Use before know-how: teaching with technology in a Mexican public school

Abstract

In recent years, the Secretariat of Public Education in Mexico has supplied a significant number of schools with computers and connectivity, putting important resources into the purchase and installation of equipment. It is assumed that teachers will somehow naturally transition to using these tools and in fact, new curricular guidelines derived from international policy put them under a great deal of pressure to do so. This paper presents an up-close, qualitative look at one teacher’s efforts for incorporating technology into her history class and her process of constructing a working knowledge of using the computer, searching for ideas and materials on the Internet, and creating activities for her students. Equally important for incorporating technology into her teaching were the institutional and technical obstacles such as obsolete technology, insufficient connectivity, and school site constraints she confronted. Her case illustrates the complexity of using computer and Internet technologies in classroom settings.

Keywords:

• digital literacy
• teacher professional development
• technology
• middle school
• Mexico

Notes

1. Mexico has a centralized education system. The federal government is the national authority for all policies, materials, evaluations, teacher training and curriculum.

2. The role of international agencies in the shaping of national policies in Mexico is beyond the scope of this paper, and requires a discussion of its own. However, it should be noted that international agencies such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Bank and Organización para la Cooperación y Desarrollo Económico (OCDE) and regional ones such as OEI and CEPAL share similar policies regarding the incorporation of technology into education. They promote the idea of a globalized world connected through the Internet and knowledge as the new and most coveted commodity for economic development, political stability, and democratization. They see the incorporation of technology into schools as an important step towards reaching marginalized groups in remote areas, improving educational outcomes, and educating the workforce, eventually leading to market competitiveness and prosperity. The distribution of equipment is promoted as a “must do” to ensure closing the so-called digital divide. These elements are present in Mexican policies and political speeches. For a look at international policies, consult OCDE (2010), Sunkel (2006), Jara (2007), UNESCO (2012); for a more critical discussion Warschauer (2002) and Collins and Blot (2003).

3. Translated from Spanish to English by authors. All translations in the text are ours.

4. LETS is a research group in the Departmento de Investigaciones Educativas (DIE) at Cinvestav, a publically funded research center in Mexico. Group members include researchers, graduate students and classroom teachers. For the last five years, we have worked with groups of public school teachers on incorporating computers and the internet into their classrooms as well as several research projects concerning the use of technology in the social world. For more information about LETS, its history and research agenda, see http://www.lets.cinvestav.mx/Inicio.aspx.

5. Kalman, the first author, was born in California and immigrated to Mexico as a teenager. Over the last 40 years her family and professional life has been centered in Mexico where she has worked on literacy research and development projects for marginalized groups from a socio-cultural framework and the perspective of New Literacy Studies (NLS). Victor Rendón, the second author, is an active member of the LETS research team. He has recently completed his Masters degree in educational research under Kalman’s direction. He has an undergraduate degree in psychology and a keen interest in social cultural theories of learning.

6. We use the generic terms data show, spreadsheet and word processor as a way of not using the names of commercial products. However, when referring to online tools, we do refer to Google.

7. “A WebQuest is a lesson model, an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web” (http://webquest.org/).

8. From the beginning of our project, the participating teachers knew that we were conducting our research and were asked to give their consent to use data from our workshops. While she did not participate in the analysis of data directly she offered reflexive comments on our activities, group discussions, chats and emails.

9. Codes in brackets refer to data files.

10. There is no translation for fitógrafo, nor could we find it in the dictionary, but we believe that it refers to an illustrator of plants.

11. Some of the students in the gastronomy project had also copied texts, but the maps were original, and when showing their work, she did not seem fazed by this.