value of collaborations
Bob Carlitz (bob@hamlet.phyast.pitt.edu)
Fri, 28 Mar 1997 00:38:25 -0500
I have just been re-reading Larry's provocative remarks on the
value of community networking. I think that some of the prejudices
that he exposes in his six statements can be given quite different
spins.
The pessimist: The schools waste money on technology. The politicians
interfere with everything. The community groups operate outside
of the educational spectrum.
The optimist: What counts in the effective use of technology by any
group is an adequate understanding of its potential. In this sense
any project involving technology implementation necessarily becomes
an educational project. Furthermore, since technology - and
particularly networking technology - is a potent agent for change,
successful projects involving technology implementation are agents
for educational reform.
The experience of Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh (http://www.info-ren.org/projects/ckp/)
and Bridging the Urban Landscape (http://hillhouse.ckp.edu/ and
http://www.info-ren.org/projects/btul/exhibit/exhibit.html) suggest that collaboration
is a key element in facilitating the optimistic view of community
networking. Ideally, each collaborating group does what it does best.
Libraries provide information resources; schools provide instruction;
cities provide maintenance of the infrastructure.
If one seeks to create this ideal, one has to be prepared for the
fireworks that occur when different cultures and different political
agendas collide. It may be impossible to create formal alliances
between school districts and units of government which compete for
tax dollars with these school districts.
The beauty of networking is that it doesn't require top-level
approval of every single message that traverses the network. As
a result, the people in the collaborating organizations who actually
get the work done on a day to day basis are free to use the
network for effective collaboration even if this is not totally
in accord with the political rules of the day.
Many of us have observed the "subversive" power of networking in
the school environment. Students and teachers can go directly
to information sources without asking for permission at each step
of the way. Here in Pittsburgh the growth of school networking
has occurred from the bottom up. Teachers and students understand
the potential of the network and use it effectively and regularly.
Mid-level administrators have followed the lead of the teachers
and are slowly adapting to the use of the technology. And at the
top of the administrative ladder, while technology implementation
may be met with an approving nod, there may be little real
understanding and little actual use.
If this was the end of the story, this would be the end of the
school district's use of technology. But through community
collaborations, new forces emerge to assure that network resources
will remain available in the district. Through these
collaborations, networking becomes more than a subversive activity
practiced by students and teachers who can get away with it.
As parents and community groups become knowledgeable about the
technology, they begin to seek it out at the school level. Principals
learn that both parents and teachers support this effort, and they,
too, begin to support it. More importantly, they begin to use
the technology themselves to communicate with these groups, which
play an important role in neighborhood politics.
This is a level where the political interests of the school
district and the city merge. Neighborhood needs unite groups
which might feud of issues of taxation on the larger scale.
There is a dynamic here, which we have seen begin to develop in
Pittsburgh schools which are participating in Common Knowledge:
Pittsburgh. It promises a stable networking environment and
long-term support of networking infrastructure.
The context of this evolving community partnership is one
well-attuned to the needs and practice of educational reform.
Bob Carlitz