Magda, Good to hear about your research interests. At the risk of being self-promoting, you may want to have a look at my two most recent books, one on laptop programs in school (Laptops and Literacy) and one on approaches to attacking the digital divide (Technology and Social Inclusion).
I personally am very interested in the way that social context shapes the use of technology in learning. In that sense, I think some kind of comparative or multi-site case study that looks that the implementation of an OLPC project in 2+ sites or countries could be very interesting. Issues in this kind of study to look at could include how national or local educational policy, social context of instruction, teacher background and beliefs, educational goals, student characteristics, etc. shape how the implementation, teaching and learning processes, and outcomes in diverse contexts. I received a recent small grant to investigate an OLPC site in Mexico. A graduate student of mine is working on it and the study is in early planning (if anyone has any suggestions of contacts in Mexico regarding laptop-intensive education there, let me know.) Mark >Dear collegues, > >I've been reading with great interests your posts in the latest >months and now I'd like you to ask your opinion about a topic that >is going to be an important part of my research. > >I am doing my PhD in Italy with a project on the Digital divide from >the point of view of Education. I am studying how can education >reduce the DD with media literacy and how teachers can help children >to achieve a good level of the so-called "digital skills", to access >ICT and Internet and to produce development. > >Now, this year I will follow a field research in a primary school >where teachers are going to introduce the OLPC laptop as a tool in >their method of theaching. Then, in the new year I'd like to compare >the results to another area of the world (I'm thinking of Buenos >Ayres, Argentina). > >I'm asking to you all what you think - out of any preconcept that I >might share - about the initiative of OLPC in the world (if it is a >goof initiave or not and why) and which aspect would you stress in a >field research like this one (e.g. skills of the teacher, >self-learning of the child, creativity and flexibility of the >project, etc.). > >I will appreciate very much your help. >Thank you! > >Magda Pischetola > >__________________________________________________ >Do You Yahoo!? >Poco spazio e tanto spam? Yahoo! Mail ti protegge dallo spam e ti da >tanto spazio gratuito per i tuoi file e i messaggi >http://mail.yahoo.it >_______________________________________________ >DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list >DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net >http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide >To unsubscribe, send a message to >[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in >the body of the message. -- Mark Warschauer Professor of Education and Informatics University of California, Irvine Berkeley Place 2001 (for mail); Berkeley Place 3000 (for visitors) Irvine, CA 92697-5500 tel: (949) 824-2526, fax: (949) 824-2965 [EMAIL PROTECTED]; http://www.gse.uci.edu/markw _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
