Panel: Education and Youth

Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, East Palo Alto has not shared in the high-tech boom that has transformed neighboring communities over the past decades. Plugged In, a non-profit organization established in 1992, helps bridge the gap by bringing the benefits of computer and communications technologies to the entire community.

Plugged In has helped to provide East Palo Alto organizations and families with access to computer technology, serving as a nationally recognized model for connecting low-income communities with the information economy. Community members of all ages use state-of-the art computers to do online research, work on resumes, complete homework assignments, or participate in one of 30 classes offered in partnership with local agencies.

East Palo Alto is one of the most diverse communities in the country. The city has maintained its unique rural heritage and a strong sense of community. At the same time, East Palo Alto faces a number of serious economic challenges:

Low education levels, combined with too few local jobs, require most residents to commute to low-paying jobs outside of the community.

National studies show that computer skills are an important prerequisite for economic success. East Palo Alto residents need access to computer training, but few can afford it. To address this challenge, Plugged In has developed a broad range of computer-related services.

* Entrepreneurial programs that help local teens start computer-related businesses.

Each week, hundreds of community members take advantage of Plugged In's services. Our youngest student is five years old, our oldest is 75. Through partnerships with 15 community agencies, we provide services for diverse segments of our community.

In addition to drop-in time, we offer a wide range of classes, including basic computer instruction, English as a Second Language courses, and collaborative projects that stress team work, creativity and critical thinking. Recently, Plugged In spawned Plugged In Enterprises, the first in a series of programs in which teens create Internet-related businesses. With financial support from the Department of Commerce, Plugged In launched epa.net, a collaborative effort which helps families and businesses get connected to the Internet. Finally, Plugged In supports similar community computing programs throughout the country through an internship program and information posted on our Web site.

On Saturday, March 9th, 1996, volunteers filled California schools to wire them for Internet access. As many as 150 volunteers showed up at some schools. It was a high-visibility event--even the president and vice president of the United States joined in: "Donning electrician's gloves and hopping on a ladder, President Clinton joined the cyberspace revolution Saturday as he worked with Vice President Al Gore to install about 70 feet of pink, white and blue conduit at a Contra Costa County high school," wrote the San Jose Mercury News. The organizers of the event, dubbed "Net Day", reported that over 18,000 volunteers participated.

The day after Net Day, teachers were left with questions: now what? What exactly are we supposed to do in our classrooms with this new technology? Contrast the utopian hype surrounding Net Day to this letter to the editor published in The Boston Globe a few months later:

"Massachusetts schools should consider themselves fortunate to be in 48th place ("A Net gain for schools," editorial, May 28). Having just spent more than two frustrating weeks trying to get on and use the Net, I can assure teachers that it is one of the greatest wastes of time ever foistered upon the public. Not only is it hard to find the place you're looking for, but when you finally get there the information you hoped to find is not available or of limited value. The main purpose seems to be to amuse browsers who have unlimited time with sluggishly transmitted, cute pictures and endless alternatives to "click on." The only benefactors from wiring up the schools will be equipment sellers, installers, and the inevitable service providers" (The Boston Globe, June 6th, 1996).

The positive and negative hype are equally comic. The letter's author has little idea how one might use the Internet in an educational setting. However, in a sense, no one does--the possibilities are still being explored. In the popular press and the popular imagination, The Net functions largely as a symbol. In the positive hype: "The Net is the future. The Net is progress. If your child is using The Net, then he or she is part of the future; your child will be a success." In the negative hype: "The Net is Technology. Technology has cheated us before and is trying to cheat us again. Technology will bring us no real benefits. The Net is not just a waste of time and resources--it is diverting us from the core values that really matter." In the past, other technologies have played this symbolic role. In the 1980s, computers in general tended to symbolize the future; in the mid-1990s, people are more likely to use the Net as that symbol. The role of symbolizing the future is constantly migrating to a newer technology. If The Net functions as a symbol, Children function as an even more powerful symbol: "Children are the future. Children are innocent, pure, and impressionable." The combination of these two symbols, Children using The Net, is a cultural powder keg. When people debate the issue they are often really debating their hopes and fears for the future--their personal future as well as the future of our society. The reality, the real things people are doing in classrooms with children and net connections, is much more pedestrian.

One common mistake is to think of The Net as one thing. Students and educators use computer networks in a wide variety of ways. Each approach is rooted in different educational traditions. Broadly speaking, you can put educational uses of the net in four categories: distance education, information retrieval, knowledge-building communities, and technological samba schools (See Table 1). As we move from approach I to IV, the emphasis shifts from information to ways of knowing, and there is an increasing emphasis on community. There is also a shift from more curriculum-centered approaches to student-centered approaches.

I. Distance Education

TRADITION: Instructionism

EXAMPLES: The Open University

IBM in China

Diversity University

II. Information Retrieval

TRADITION: Exploratory Learning

EXAMPLES: Net surfing

Research projects

III. Knowledge-Building Communities

TRADITION: Collaborative Learning

EXAMPLES: Global Science

CSILE

Professional Communities

Computers & Writing

IV. Technological Samba School

TRADITION: Constructionism

EXAMPLES: MicroMUSE

Pueblo

MOOSE Crossing

In this talk, I will focus on the fourth category. In Mindstorms, Seymour Papert has a vision of a "technological samba school." At samba schools in Brazil, a community of people of all ages gather together to prepare a presentation for carnival. "Members of the school range in age from children to grandparents and in ability from novice to professional. But they dance together and as they dance everyone is learning and teaching as well as dancing. Even the stars are there to learn their difficult parts" (Mindstorms, Seymour Papert, 1980) . People go to samba schools not just to work on their presentations, but also to socialize and be with one another. Learning is spontaneous, self-motivated, and richly connected to popular culture. Papert imagines a kind of technological samba school where people of all ages gather together to work on creative projects using computers. Papert was of course imagining a technological samba school to be a physical place. However, virtual places (and composite real and virtual places) can be used to create such a community. The MOOSE Crossing project is an attempt to realize that vision. The broader point is that the Internet can be used not just as a conduit for information, but as a context for learning through community-supported collaborative construction.