dissertation proposal by temi rose 2/20/02
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE: THE PROBLEM STATEMENT
A National Perspective
Art in Academia: Valuing Aesthetic Cognition
Technology in Education: Ethical Considerations
Art and ritual.
Learning, Change and Democracy
Rationale for this Study
CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction: Weaving a Web
Art in Schools: Theory
Justice, Responsibility and Care
Conversational Reality
Motivation and Learning
Adult Education
Action Research: Methodology and Principles
Art in Schools: Practice
Technology in Schools
Conclusion: Seeking an Articulation
CHAPTER III: METHOD
The Site
The Participants
Data Sources
Procedure
Researcher's Role
Data Analysis
APPENDIX I - THE STATE GUIDELINES FOR TECHNOLOGICAL
EDUCATION
APPENDIX II - THE STATE GUIDELINES FOR ART EDUCATION
APPENDIX III – LETTER FROM RESEARCHER TO THE CAMPUS
LEADERSHIP COMMITTEE
APPENDIX IV– FROM THE FINE ARTS ACADEMY COORDINATOR:
E-MAIL INITIATING CONTACT WITH RESEARCH COMMUNITY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
TECHNOLOGY IN SCHOOLS
To reiterate, the aims of my study were to improve the school's web site; to
explore conventional notions of "technology refusal" in schools; and
to co-create a conceptual space from which art and technology would emerge in
partnership.
The first subsection of this section on technology integration will be a discussion
of the nature and purpose of the World Wide Web. The second subsection will
discuss several recent research studies in the area of technology in the schools.
The third subsection will examine some of the ideas put forward in Wolhee Choe’s,
Toward an Aesthetic Criticism of Technology (1989).
Connectivity and Collaboration
The World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee (1999) who then gave it to
the world so that no one could ever own it, so that everyone would have the
right to work with it. Berners-Lee received his doctorate from Oxford in classification
systems.
Berners-Lee’s created the basic elements of the WWW at the Conseil Européenne
pour la Recherche Nucleaire (CERN), a High-Energy Particle Physics lab, in Geneva,
Switzerland. Physicists come from all over the world to work with the particle
accelerators (these extend for miles under the mountains and are invaluable
for understanding the behavior of sub-atomic particles). The challenge was to
enable the scientists working at CERN to share their knowledge even though their
computers were using all different kinds of operating systems and could not
directly decode one another’s work. The solution was the creation of HTML,
hypertext markup language. The development of hypertext and the WWW is a fascinating
story but not particularly relevant to this study. However, the originating
concept to facilitate collaboration, Berners-Lee's beneficence to insist that
the web be free and available to everyone, and his concept of a world-wide shared
mind is the inspiration that delights my hopes. This inspiration led me to a
concept for technology integration in the arts program that I thought would
succeed: to improve the school web site. (See Appendix 3)
In his book, Weaving the Web Berners-Lee stated, "The vision I have of
the web is of anything being potentially connected to anything. It is a vision
that provides us with new freedom, and allows us to grow faster than we ever
could when we were fettered by the hierarchical classification systems into
which we bound ourselves" (Ibid., p. 1). I interpreted this statement as
a call for educators interested in using the web, to explore collaborative and
heterarchal organizations of material, information, and relationships.
The following subsection describes five recent studies in technology education.
Research in Technology Education
This subsection will discuss five studies and articles in technology education
and integration that influenced this study: 1) Steven Hodas’, Technology
Refusal and the Organizational Culture of Schools (1993); 2) Fernando Cajas’,
Research in technology education: what are we researching? A response to Theodore
Lewis (2000); 3) Petros Georghiades’, Beyond conceptual change learning
in science education: focusing on transfer, durability and metacognition (2000);
4) R.T Pithers’ and Rebecca Sodden’s, Critical thinking in education:
a review (2000); and 5) Richard Hansen’s, The role of experience in learning:
giving meaning and authenticity to the learning process in schools (2000). I
will briefly report pertinent issues from each of the articles and then move
on to the final subsection in this section on technology integration. The final
subsection will describe an aesthetic approach to technology.
Technology Refusal
Reading Steven Hodas article, Technology Refusal and the Organizational Culture
of Schools (1993) challenged my intellectual curiosity. Because this article
was so critical to my thinking and so valuable in my understanding, I will examine
some of his points in depth in this subsection.
First, Hodas asserted that technology is "never neutral," so the integration
of technology carries with it a set of practices that will either be in alignment
with or contrary to the organization of the school. Further, technologists dream
of technology changing the way schools work and they are continuously disappointed
by not taking into consideration the fundamental stability of the school organizational
patterns. Technicians, according to Hodas, are hoping to make schools efficient
and they consider this efficiency a feature of enlightenment. Technicians also,
according to Hodas, make the assumption that schools are also technologies and
can be changed in a similar fashion. I found all these points were in line with
my experiences with technologists and my experiences as a consultant in schools
when I taught television production (another kind of technology).
Hodas characterized school cultures and organizations as being self protective,
extremely hierarchical and profoundly conservative. But my previous experiences
introducing television technology into the schools as an artist-in-the-schools
had not been that schools were cultures were self protective, rather they were
centers of intense gossip and constant social, emotional, and political manipulation.
In my experience, school cultures were not homogeneous and did not act in self-protective
interest. In fact, periodically one did hope that schools would act more consistently
in their own interests, they seemed so often to take the brunt of every strong
breeze that blew across the political landscape. Schools themselves did not
seem to me to be extremely hierarchical. However the bureaucracy that runs schools
and generally handles the funding for schools did seem extremely hierarchical
and with too many levels to the hierarchy, a problem endemic to corporate capitalism
in general. The conservatism of schools was even a more problematic statement.
Although the curriculum is often in the hands of conservatives, in my life I
have experienced both as a student and as a teacher periods of time when the
schools take the lead in progressive social and political action and discussion.
Hodas’ characterization of teachers I also found problematic. He characterized
teachers as less intelligent than technologists and therefore less innovative.
He used the criteria of how much teachers read as how intelligent they were.
I have a hard time believing that we have an accurate statistic regarding teachers’
reading habits. Further, Hodas asserted that teachers were: a) comfortable with
the premises of conservative educational bureaucracy; b) without other career
options; and c) for those who felt a "call" to be teachers, soon rid
of that idealistic stance and given to a drudging trudge to retirement. I must
have been hanging out with very different teachers than Hodas was. The teachers
I have known have not all been thrilled with their role but most of them are
dedicated, intelligent, caring, hard working, self sacrificing, progressive
in the sense of believing in the future, and aware of choosing their career
over other options available. Some teachers I have worked with have changed
my life in profound ways. Many teachers I have worked with have taught me to
see deeper into the world as it lives in the people I come in contact with.
Many teachers I have worked with have challenged me to open my mind and my heart
to the teaching the world affords.
Hodas’ view of the "culture of technology" and the "culture
of refusal" was illuminating and corresponds closely with my experiences
with corporate and academic instructional technology. Hodas asserted that computers
were developed within the factory model of industry and work. Further, he contended
that the basic purpose of educational technology was to facilitate the transfer
of skills and information. "The culture of refusal," in Hodas’
view, is a "struggle over the soul of the school…[a struggle between]
self interest and self definition." This last point was fascinating to
me and I wanted my study to add confirmation to this or find reasons to deny
it. Would I find that teachers perceived technology as soulless? I certainly
do not feel that technology’s role in education is simply the delivery
of pre-packaged information but I have seen and read about other technologists
who do feel that technology’s role is to make teachers redundant. I think
what intrigued me the most about Hodas’ point of view was the hopelessness
of the positions as portrayed. Perhaps, I thought, I could facilitate technology
integration that would clearly, incontrovertibly support the soul of the school.
Perhaps then there would be less resistance, or perhaps more. I wanted to find
out, to get in the environment and see what would happen as I promoted technology
use in the art curriculum.
Technology Literacy
Cajas’ article (2000) was a call for a definition of technology literacy
so that it would be easier for technology advocates to argue for its place in
the curriculum as a discreet subject. Cajas was concerned that technology pass
from a craft to a science and he proposed that the way to effect this change
was through a definition that would encourage an academic orientation considerably
different to the one we have now, wherein technology is considered a tool. Cajas
called for research that would "help clarify" technology literacy.
I do not agree with Cajas that technology is at present deserving of its own
place in the curriculum. However, I do imagine that eventually, technologists
will be willing to consider their values and at that point perhaps the subject
would reach the level of the other disciplines. In the meantime, I agree with
Cajas that more research is needed in order to define the constituent factors
of technology literacy and I hoped that my study would make this sort of contribution.
Conceptual Change
Georghiades’ study (2000) was in conceptual change learning (CCL). CCL
is a focus of science and math education that is concerned with the cognitive
step students must take in order to comprehend concepts that do not correspond
to common understanding. In this field, the challenge is to aid the student
in comprehending non-intuitive concepts. The shocking thing for me was that
CCL has never, as far as I know, been allied with art education, nor have art
educators been interested in this facet of science education. This astounded
me because art is famous for changing people’s understanding of how the
world works. Certainly this should be considered conceptual change? Surely there
is room for a merging here of the goals and pedagogies science and art. I would
hope that my study begins to examine a ground for this potential merging.
Creative Thinking
Pithers’ and Sodden’s study (2000) observed that definitions of critical
thinking often leave out and even purposely exclude creative and imaginative
thinking. These researchers contended that education should concern itself with
the development of wisdom. Wisdom, in their view, would be a merging of critical
and creative thinking. Note that there is no mention in this article of Project
Zero and their research in this area; because this study falls in the area of
technology and that falls usually in the realm of science, these researchers
were apparently unfamiliar with Project Zero. This gave me another reason to
research technology from an arts perspective; perhaps readers interested in
technology education would be exposed to literature in the arts that would help
them.
Conditions for Learning
Hansen’s study (2000) concerns action research, a topic covered in the
next section of the literature review and technology. Hansen’s point was
that action research is the perfect modality for technology educators because
technology education is already based on situated, constructivist, experiential
learning. Hansen asserted that technology teachers have a bias towards Kurt
Lewin’s (whose work will be covered more fully in a later section) concept
of creating an environment that is conducive to learning rather than procedural
or information transfer teaching. Hansen quoted Einstein as having said, "I
never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they
can learn" (Ibid., p. 24). One final point of interest in this study was
Hansen’s understanding of technology education as providing a balance between
"the discursive and the manual." (Ibid., p. 30) He then stated that
the fields of art, medicine and agriculture have traditionally provided the
same balance. This was the only study I found in technology education in which
there was a statement concerning a compatibility between technology and art.
Educational technology has been influenced by research in cognition. Cognitive
science has long been the meeting ground for technology and education. Jerome
Bruner's concepts have been widely used in the field of educational technology.
Unfortunately technology designs seem to have been more interested in Bruner’s
extension of Piaget’s stages of learning concepts and much less interested
in Bruner’s work in co-construction of meaning and relational knowing.
The next and final subsection in this section, technology in schools, will consider
technology from an aesthetic point of view.
An Aesthetic Critique of Technology
I initially chose to read Choe’s book, Toward an Aesthetic Criticism of
Technology (1989), because I was designing CD ROM based learning materials for
a software division of a large computer company. I was looking for an analysis
of why technologically based design seemed to be so limited conceptually. What
I found was a gold mine of theoretical and philosophical reasoning focused on
the essentially similar nature of aesthetic and technological work. This book
was so important to my thinking regarding what I was hoping to accomplish at
the research site during my consultancy, that I must go into some detail.
On the very first page of Choe’s magnificent book, I found the following
statement, "the primary human activity is shaping reality for oneself and
contributing an aspect of shape to reality, through both physical and mental
acts of construction." (1989 p. 1) Right there, Choe had put together the
aspects most salient to this study, of the Bruner-Vygotsky constructivist paradigms,
Tarrant’s, Dewey’s, Greene’s art-experience-democracy triptych,
Freire’s, critical pedagogists’, and reconceptualists’ conception
of agentic, engaged educators having a direct effect on social construction.
Choe stated that his purpose was to bring "the notion of formal choice
in technology to the fore" (p. 3). What he referred to was the notion that
aesthetics is the discipline wherein formal choice in the making of objects,
events, and experiences is discussed and interpreted. He went on to say that,
"artistic and technological discoveries are both grounded in system building,
which is far from being unique to science" (p. 10). I will discuss systems
theory in the section of the literature review concerning action research.
Choe asked, whether, "the process of experimenting and making technical
adjustments [is] confined to technological intentions, or is it a constant in
all form-constructing processes?" (p. 31). This line of questioning would
be helpful for Cajas’ (2000) research agenda, discussed in the previous
section; when examining the place technology should have in education, the concept
of form-construction seems altogether appropriate for analysis. What form-constructing
processes are taught in school now? Both English and math classes require students
to produce knowledge forms. A discourse might evolve concerning the cognitive
abilities developed through the various form-production disciplines. This discourse
could create a common ground in the divide between knowledge how and knowledge
that, (Degenhart, 1982; Hyland, 1993) a divide that presently could be understood
as crippling both the areas of academic and vocational training. It is crippling
because those trained primarily to understand function and form (vocational)
are not given an education in values and reasoning sufficient to question the
roles they play, the activities they engage in and the products they produce
(Tarrant, 1989; Dewey, 1916). By contrast, those trained primarily to understand
purpose and meaning (academic) are not given an education sufficient in the
practical application of concepts, either to objects or to persons and relationships.
Choe contended that it is the "non-utilitarian structures [that] have
stretched the limits" (p. 129) of our understanding of natural processes.
In other words, Choe agreed with Harrison (1913, 1962), and Dewey (1934) that
art spurs scientific and technological progress. Perhaps, then, in the context
of schools, a study like mine, seeking to integrate technology in the arts curriculum,
might spur a similar integration in science and math curricula; and, perhaps
further the development of conversations on values underlying the use of technology
in education.
I will end the discussion of Choe’s book with two quotes that I find particularly
inspirational. First, "When making and judging (practice and recognition)
are integrated with the self, an aesthetic criticism of technology becomes a
genuine reality. In the aesthetic context, one is no longer merely a consumer
of technological products a, but a producer of experiences that contribute to
building a creatively habitable world." (Ibid., p.11) And, that, "technology,
like poetry, creates form and material for further activity of the mind"
(p. 111).
Summary: Aesthetic Technology
Choe’s argument for an aesthetic view of technology adds substantial complexity
to Maxine Greene’s argument that learning is a mutual, interpersonal engaging
in artistic process. What if Greene’s definition of artistic process were
expanded to include creatively using technology and, even further, to the creation
of technological forms themselves? It seemed to me that as we expand our understanding
of the place of art and technology in education, we see more and more an overlap
of intention, value, activity, and process.
Choe stated that, "Technology, if taken merely as a cognitive form or an instrument of communication and power, does not help the self to initiate a new perspective nor create new patterns of reality." And, "we do not make technological objects solely to gain power but to be human: to aspire, to dream as well as to survive" (p. 173). If Choe is correct, then technology’s borders fall well within those of domains whose epistemologies question perspectives on humanness and patterns of reality: art and psychology. next