Papers in PDF format

Creating Educational Webmasters: Cyberhood Cooperative Learning
Project
Dr. Joseph Bowman, Jr., Assistant Professor,
Department of Educational Theory and Practice
University at Albany, SUNY
Center for Urban Youth and Technology
ED114B, School of Education
1400 Washington Avenue
Albany, New York 12222
518-442-4987-office, 518-442-5008-fax
jb219@columbia.edu
The Internet and the World Wide Web are vehicles to empower human expression, educational development,
social change. The concern is how to train and prepare educators and students to use this powerful hypermedia
resource. The Center for Urban Youth and Technology (CUYT), in the Department of Educational Theory and
Practice, School of Education at the University at Albany, SUNY, New York has been researching the
relationship between technology and learning environments in education for several years. The Cyberhood
Cooperative Learning Project (CCLP) focused on developing teacher Internet skills for classroom instruction
and provided the foundation for teachers to become web designers.
Theoretical Basis for this Research
This researcher has spent several years designing technology based programs in urban settings and researching
how the use of technology can improve education and quality of life concerns in these communities. Several
researchers and national reports on education and economics in urban centers have expressed these concerns in
greater detail. [Kretzmann and McKnight 1993] contend that,
No one can doubt that most American cities these days are deeply troubled places. At the root of the
problems are the massive economic shifts that have marked the last two decades. In effect, these
shifts in the economy, and particularly the disappearance of decent employment possibilities from
low-income neighborhoods, have removed the bottom rung from the fabled American “ladder of
opportunity.” For many people in older city neighborhoods, new approaches to rebuilding their lives
and communities, new openings toward opportunity, are a vital necessity.”
It is against this backdrop that I looked at constructionism as one philosophy and mindset that can stimulate
change and reform using technology in urban communities. [Papert 1991] provides further clarification when
he provides a distinction between constructivism and constructionism. He states:
“We understand “constructionism” as including, but going beyond, what Piaget would call
constructivism.” The word with the v expresses the theory that knowledge is build by the learner, not
supplied by the teacher. The work with the n expresses the further idea that this happens especially
felicitously when the learner is engaged in the construction of something external or at least
shareable... a sand castle, a machine, a computer program, a book.”
I have tried to integrate these concepts because they complement each other and provide a strong research
foundation for the work that I am doing with technology and urban centers. I have also extended the
constructionist view by including the notion of social construuctionism. [Shaw 1994] contends,
“To social constructionism, the social setting itself is a evolving construction. When the members of a
social setting develop external and shared social constructs, they engage the setting in a cycle of
development that is critical to determining the setting’s ultimate form.”