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Hidden works in a project of closing

digital inequalities:

A qualitative inquiry in a remote school

Ken-Zen Chen kchen32@illinois.edu

Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

This study investigated students’ experiences and teachers'

hidden works when initiating an instructional technology project

that aims to reduce digital inequality in a remote school at a

developed Asian country.

The proposed main questions was: how do students and teachers

experience the changes after learning and living with the XO

laptops? What and how many hidden works do teachers need

to overcome? And how a bridging-digital-divide project like

OLPC could live and survive in remote schools?

Deploying XO laptops in the school was an intelligent choice to

bridge children’s digital divide however a complete set of the

supporting system was necessary for this to be truly effective.

Otherwise, teachers needed to devote extra efforts, the “hidden

works”, in every dimension to cover the system insufficiency to

make the project work.

Overview

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Overview Students’ learning experiences were exciting during my

fieldwork. Students showed engagement when learning

with XOs and technical devices. The XOs became part

of children’s lives in the schools and at home. They also

expressed progress in learning. However, owing to

conflicts in the school, the effectiveness was

constrained and only a few teachers showed interest

teaching with the XOs.

I connect technology diffusion and social and cultural

capital from a theoretical perspective into my discussion.

I reviewed the discussions, debates, and studies about digital

divides, m-learning, technology in schools, teachers’ hidden

works, and the OLPC project.

The literature argued that, the nature and character of digital

divide not only changes over time, but also varies based on

the differences of distinct places.

Moreover, the speedy advancement of information technology

certainly influences which technology and how we choose it

and implement into schools.

Therefore, it becomes necessary for the closing-divide

projects to keep pace with latest educational technology, while

adjusting these advancements to fit the local demands.

Summary of the Lit Review

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Under this concern, how schools and teachers acquire, resist,

or reshape new technologies is critical, for this factor

determines the survival of these closing-divide projects.

Further, how teachers devote their extra time and efforts to turn

these projects into reality is also critical, but has not been

widely researched.

As one of the endeavors of closing-divides, the OLPC project

exemplifies a better attempt (especially compared to those

physical-access oriented projects) by deliberating possible

concerns which may jeopardize the project into the design and

implementation.

By answering questions I proposed, my study in this remote

school may shed some lights in closing digital divides in

schools.

Summary of the Lit Review

OLPC

An NGO

By Nicholas Negroponte

MIT Media Lab

XO, is always referred to

$100 laptop

Green monster

“we view the children as a mission; Intel & Microsoft view them as a market!!”

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Hardware

OLPC XO-1

1200 x 900 (152x114mm) Color Display

466 MHz Processor

Graphics Coprocessor

256 MB RAM

1 GB solid-state storage

SDHC Slot up to 32GB

1.45 kg

17W charger

$200

5 Principles

Child ownership

Low ages:6-12

Saturation

Connection

With mesh, with AP, with XS server

Free and open source

Allows/encourages contributions from many sources

No proprietary or licensing issues

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Hidden Works

• Part of informal sector of the economy • To raise public awareness about these neglected

contributions • The invisible effort that an individual expends as

extra effort to his/her designated duty. – are essential to successful functioning of formal work – to ethnographically study inside the specific context of

the work

• The actual role of teachers is “considerably broader than its ideal role” .

• Teachers are usually expected to overcome the tasks that they were not prepared to do.

Data Collection

• 2011.7—2011.12

• Interview: teachers, students, parents

• Audio/Video taping: In-class instruction

• Photos taken by me and children: expressing the school lives they saw and felt

• Documents: teaching materials, homework assignments, exam sheets, school shared-drive files

• Logs: activity records in the XO laptops

• Journal: daily notes and reflections

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A short video clip

What I was doing

• Preparing XOs

• Researcher-volunteer

• Implementing along with Conflicts

• Teaching

• Data collection

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Teaching with the XOs

• 2nd grade

– more “free play” sessions

– liked productive activities

– motivated kids’ spelling accuracy

– used at home frequently

– Emotional attachment

• 5th grade

– more structured teaching

– explored what a laptop can do for them

– usability feedback

Teaching without the XOs

• Tried observations, experiments, or hands-on to build students’ learning experiences in addition to the traditional teaching with textbook and worksheets

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Reactions

• Teachers

– One casually used the XO in her composition classes

– Another took away XO as a way of punishment

• Students

– Sense of belonging

– want a real laptop

• Parents

– Varies; some showed willingness to invest more in their children

Unnecessary pains

• It seems that you just stay for a short while, and your students may not be able to bring the skills of using the XOs into full play. However, change always takes time. Especially, we don’t expect the magic in education. Am I right? (2011/10/25, interview_Chung)

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Close the digital divide

• The introduction of the XO laptops to 2nd and 5th grade students slightly changed the situation of digital inequality.

– Material

– Skills

– Motivation

– Usage

My Hidden Works

• Create or locate contextualizing materials to match learning requirements

• Relationship building, coordination, collaboration, and communication

• Data manipulation

• Equipment management

• Testing, breakdown, and fixes

• Flexibility and emotional management

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Conclusion

• Family economic affordances, parental attitudes toward ICT, the differences of life styles between Atayal and mainstream Han, school administration, teaching practice, as well as classroom management impact the opportunities of accessing ICT

• School may not provide sufficient support owing to the lack of resources. Therefore, to advocate and push this project into reality required the change-agents, either internally or externally, to work extensively to compensate for the structural shortcomings.

Conclusion

• XO laptops in the site have walked into students’ lives and become “an active part of the school ecosystem”.

• However other children were still left behind.

• Being a “good guy” and “helpful” fieldworker (van Maanen, 1988) smoothed my deployment in the short period of time.

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Connect to theories

• Actions that diffusion change agents are expected to accomplish are similar to the hidden works that I demonstrated during the field study.

• My fieldwork was also a process that connected possible social relationships to transmit social capital to remote school children. It was also a process to transmit cultural capital to these children because technology competency is a necessary ability for social inclusion.

• Social inclusion. Whose inclusion?

Suggestions

• A group of curriculum developers, instructional technologists, teachers, and fieldworkers should be involved to form a comprehensive research and teaching practice. Such practice should function not only improving students’ learning but also diffuse the new technology to teachers and parents in the research site.

• Future fieldwork is necessary to unfold the prolonged impact on the children who have received and used the XO laptops, both in developed and developing countries. Larger-scale and in-depth research are expected to uncover learners’ changes overtime, as well as to uncover the essences of teachers’ and volunteers’ hidden works.

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Thank you!