The Ecologies of Children's Computing: Investigating the use of Technology across Multiple Settings

儿童计算的生态：调查跨多种环境的技术使用

• 批准号: 0214334
• 负责人: Katherine McMillan
• 金额: $ 24.94万
• 依托单位: Education Development Center
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-10-01 至 2004-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0214334&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Ecologies; Children; Computing; Investigating; use

This project will investigate the role that the quality and depth of in-school technology access plays in shaping disadvantaged children's broader understanding of and engagement with technology, as expressed in their technology use at home and in other out-of-school settings. In particular, the research will examine how school choices about educational computing affect disadvantaged children's use of technology at home, in their peer groups, and in community settings. This research begins from a premise that how young people are invited to make use of technology shapes their conceptions of themselves as users of technology. This work will follow 36 young people from two middle schools during their seventh- and eighth-grade years of school. Surveys, interviews and structured observations will track participants' use of, engagement with, and knowledge about technology as it develops and changes over the course of the two years of the project. This project will explore concerns raised by researchers who have demonstrated that children from different family backgrounds are using computers for very different activities in school, with children from disadvantaged families facing greater barriers to meaningful use of the technology. Drill-and-practice software is used more widely in schools serving large numbers of impoverished students than in other schools, and teachers in these schools are more likely than others to report that they use computers to "reinforce basic skills" for their students than to encourage creativity, self-expression, or communication. Even in schools serving a diverse student population, poor students and students of color are likely to be using computers for drill-and-practice work or to learn office skills, while Caucasian students and students with high socioeconomic status are likely to use computers to conduct original research, create original work products, and communicate with others. This prior research demonstrates that effectively addressing the digital divide will mean doing more than providing more points of access to technology. Ensuring that all children have opportunities to make full use of the range of technological tools available for communication, information-gathering, and self-expression, will require attending to the interplay of multiple social settings on children's learning and development. Little is yet known about how they are using these technologies outside of school, and even less about when and how those uses intersect with school or family goals for young people's learning and development. This project will describe how a range of social settings influence young people's understandings of and uses of digital technologies. This study will also describe how young people's use of technology in multiple settings develops over time, and how experiences in various settings shape expectations and interests brought into other settings. Finally, findings from this study will demonstrate specifically whether and how different kinds of in-school technology use shape young people's perceptions of themselves as users of technology across multiple settings.

该项目将调查校内技术获取的质量和深度在塑造弱势儿童对技术的更广泛理解和参与方面所发挥的作用，这体现在他们在家庭和其他校外环境中的技术使用中。 特别是，该研究将研究学校对教育计算的选择如何影响弱势儿童在家庭、同龄群体和社区环境中对技术的使用。 这项研究的前提是年轻人如何被邀请使用技术塑造了他们作为技术用户的自我概念。 这项工作将追踪来自两所中学的 36 名七年级和八年级年轻人。 调查、访谈和结构化观察将跟踪参与者对技术在项目两年期间的发展和变化的使用、参与和知识。 该项目将探讨研究人员提出的担忧，他们已经证明，来自不同家庭背景的儿童在学校使用计算机进行截然不同的活动，来自弱势家庭的儿童在有意义地使用该技术方面面临更大的障碍。 与其他学校相比，在为大量贫困学生提供服务的学校中，练习软件的使用更为广泛，这些学校的教师比其他学校更有可能报告称，他们使用计算机是为了“强化学生的基本技能”，而不是为了“巩固基本技能”。鼓励创造力、自我表达或沟通。 即使在为不同学生群体提供服务的学校中，贫困学生和有色人种学生也可能使用计算机进行练习或学习办公技能，而白人学生和社会经济地位较高的学生则可能使用计算机进行作业原创研究，创造原创工作产品，并与他人交流。 先前的研究表明，有效解决数字鸿沟意味着要做的不仅仅是提供更多的技术访问点。 确保所有儿童都有机会充分利用各种可用于交流、信息收集和自我表达的技术工具，需要关注多种社会环境对儿童学习和发展的相互作用。 目前人们对他们如何在校外使用这些技术知之甚少，更不知道这些技术何时以及如何与年轻人学习和发展的学校或家庭目标相交叉。 该项目将描述一系列社会环境如何影响年轻人对数字技术的理解和使用。这项研究还将描述年轻人在多种环境中对技术的使用如何随着时间的推移而发展，以及不同环境中的经历如何塑造对其他环境的期望和兴趣。 最后，这项研究的结果将具体证明不同类型的校内技术使用是否以及如何塑造年轻人对自己作为跨多种环境的技术用户的看法。