Communication
matters, learning at school in a wired
world
by J. Jenkins, CIDE
Ethnography and Education in
the States: a Tentative Mapping (L'éthnographie
en éducation aux Etats Unis: une première
cartographie); by Y. Winkin, Professor at the
Liège University Belgium), Director of the
Anthropology of Communication Laboratory (Laboratoire
d'Anthropologie de la communication)
The paper wants to sketch the development of the
"ethnography in education" in the United States in the 70's
and 80's, arguing that this pole of research deserves to be
better known in Europe. In order to lay out what is called
in the paper an "intellectual landscape", data are tapped
from the conference "Ethnography and Education: Children In
and Out of School",, which was held in April 1979 at the
Graduate School of Education of the University of
Pennsylvania. The conference gathered three types of
participants: teachers and heads of school, education
officials, research scholars (anthropologists, linguists,
educational psychologists). Even Margaret Mead was present.
A close-up analysis of the debates, publics and
institutional context of the conference offers a tangible
approach to the study of the actors and the ideas of the
American "ethnography in education" landscape. As the saying
goes: "Conferences are history of science in real time".
Downloadable postscript
version in French
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Learning
by correspondence revisited: a report on the Socrates
Mailbox Project, by Janet Jenkins
With increased access to electronic
mail, communication by correspondence has a new and
important role in distance education. The paper focuses on
children as learners, and considers the effects of
electronic correspondence on their learning. It will focus
particularly on interpersonal communication skills, group
dynamics, intercultural communication, expression skills,
integration strategies, the relation of learning to time and
place. It will draw conclusions relevant to the integration
of new learning technologies into the classrooms of
tomorrow.
The paper is based on the preliminary findings of the
Socrates MAILBOX observatory project. The project is
examining the use in schools of electronic mail, computer
conferencing, electronic forums, Internet and the World Wide
Web. It covers schools in 6 countries. The paper will report
on preliminary findings from one country, the United
Kingdom, but will be supplemented through oral reporting at
the Conference. By then, it should be possible to provide an
initial comparison of results from the six
countries.
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Let's
be "elitist" for entering the Jobless Society, by
Eric Barchechath, Contribution Paper, Open Classroom
II Conference, Crete, September 1997
Usually when discussing on technology
and learning we mostly discuss on "potential": widen access,
freeing from time and space both the learner and the
teacher, learner rhythm and learning path, etc. I feel that
doing so we are restraining the scope and playing the game
of a sort of self-censorship which results on restricted
perspectives. Based on my experience within the
SOCRATES-MAILBOX project I would like to share some views in
respect to two issues that are "political", political by
nature and also because they require political involvement
to be implemented:
An economic and organisational sort of issue concerns
the production techniques that are used in education and
their change.
A social and ethno-methodological issue related to the
present situation of unemployment and the need to re-orient
education itself.
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Mailbox,
Or The Importance Of Being In Quest: an ethnographic
study of information and communication technologies in
European schools; by R. Magli
Questioning
the relationship between Computers and Power in School
environments: An Ethnographic Approach; by R.
Magli
(An abstract precedes the paper)
SOCRATES MAILBOX, a European
Project, two
articles published in French (in Mac
or PC
pdf format) in Informatique Informations - the
Newsletter about ICT and Education of the Geneva educational
system - vol
33, June 1997 and vol
34, November 1997; by Dagmar Hexel, Olivier de
Marcellus, Marc Bernoulli, Research Associates at the
Center for Pedagogical Research - CRPP
- of the Geneva Department of Education, Switzerland.
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Potentials and Constraints of ICT
in Schools, by Dagmar Hexel, Olivier de Marcellus,
Marc Bernoulli, currently submitted for publication.
How are electronic communication
technologies used in school? In what ways do they impact on
learning? How can teachers best deploy them to support
classroom delivery? How can they be used to improve the
quality of teaching and learning? Do these technologies
contribute, and how far, to develop the learners' social and
communication skills? These questions (and some more) were
raised by the Socrates' Mailbox project. The present article
provides an overview of the observational study carried out
by the Swiss partners of the project. It points out that the
use of ICT remains for the time being restricted to a small
number of classes run by teachers who are at one in favour
of open learning situations and technically competent. The
observations focus on the objectives pursued by the teachers
and tend to show that even these "pioneers" neglect some
essential conditions for attaining them
successfully.
A version of this article is available
in French, under the title of: Splendeurs et servitudes
de la télématique. Download it in
rtf, pdf
or ps formats.
Timewarp:
Does telematic communication follow rules of "primitive"
societies ? (Messagerie
et formes traditionnelles d'échange social: une
esquisse); by Dagmar Hexel, Olivier de Marcellus,
Marc Bernoulli, Research Associates at the Center for
Pedagogical Research - CRPP
- of the Geneva Department of Education, Switzerland.
Exchanges of e-mail between school
pupils strangely resemble ritual exchanges of traditional
societies.
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