What does Motivated Mean? Middle School Technologies and Technology in Middle School

A methodological experiment, a poesis of talk, of weak theory (Sedgwick, 1997), of paying attention and spacing out (Stewart, 2005), a sideways move in educational research drawing heavily on the diffuse field of new ethnography (Goodall, 2000) and new ethnographic writing. The data, dialogue, conjecture, and findings are based on two iterations of observations at a South Central US middle school implementing a computer-based space-science curriculum called Alien 911!.

Transcript

1. What does Motivated Mean? Middle School Technologies and Technology in Middle School Justin Olmanson University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
2. The following is taken from two days of observations at a middle school in the South Central US where teachers were implementing a computer-based space science curriculum.
3. The writing not unlike a methodological experiment that traces as well as perform the way things flash up and circulate, dive into and drown in tangles of inter-implication.
4. Much like a wayfaring tourist, this ethnopoetic approach performs a careening past ‘attractions/findings’ in favor of flailing, multiplicious, and muted, weakly theoretical moments –performing the haptic, affective, empty and overloaded ways things came together, didn’t, or might have (Stewart, 2008).
5. “Ten minutes after passing my comprehensive examinations –during which I argued for applying ethnographic and New Ethnographic Writing approaches to research on technology in education, my advisor asked me to spend a few days observing middle school students using the Alien 911 application she created.”
11. This is a methodological experiment, a poesis of talk, of weak theory (Sedgwick, 1997), of paying attention and spacing out (Stewart, 2005), a sideways move in educational research drawing heavily on the diffuse field of new ethnography (Goodall, 2000) and new ethnographic writing. The data, dialogue, conjecture, and findings are based on two iterations of observations at a South Central US middle school implementing a computer- based space-science curriculum called Alien 911!. A version of educational research which traces, and performs (Pollock, 2006) the way things flash up and circulate, dive into and drown in tangles of attribution, and inter-implication. The experiment attempts to demonstrate a kind of writing and research which lingers within the ethnopoetic re- presentation crafted out of fieldnotes, conversations, and interviews. In doing so we hope to create moments of engagement which leave readers with respect for the interpretational polysemy and at times, illegibility, common to classroom-based research contexts and infused with circulating local, historic, academic, and social discourses (Stewart, 2008). In this article we use new ethnographic writing and new ethnography as a way of analyzing and re-presenting observations, interviews, archival research, and artifacts. Our findings trace, and perform (Pollock, 2006) the press of social and societal forces that flash up, circulate among, and collide with curricular goals, learning outcomes, motivational trajectories, teacher expectations, and technological tools. 1
12. Under-Review Manuscript Available Upon Request: olmansju@gmail.com 1
13. Select References Alien 911!- Research -. . (2008). Alien 911! - Research - . Retrieved October 21, 2008, from http://www.edb.utexas.edu/alienrescue/research.php . Pollock, D. (2006). Marking New Directions in Performance Ethnography. Text and Performance Quarterly, 26(4), 325-329. Stewart, K. (1996). A Space on the Side of the Road: Cultural Poetics in an "other" America (p. 243). Princeton: Princeton University Press. Stewart, K. (2008). Weak Theory in an Unfinished World. Journal of Folklore Research, 45(1), 71-82.
14. What does Motivated Mean? Middle School Technologies and Technology in Middle School Justin Olmanson University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
15. Acknowledgements The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305B110008 to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education.
16. What does Motivated Mean? Middle School Technologies and Technology in Middle School Justin Olmanson University of Illinois Urbana Champaign