1. Web Pedagogies Week 7: Systems Approach

2. Schedule Review of last week
Web-based research: some practical examples and hands-on searches
Theory of Affordances: lecture and discussion
Break
Lab: Appropriate technology for the course websites – Demonstration and discussion

3. Systems Approach 1: Aronson What’s the loop that people miss?
Community A’s blood bank has a low supply
Pay people to donate blood: what happens?
Your examples of a system with unintended consequences:

4. A systemic view
Community
school
class
home
Public Policy
Technology

5. We need computers in classrooms because:1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6. What do we expect schools to do? Historically:
Create democratic citizens
Promote equality
Moral and social development of students
Assimilate diverse groups into one nation

7. What do we expect schools to do? Today:
Train people for the global economy
Sustain technological innovation
Social mobility
Social efficiency
Democratic equality
Labaree: First ones have merged to form rationale for competitiveness and have trumped democratic equality

8. Cuban’s schools What are his big findings?
Widespread availability of infrastructure has not led to extensive use of technology
Both students and teachers use technology more at home than in school
When small percentages of teachers do become more frequent users of tech, still largely maintain existing classroom practice

9. Cuban’s explanations The slow revolution
Adoption of computers now is an early sign of things to come
But, then, why haven’t teachers been quicker to use technology in the classroom when they use it at home?
How does this explain the explosion of investment?

10. Cuban’s explanations The multiple contexts of teaching
External dynamics interact with internal ones
Symbolic and actual nature of technology
Social and political organization of schooling, expectations, legacies influence classroom
Business model for schools
Technologies are not value neutral devices

11. Cuban’s explanations Contextually constrained choice
Teachers continue to have a great deal of discretion in their classrooms
Must ask practical questions of technology that politicians and software companies don’t
Social and political organization of schooling, expectations, legacies influence classroom
Business model for schools
Technologies are not value neutral devices