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

本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起的作用，正如他们在家庭和其他校外环境中使用技术所表现的那样。特别是，这项研究将调查学校对教育计算机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。这项研究从一个前提开始，即年轻人被邀请使用技术的方式塑造了他们作为技术用户的概念。这项工作将跟踪调查来自两所中学的36名七年级和八年级的学生。在两年的项目过程中，调查、访谈和结构化观察将跟踪参与者对技术发展和变化的使用、参与和知识。该项目将探讨研究人员提出的问题，这些研究人员已经证明，来自不同家庭背景的儿童在学校使用计算机进行非常不同的活动，来自弱势家庭的儿童在有意义地使用技术方面面临更大的障碍。与其他学校相比，为大量贫困学生提供服务的学校更广泛地使用操练和练习软件，这些学校的教师比其他学校更有可能报告说，他们使用计算机是为了“加强学生的基本技能”，而不是鼓励创造力、自我表达或交流。即使在为不同学生群体提供服务的学校，贫困学生和有色人种学生也可能使用计算机进行操练和练习工作或学习办公技能，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原创研究，创造原创作品，并与他人交流。这项先前的研究表明，有效地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现有的各种技术工具进行交流、收集信息和自我表达，将需要注意多种社会环境对儿童学习和发展的相互作用。我们对他们在校外如何使用这些技术知之甚少，更不知道这些使用何时以及如何与学校或家庭的年轻人学习和发展目标相交叉。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。本研究还将描述年轻人在多种环境下对技术的使用是如何随着时间的推移而发展的，以及在各种环境中的经历如何塑造了对其他环境的期望和兴趣。最后，本研究的结果将具体展示不同类型的校内技术使用是否以及如何在多种环境中塑造年轻人对自己作为技术用户的看法。

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.