Karin Wiburg

Multicultural technology integration: the winds of change amid the sands of time

Summary This case study describes how a teacher in a poor border community in southern New Mexico combined technology-based teaching strategies she had learned in a professional development grant with multicultural elements to ensure learning and equitable access to technology for her minority students.

Nuestra Tierra: A University/Public School Technology Integration Project

This article describes a two-year university/public school project to integrate technology with teaching and learning in a Southwest border school district. The research began by asking, “What would happen if teachers were fully supported in integrating technology in their classrooms; if the curriculum was culturally relevant and meaningful to students; and if the computer was used as a constructivist tool rather than an electronic workbook?” The article describes how goals were developed in alignment with these questions and how the project was collaboratively designed, implemented, and evaluated by university faculty and public school teachers and administrators. Findings demonstrated the potential of university researchers working closely with teachers in classrooms as related to changes in teaching strategies and student learning. The authors also suggest several barriers to technology integration in classrooms that may result from the current organizational structure and culture of schooling.

Initial Design Implications for Early Algebra Games

Prior to developing learning games, it is useful for game developers to assess similar games. This process is addressed through the immersion component in the Pre-Development Phase of the Learning Games Design Model. This paper describes a more structured approach to the immersion component used by one development team to analyze early algebra games, offering a framework to discuss and analyze such games. The game development team reviewed more than 20 algebra games to identify effective design components and used to inform development of a new game and related tools. Through this process, which serves to enhance the existing Learning Games Design Model, the team was able to articulate their theoretical framework for future development, identifying specific recommendations that should yield effective games.

Book Review: Electronic Collaborators: Learner-Centered Technologies for Literacy, Apprenticeship, and Discourse

This edited book provides a comprehensive discussion of a wide range of electronic tools and how each might support collaborative communication and learning in K-12 and college settings. The editors have organized the discussion around research within a five level taxonomy of computer-based conferencing [1]. In addition, each of the authors in this collaboratively written book have grounded their discussion of the use of electronic collaboration in sociocultural and constructivist learning theory and have worked to link pedagogical approaches to the affordances of the tools themselves. The book itself evolved through the collaborations of the editors and authors at Indiana University over the last five years. Early work on electronic collaboration was presented at the University in 1995 at the First Conference on ComputerSupported Collaborative Learning and has evolved since then through in the University’s Center for Educational Excellence (CEE) and the Center for Research on Learning and Technology. As a result of this collaboration, the book avoids the pitfall of many edited books, what Hsi has described as a “salad bar” approach: “There’s a little something for everyone, but the ingredients don’t necessarily fit together well” [2, p. 10]. In contrast, this book is a coherent and well-developed discussion of the use of electronic tools for learning that evolved among a community of scholars over time. On the other hand, the development of this work within one community may have limited the authors’ interpretation of sociocultural theory to a rather traditional perspective. Their writings place more emphasis on the social in sociocultural than on its cultural component. While Tharp, Wertsch, and other Neo-Vygotskian theorists are referenced frequently, the cultural focus of their work is beyond the domain of this book. Tharp’s interpretation of sociocultural theory includes sensitivity to the student’s home culture and possible conflicts between that culture and formal school settings [3]. Wertsch, Del Rio, and