Crooks, Roderic N

English

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UC IrvineUC Irvine Previously Published WorksTitleThe coded schoolhouse: Tablet computers and public educationPermalinkhttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/64p704g8JournalProceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 52(1)ISSN2373-9231AuthorCrooks, Roderic NPublication Date2015DOI10.1002/pra2.2015.145052010061Copyright InformationThis work is made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, availalbe at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Peer reviewedeScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital LibraryUniversity of CaliforniaABSTRACT:Using a South Los Angeles charter school of  approximately 500 students operated by a non-profit charter management organization (CMO) as the primary field site, this two-year, ethnographic dissertation project examines the implementation of  a one-to-one tablet computer pro-gram in a public high school. This poster examines the variety of  ways that information and communication technology (ICT) functions in everyday life within the institution — including classroom instruction, school discipline, and evaluation — through qualitative methods, pri-marily class observations, photographs, and interviews with teachers, students, and administrators as the program evolved over two consec-utive school years. This project contributes needed empirical context to questions of  technological innovation in public education, providing the first-ever multi-year study of  a one-to-one tablet computer program in a California public school. References:1. Frankenberg, Erica, Siegel-Hawley, Genevieve, Wang, Jia, and Orfield, Gary. 2012. Choice Without Equity: Charter School Segregation and the Need for Civil Rights Standards. The Civil Rights Project at UCLA. http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4r07q8kg2. Cuban, Larry, Heather Kirkpatrick, and Craig Peck. 2001. “High Access and Low Use of  Technologies in High School Classrooms: Explaining an Apparent Paradox.” American Educational Research Journal 38 (4): 813–34. doi:10.3102/00028312038004813.3. Monahan, Torin, and Rodolfo D. Torres, eds. 2010. Schools under Surveillance: Cultures of  Control in Public Education. Critical Issues in Crime and Society. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press.Acknowledgments: Thank you to the reviewers and my dissertation committee.SITE DESCRIPTION:Los Angeles United Academic is a large, nonprofit char-ter organization in Los Angeles, comprised of  26 free, public high schools and middle schools that serve 11,000 low-income students. From their website: “United Ac-ademic employs the highest achievement standards and latest innovations in technology to prepare our students for success in college and future careers.”  In 2013, LAUA launched an ambitious plan to give all of  its high school students, teachers, and administrators tab-let computers and a suite of  educational apps. The pro-gram was piloted at a South Los Angeles school called Number Seven. LAUA High School Number Seven (schools are referred to by number until a donor purchases the name rights) has no cafeteria, gymnasium, or library. Number Sev-en’s 500 students are roughly 95% Latino and 5% Afri-can American: there are no white or Asian students. Like many charter schools in Southern California, Number Seven is an “intensely segregated learning environment.”1RQ1:How are the various uses of  tablets supported by social and technical networks within the institutional framework of  the school? How do decisions about the configurations of  devices and their supporting infrastructure express the inter-ests of  students, teachers, administrators, manufacturers, publishers, and the larger community?“We should all be using it more. It’s good for the kids. But most of  the time, I just don’t have time to deal with the...frustration.” --Ms. Quezada, Math“When I’m in a class and I need help, I can just grab one of  the kids and say, ‘Hector, fix this for me.’ We couldn’t do this without them.”--Ms. Tate, EnglishRQ2:What kinds of  data are generated by the use of  tablets in the school’s daily activ-ities — e.g., instruction, discipline, evaluation, surveillance — and how do such data circulate? Who may access such data and how may various stakeholders use these data? How does use of  tablets ignore, enhance, or impede existing data re-gimes?“We have new kinds of  assessments we can give that we couldn’t give before, because we just didn’t have the hardware for it. All the data is right there. Then I can see which teachers need to work more on lessons and who has been doing a good job. This tablet let’s me see everything. They [teachers] can look at it too, if  they want. “--Mr. Tustin, Administration, EnglishRQ3:How do the communities involved directly or indirectly in the daily life of  the school describe the use of  tablets vis-à-vis the central legitimating ideal of  public schooling? How do discursive regimes around public schooling and technology ad-dress the specific resources required for the iPads and their software to function?“The research shows you have to use technology to engage students. My two year-old has a tablet. I don’t want him to have an iPad, but you have to. It’s the future. If  we don’t show these kids how to use technology, they won’t be able to compete.” --Mr. Gomez, AdministrationFINDINGS: In general, the use of  tablets in the school followed the pattern observed by Cuban et al. in 2001 in a study of  one-to-one laptop programs: “high access and low use.”2 High school instruction is still an analog affair. The bulk of  the considerable amount of  largely unanticipated IT work that accompanied this one-to-one tablet program was done by a team of  student workers, STU-DENT TECHNOLOGY LEADERS (STLs), who reported spending, on average, three hours per day doing IT work. Students received no pay or class credit for this work. Recognizing that tablets were not being used much in formal instruction, school administrators issued a rule in 2015 that instructors in English and math must periodically deliver lessons on tablets via a Com-mon Core-aligned app produced by Pearson. By contrast, school administrators reported no consistent set of  barriers for the use of  tablets in testing, college applications, or discipline, add-ing to their already considerable surveillance capacity. 3This project is particularly interested in the labor that keeps the program running, the non-in-structional uses of  tablets, and the implications for technological adaptation and institutional change. The Coded Schoolhouse:Tablet Computers and Public Education Roderic N. CrooksUCLA Department of  Information Studiesrncrooks@ucla.edu/rncrooks.info

The coded schoolhouse: Tablet computers and public education

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The coded schoolhouse: Tablet computers and public education

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