you not been in a computer assisted
course?

9. How do you think having computers in class changed your relationship with your
fellow students? How would that have been different had you not been in a computer
assisted course?

10. How do you think having computers and other technology what you got out of this
class?

11. How do you think having computers in the class changed the way you felt about
coming to class?

12. Who do you think benefited the most from being in a computer assisted class?

13. Who do you think was disadvantaged the most by being in a computer assisted class?

14. Oakland Community College calls itself a learning and student centered college.
What does that mean to you? How do you think the college uses computers in order
to be learning and student centered?

15. You attended class in a computer lab, and the Information Commons looks more like
a computer lab than a library. What do you think it does to the college to have such an
emphasis on computers? What are the positives and negatives?

16. In the class you just finished, did you feel as though you were part of a community of
learners working together, or did you feel like a group of students being led by a
teacher? What effect did the technology that you used have on your feeling that way?

17. Do you have any other thoughts that relate to the use of technology in the class you
just finished?

18. What do you think the community college classroom will look like in 20 or 50 years?

114

 

 

What do you think the future will be like?

19. Closing comments.

115

 

APPENDIX 11

PARTICIPANT CONSENT FORMS

116

Informed Consent for Background Survey

If you have questions about this project please contact:

Arend A. Vander Pols, Michigan State University

(email: vande118@msu.edu or Tel: 616/475-6954.

or my advisor: Dr. John M. Dirkx (email: dirkx@msu.edu or Tel: 517/353-8927)

Your Name

 

Thank you for considering participation in my study. This sheet is about your
rights as a participant in my study. It should be signed by if you agree to participate. The
signed copy should be returned to me but I will give you a second copy in case you have
questions later.

I am conducting a study about student's experiences with computers in school and
I am hoping to learn how community colleges can use computers to best help students.
You must be eighteen years old or older in order to participate in this study.

I am asking you to fill out a background survey that asks about your personal and
school background, your experience with computers, and your experiences in this class.
Your answers to the survey will be kept confidential.

Based on your answers to the survey, I may ask you to participate further in my
study. Further participation would involve being interviewed two times for forty-five
minutes each time. Students who participate in both interviews will be paid a small
stipend for their time.

No one has to participate in this study, and anyone participating in this study can
withdraw at any time during the study without explanation or consequence.

Your participation in this study will result in no cost to you, nor will it harm or

117

benefit you in any way as a student at this community college.

Your privacy during this study will be kept to the maximum extent allowed by
law. The information you give during this study, and any observations made during this
study will be shared with my advisor and research committee, but in any reports or
articles about this research, your name and school name will be changed so that specific
information can not be linked directly to you.

If you have any questions about your rights as a human subject and you do not
wish to contact me or my advisor at the numbers listed above, you may contact—
anonymously if you wish:

Ashir Kumar, MD.

Chair, University Committee on Research Involving Human Subjects

Tel: 517/355-2180 - fax: (517)432-4503 e-mail: UCRIHS@msu.edu
Your signature below indicates that you are eighteen years old or older and

voluntarily agree to participate in this study by filling out a background survey.

Your signature

 

Today's Date

 

118

Informed Consent for Audiotaped Interviews

If you have questions about this project please contact:
Arend A. Vander Pols, Michigan State University
(email: vande118@msu.edu or Tel: 616/475-6954.

or my advisor: Dr. John M. Dirkx (email: dirkx@msu.edu or Tel: 517/353-8927)

Your Name

 

Thank you for considering further participation in my study. This sheet is about
your rights as a participant in my study. It should be signed by if you agree to participate.
The signed copy should be returned to me but I will give you a second copy in case you
have questions later.

I am conducting a study about student's experiences with computers in school and
I am hoping to learn how community colleges can use computers to best help students.
You must be eighteen years old or older in order to participate in this study.

I am asking you to agree to be interviewed by me two times. Each interview will
be about forty-five minutes long. In the interviews I will ask about your personal and
school background, your experience with computers, and your experiences in this class.
The interviews will be audio-tape recorded.

In between the two interviews, I will send you a summary of the first interview
for you to read, and ask you to comment on the summary in our second interview.

Students who participate in the two interviews will be paid a stipend of $20 for
their time. Students who participate in one interview will receive a $5 payment.

No one has to participate in this study, and anyone participating in this study can

119

 

withdraw at any time during the study without explanation or consequence.

Your participation in this study will result in no cost to you, nor will it harm or
benefit you in any way as a student at this community college.

Your privacy during this study will be kept to the maximum extent allowed by
law. The audio-tapes of the interviews will be kept in a secure location. The information
you give during this study, and any observations made during this study will be shared
with my advisor and research committee, but in any reports or articles about this research,
your name and school name will be changed so that specific information can not be
linked directly to you.

If you have any questions about your rights as a human subject and you do not
wish to contact me or my advisor at the numbers listed above, you may contact——
anonymously if you wish:

Ashir Kumar, M.D.,
Chair, University Committee on Research Involving Human Subjects
Tel: 517/355-2180 - fax: (517)4324503 e-mail: UCRIHS@msu.edu

Your signature below indicates that you are eighteen years old or older and

voluntarily agree to be interviewed for this study and. that you understand that the

interviews will be audio-tape recorded.

Your signature Today's Date

 

 

120

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