NOTE: This version of GOLDMAN V1N7 is a revision of the article as it was originally published in the _Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture_, V1N7. The original version is no longer available. The Arachnet Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture __________________________________________________________________ ISSN 1068-5723 November 30, 1993 Volume 1 Issue 7 GOLDMAN V1N7 THE GROWTH OF A MULTIMEDIA SCHOOL CULTURE: A MULTI- VOICED NARRATIVE Ricki Goldman-Seagall University of British Columbia ricki@unixg.ubc.ca Ted Riecken University of Victoria Amber Adams Kelli Dianne Taaffe John Isles Wendy Van Osterhout Imagine, if you will, that you are entering into a conceptual galaxy with groupings of constellations within your reach. Each constellation contains digital images, text, or sound authored by various members of our community. You may want to visit one of these constellations to find out more about the growth of a technology-rich culture at the Bayside Middle School on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. Our story is not laid out as a linear exposition; instead, it can be read according to the interest of the reader. Authors of diverse ages- students, teachers, and researchers working collaboratively- have added their views for you, the reader. We welcome you to the Bayside's public debut told in an experimental format that will demonstrate the potential of these electronic media. We look forward to the day when we will be able to include the complete video portraits and case studies that we are composing. Table of Contents Constellation 1: Cultural Accounts Constellation 2: Background to Research at the Bayside Middle School Constellation 3: Journey to the Bayside School Constellation 4: Student Project: "Welcome to Bayside Middle School" Constellation 5: A Visit to Joe's Class Constellation 6: Why Narrative Descriptions? Why Multi- Voiced? Constellation 1: Cultural Accounts Author: Ricki Goldman-Segall Culture is what we create not what we inherit. We construct virtual cultures when our means of communication include electronic media. This is not to say that the virtual culture only lives in cyberspace. Rather, our constructed communities live within and around the relationships we form by moving within an electronic space that connects us with others. Virtual cultures extend, rather than exclude, our physical contact with each other. In the culture to be described to you, young adults and adults in a technologically-rich middle school classroom describe the building of their school's culture through their multimedia project called "Welcome to Bayside Middle School" (which is excerpted in Constellation 4 of this report). Educational ethnographers, Goldman-Segall and Riecken, guide you through the physical and social spaces. They describe what they observed in the first year's operation of a new "high-tech" school. They also describe how the common culture is growing as young people and adults share perspectives. The young people are as deeply engaged in conducting ethnographic accounts as are the faculty researchers. Understanding the qualities of our human condition in the places we live, study, and work is at the core of the young people's HyperCard Project. Young people have interviewed members of the culture using video and audio recording, and notetaking; they have visited members of the local community to deepen their understanding of how the construction of the school became a municipal concern; and they have gone on field trips to surrounding sites to gain an overview of their environment. All these experiences were recorded and brought into their hypermedia study of their own culture. In short, they have begun to use multimedia qualitative research methods to study their school culture. The problem facing these young qualitative researchers using new electronic approaches is that same problem facing all qualitative researchers. There is a polarization between those who believe that research must be "objective" if we are to take it to be true, and those who claim that we can only see the world from our own lenses and therefore our empirical reality can only be a subjective construction; i.e. there is no Truth. Jerome Bruner (1986) maintains that knowledge does not live in the text but the text is loosened in the mind of the reader. However, knowledge is also constructed by those who "produce" artifacts whether they be works of art, music, scientific claims, or cuisine, as Elliot Eisner (1993) and others who love culinary delights maintain. There is a dance or an interaction that is happening between authors of texts and readers. In Geertz's Works and Lives (1988), he moves away from his previously held belief that the "thick description" of an event leads the reader closer to the real meaning or intention (1973). In fact, he focuses more upon the role of the author of the text. He cites a range of anthropological writers and shows how their power to persuade us has much to do with the social climate and the inner life of the author, rather than being a representation of an external and "objective" view of what is seen. Not only are data being interpreted as they are categorized; the researcher is making interpretive selections at each phase of the project. The author's "voice" influences the collection, selection, interpretation, and representation of the data. If voice is always present, then how can we ever generalize to similar situations and contexts? Must we reinvent the wheel over and over again? We believe that answers to these questions may be addressed in experimental formats such as these with greater clarity. We can bring you, the reader, a range of voices that demonstrate how validity is built into a study through inclusion of diverse points of view. In fact, by keeping journals open to those we study and by encouraging them to include their ideas as layers over ours, interpretations become layered and more valid (Goldman-Segall, 1990, 1993). We hope that this electronic article is the first of many new virtual Forms of Representation (Eisner, 1992). Moreover, we hope that this method of representation will provide you with a sense of "being there"; that is, that your version of what is happening in a semi-rural school on Vancouver Island dovetails with our experience of our new home for research and learning. Our purpose at this early stage of our longitudinal study is not to present results and conclusions, but to "point to an emotion that is around the corner" as writer Margaret Atwood stated about her method of writing prose (1992). Our intention is to capture the hermeneutical tone of this new culture. To do so, we look around or to the side of the events we record, like one would do when star-gazing. The action itself does not contain the whole meaning. The lurking intentionality that lives "around the corner" is what we want to bring to light. We gaze around the action and then describe it in a way that provides the reader with the context and the atmosphere surrounding the event. Constellation 2: Background to the Research at the Bayside Middle School Author: Ted Riecken The Network Expands Serendipity: "The faculty of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident." (Oxford English Dictionary) Two years ago I had proposed action research as a model for inquiry at Bayside Middle School because I thought it could fulfill the dual purposes of a staff development/in- service model while allowing the University of Victoria (UVic) research team, including Leslie Francis-Pelton, a researcher in secondary Mathematics Education, and Pierce Sarragher, a researcher in secondary Science Education, to gather data that were of interest to our own research agendas. I believe that action research served those purposes quite nicely, but felt it was time to move on to what seemed to be the next logical stage of the project looking at what students were doing with the exceptionally rich technological environment they had available to them. In the fall of 1992, the staff and students of Mount Newton Middle School moved into their new building fully equipped with computer labs and computers in many of the classrooms. The students and staff have chosen the name "Bayside Middle School" for their new school. I looked forward to the fall of 1992 as a chance to get into the new setting and do some research about a number of factors related to the use of computers in schools. One of the questions I had in mind was simply "What happens to a group of students when you immerse them in a technologically rich environment?" I was interested in looking at what sort of learning opportunities there were, and documenting the kinds of learning that emerge when students and their teachers have access to a wide range of computer based technology. Although the research team at UVic hoped the transition to the new site would be smooth, the messages we were getting from the vice-principal, Kevin Elder indicated that there were some relocation problems. I was looking at the signs and symptoms that characterize many cultures who have undergone relocation (As I write this, I am reminded of the Ik of Uganda, Natives in residential schools, and Inuit in the eastern Arctic.). My own conviction is that schools represent individual cultural entities that are both resilient (look in almost any classroom for a glimpse of 19th century models of pedagogy) and fragile (witness the difficulty that Mt. Newton staff and students are having in "becoming" Bayside). The question I was confronted with throughout this period of transition for us all was how to report to others the process of growth and change that I was observing. In November of 1992, I dropped into Ricki Goldman- Segall's presentation at our local Computer Users in Education (CUE'BC) Horizon conference in Vancouver to see what she was doing with video data and computers. Ricki is a faculty member in the Department of Mathematics and Science Education who studied with Seymour Papert at MIT. She conducts cultural studies of computer use and uses a combination of computer and video technologies, with ethnographic research methods to gather and analyze data about school cultures. As part of her talk, she presented the audience with rich, personal portraits of the children who were using computers in Boston's Hennigan School, the site of her doctoral research. These portraits were not the simple snippets of ethnographic narrative, that one has come to expect from presentations of ethnographic research. They were multimedia portraits that could be viewed from many different perspectives. Just as one picks up an artifact and examines it from different angles, in different lights, and from different frames of mind, one could view Ricki's video ethnographies, and then search, and sort, and sift, and theorize. I sat through the session, half listening, and half thinking of the tremendous potential that Ricki's methodology held for research at Bayside. I don't remember at exactly what point I decided this was it, but before the session was over, I knew that this was the technique I wanted to use at Bayside. After the session, I asked Ricki if she would be interested in coming to UVic to give a presentation on the latest version of Learning Constellations, her multimedia tool for video data analysis. During one of the phone calls in which we were arranging the visit, I asked Ricki if she would be interested in seeing the school. I don't know why, but I was almost surprised when she said she would love to see Bayside. For some reason, I thought that asking her to visit Bayside would be something of an imposition on her time. So, I almost didn't ask! Constellation 3: Journey to the Bayside School Author: Ricki Goldman-Segall I sat on the ferry from Tsawwassen to Vancouver Island thinking about the school I was going to visit. Yes, I knew it would be new with "state-of-the-art" technology. I also knew that the teachers were not "high-tech" specialists; the teachers had previously taught at the "old" Mt. Newton Junior High School. Researchers from University of Victoria and the Educational Technology Center had been working with these teachers over the past three years, while the physical manifestation--the school--was still a twinkle in the eyes of the community. The Spirit of British Columbia wove its slow path through Active Pass. A young girl on a school trip sat beside me, telling me her life story. One forgets how reflective a young woman of thirteen can be when she encounters an interested stranger. Yes, I would be the "stranger" in the school, the "other." What would the children of Bayside want to tell me about their lives? How would I tell their story so others would be able to read, hear, and see what life is like for the children in a semi-rural Canadian community on an island jutting out into the Pacific Ocean? Would emerging technologies help me share with others the texture of life at the Bayside Middle School? Later that day, Kelli, a student in the school, uses my portable computer to write the following about what I have written (I have decided to make my notes available to those I am researching. Nothing is hidden.). The layers begin to form... * * *Kelli writes: I love your work so far. It's so true. The only thing I would change would be if you called us young adults instead of children.* * * As I made the appropriate right and left turns from the ferry dock along hilly country roads spotted with farmlands, horses, and large evergreens outlining the sky with wispy dark triangular designs, I thought back to my last research site, the Hennigan School in a Boston inner- city community called Jamaica Plains. I remembered the fear of walking the two blocks from the bus. I remembered the red and black graffiti covering the low gray concrete building where parents would drop off their children for seven hours a day. Schools are schools, I thought to myself as I watched the seagulls following the ferry's waves. I drove up the long driveway toward a neo-classical Greek style structure standing creamy white amongst a large encircling forest of evergreens. It was a sunny, warm day in a rather gloomy and rainy Pacific Northwest spring. Children were meandering outside in spite of the fact that scheduled classes were in session. Some were returning from an outdoor activity with their teachers; others were sitting with pen and paper writing, talking, or relaxing in the sun. After a month of rain and clouds, some fresh air and sunshine was probably a good idea (I was used to seeing children herded in lines to their classrooms and yelled at to keep quiet until they reached their classrooms.). I asked myself, where are the teachers? Granted, this is not an elementary school, but the mood exhibited by their languid body movements suggested that something different was happening for the young people at the Bayside Middle School. What gave these young people so much comfort and confidence? Did they know or sense the extent to which adults had worked to build a learning environment for them? Did this sense of comfort have to do with the fact that these young people come from a semi-rural community? Is life just slower here and therefore it looks relaxed to my harried city eyes? The thought of getting to know these young people and their teachers seemed as much a challenge to my "citified" being as did trying to find ways to understand the racially and ethnically diverse school populations in Boston. New places; new challenges. It is somewhat rare for educational researchers to describe what life in our semi-rural communities is like for young persons. Tom Barone's ethnographic account of the Appalachian community in North Carolina stands out as an exemplar (1983). However, Barone did not conduct a longitudinal study and did not focus on the use of emerging technologies. Stereotypically, we urbanized researchers have labeled rural communities as being less technologically advanced. We think it is the cities where young people and "high tech" interact in their homes, in the schools, and in the malls where children encounter video games and other virtual adventures. To date, when advanced technologies are brought into schools, these schools are mostly in very affluent or extremely poor urban communities. What has not been studied in depth is the integration of advanced computer related technologies in the semi-rural setting. What do we learn about young people's diverse approaches to designing and using technological tools in what appears, at first glance, to be a homogeneous group of children who are more interested in horses than computers? What differences emerge? How do gender differences among semi-rural children affect both the process of becoming computer literate and the products they create? Walking into the bright airy corridors with children's art covering every possible blank space along the upper half of the walls, I was again struck by the openness of the physical space. Smells of sweet baking led me to a kitchen-like classroom with teenage girls and boys baking. Girls and boys were also busy in what we used to refer to as "Shops" or Industrial Arts. In British Columbia, girls and boys are assigned to these non-core courses. The disadvantage is clear. There is less choice for those who don't want to take a given "elective." On the other hand, both girls and boys get to try on new roles (This seems more equitable than it used to be in my school days in Winnipeg. In the early 60's, boys took Shops and girls took Home Economics, a fancy name for what we did, which was bake, cook, and sew.). I met Ted Riecken, my colleague from the University of Victoria, in the school office. A twelve-year-old boy stood behind the traditional school counter greeting me with his wide teenage smile. Constellation 4: Student Projects: "Welcome to Bayside Middle School" To see a short excerpt from the "Welcome to the Bayside Middle School" HyperCard Project which was co-ordinated by classroom teacher, Joe Grewal, and UVic graduate student, Amanda Thompson, and built by Roger Milner, Darcy Anderson, Amber Adams, Kelli Dianne Taaffe, please access the following anonymous FTP file. *Details to follow.* This excerpt is designed merely to introduce the user to the possibility of the use of Learning Constellations as a multimedia qualitative tool for understanding and documenting the virtual classroom experience. The excerpt is also approximately 2 meg in size. The entire project is 160 meg and will be available on CD-ROM. Please contact Goldman-Segall or Riecken for a disk. Constellation 5: A Visit to Joe Grewal's Class Author: Ricki Goldman-Segall I hadn't finished drinking my sparking mineral water when it was time to visit Joe Grewal's class for the afternoon. I sealed and stored the drink into my purse while walking into the room. Needless to say, the first thing I noticed was that Joe, wearing shorts and a sweatshirt, was sitting cross-legged on a table drinking a bottle of sparkling mineral water and eating his sandwich. He was explaining an assignment to the young adults in his class. He later explained that he had just come from gym class and had had no time to eat lunch. I guess he felt that I needed this explanation. After all, how many times have any of us been in a class where the teacher was eating a sandwich? Schools are schools? Maybe not. Maybe this one is more interested in community than regimentation and "management", I thought. Joe's eating a sandwich and beverage is not the only sign that this class is not typical of most classes, even of classes in the same school. Joe's class feels like a community, rather than the typical classroom we think of when talking about schools. Tables are drawn together so that the students can work in groups; they do quite a bit of group work. They sit in clusters of four or five with their desks touching. One feels space rather than clutter. Joe's desk is tucked away in a corner beside huge windows overlooking the forest and outdoor space suggesting that he, too, is permitted to have private thoughts in a public space. Joe's desk does not command authority in the traditional way. The young adults appear to be in charge of their community. Each class has a door to the outdoors which facilitates easy access to outdoor activities and easy evacuation (One spring day, the open doors invited several children to conduct their video interviews on a bench in the sun; another day I witnessed an earthquake drill where children and teachers met outside in a matter of minutes.). Having doors in each classroom contributes to the feeling that the classroom is a home and not a guarded enclosure. Could schools in urban communities have open doors and open playgrounds? Would teachers and children feel safe from violent acts in this type of open architecture? Is the attitude towards safety another difference worth exploring as I watch the growth of this computer culture? How is violence addressed in this kind of setting? Computers are placed on low tables along the sides of the room. A small adjoining lab of about six to eight feet wide and running the length of the classroom connects Joe's classroom to his colleague's classroom. Glass walls from desk level to ceiling give this lab not only space but a unique connection to the activity within the classroom; they also create a sense of sound privacy (In fact, sitting in Joe's class one can see into the adjacent classroom. Perhaps this is why Joe's colleague hung posters on the glass walls. As she is not a computer user, the glass walls are not useful to her and her class.). In this lab, there are several computers and video workstations and room for about five or six people. The HyperCard projects are designed in this lab. This is not the only computer lab space. Each pod in the school has its own computer lab with a computer for each person in the class. The school is divided into four main pods: North, South, East, and West. Joe's class is in the East Pod. The vice- principal has worked hard to build a sense of solidarity among the members of pods. Classes within a given pod share common activities and compete in sports activities as a group. As an outsider, I think of the pods as being small schools within the school. A nice transition from the sheltering atmosphere of elementary school; a precursor to high school. The lesson continues. Joe has finished his sandwich. His voice is gentle, warm, and almost inaudible as he speaks to his class. * * * Jon and Wendy write: Mr. Grewal does yell a lot and his voice is as gental as a donkey! (May 21, 1993) * * * Joe's voice blends into the sounds of the rustling of shoes, paper moving, and the scraping clicks of chairs as the students move from one position to the next. Joe seems to be everywhere, even when he is not in the classroom. At the same time, his presence does not appear to rule the class. Someone is always moving or working on one of the current projects. The movements in the class are fluid, comfortable, and without fear. No one looks to Joe for approval when they move or talk. Shoulders are low; heads shifting from side to side; arms active, engaged; and even the legs of the students seem to fold in soft angles. Moving and talking are part of the rhythm of the class. In fact, many local activities seem to be going on, even when Joe is giving his instructions for a particular assignment. As I watch Joe and the young people, I am once again struck by the level of engagement. Jan, Amber, Heather, Kelli, and others find ways of weaving in and out of each other's thoughts. I wonder how much of this has to do with the presence of computers and how much has to do with Joe's teaching style. Does it have anything to do with the fact that Joe's Master's thesis was on using multimedia to teach science? Nature or nurture; environmental opportunities or education? Does it have to do with the fact that we are not in a city? * * * Dear Ricki, I love your computer, it's "way cool". Well, I guess I have to write something about your notes so... I found your notes very interesting, the were deep, way deep! They went straight to the heart. Your words were very descriptive. DID YOU oops Did you like our carnival? I did, but they got a little to much cotton candy (but it did get me hyper!!!!!!) anyways back to my note. Well I think thats about all, but the rest of it was totally awsome!!! Love, Kelli Dianne Taaffe Age 13, on May 21,1993 At Bayside Middle School* * * * * * Ricki, I really enjoyed your, what should I call it, Story? Anyway I enjoyed it. I liked the constructive critisisum and of course, the good comments. It was neat how you made Mr. Grewal-or "Joe"- acculy sound like a nice man (just kidding). I'm quite a nosy person, so I like to hear about other peoples lives. This could also be helpful towards our Bayside Multimedia project. I don't know what else to write about so I'll be seeing you soon? From Amber Adams May 21,1993 ** * Constellation 6: Why Narrative Descriptions? Why Multi- Voiced? Author: Ricki Goldman-Segall The history of Western Civilization is based upon the belief in linear thinking. According to Edward E. Sampson (1986), before the Enlightenment, it was the men of religion who articulated the rules governing human behavior to the men in charge of the state or the kingdoms. "The tasks of mastery over nature demand a kind of patriarchal and commanding relationship between people and nature that fosters an instrumental process of reasoning and thinking; that is, reasoning is employed as an instrument or tool designed to accomplish the ends of greater control over a particular phenomenon" (Sampson, 1986, p. 27). Thinking about thinking in ways which categorize knowledge linearly has led to an epistemological view supporting the existence of levels or stages of knowledge. Carol Gilligan (1982), among others, suggests that there is a "different voice" as powerful in its origins throughout the last few thousand years as the hierarchical one. To describe the narrative part of this voice, one needs to think about human thinking before what Illich and Sanders (1989) refer to as, "the book," to a period of pre-literate thinking. In sharp contrast to the linear and causal mode of thinking is the narrative mode. To think about the "unfolding" of the narrative, Illich and Sanders take their readers back to the thinking of Plato: "Prior to history, Plato says, there is a narrative that unfolds, not in accordance with the rules of art and knowledge, but out of divine enthusiasm and deep emotion. ... In this truly oral culture, before phonetic writing, there can be no words and therefore no text, no original, to which tradition can refer, no subject matter that can be passed on. A new rendering is never just a new version, but always a new song" (Illich and Sanders, 1989, p. 4). Seymour Papert (1990) and others at MIT (Goldman-Segall, 1990; Harel & Papert, 1991; Resnick, 1991) address this issue by encouraging the creation of learning environments wherein individuals with diverse styles of thinking can have equal opportunity to the tools they need to build their own (micro)worlds. It was this belief in the importance of exploring the growth of learning cultures in the context of new technologies which led to the implementation of Project Headlight at the Hennigan School. My work at the Hennigan sought to find methods of articulating these epistemological styles by using multimedia ethnographic tools that create non-linear portraits (1989; 1991a; & 1992.). My work at the Bayside will deepen and validate the research methodology and tools I developed by working with others at each stage of the research process. Creating collaborative virtual communities is a theme I have pursued for several years in my work as a multimedia ethnographer (Goldman-Segall, 1992). Although in its infancy, journals that are electronic point the way for a deeper rigor in scholarship. Eventually, we will share our data and build theories together. Negotiated conclusions will be the final products of these collaborative on-line endeavors. CLOSING VOICES Authors: Ted Riecken and Ricki Goldman-Segall Ted: Ricki, in multimedia ethnography, the ethnographer usually determines which actions are captured by the video camera. The raw video footage is thus a record of what interested the ethnographer at the time of the recording. In recording classroom life, the ethnographer engages in a conscious yet instantaneous selection of material for the ethnography. Ricki: I agree. This leads to the central problem in achieving validity. To build valid interpretations about subtle events, we may need more sophisticated tools for sharing with others what we recorded. Then we can negotiate our interpretations to reach triangulated conclusions. These layers of weighted descriptions will lead us toward more reliable conclusions. Ted: Text is used by the ethnographer both as a means of collecting data and expressing the meaning that one ascribes to that data. Until recently, the results of ethnographic study were communicated almost exclusively via text. Isn't this limiting our understanding of what REALLY happened? Ricki: Yes. There is a classic American case about a young Black male teenager who answers the police officer's question, "Did you kill the storekeeper" by saying, " I, I killed the storekeeper." However, what he said was a rhetorical question, "I??? I KILLED the storekeeper???" indicating that he was insulted and shocked that he could be accused. What got recorded in text was that the young man had admitted guilt. The video report of this interview would have led us to interpret the words differently. Ted: In the postmodern world, traditional ethnography may become anachronistic. With its reliance on the written word, traditional ethnography represents an art or craft lingering in a world bursting with opportunities for multimedia expression and communication. Ricki: When working on a collaborative video analysis team project, "writers/recorders" and "readers/users" share multiple views on what was happening for other "readers." When electronic journals become pervasive in the culture, the distinction between "writer" and "reader" will blur even more dramatically. Interactive documents wherein interpretations can continue to be shared and negotiated on distributed networks will enable users to interact with authors of these documents in a way that the users become part of the interpretation process. The notion of "fixed" interpretations may be part of our pre- electronic past. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would first like to thank Gary Shank for inviting me to submit an article to this experimental format. I believe this kind of journal will be a forerunner to the kind of collaboration that we will undertake in the future. The person who has reinforced my belief in the role of collaboration while doing multimedia ethnography is Ted Riecken, the other central voice in this electronic article. Ted's inviting me to become a member of the research team at the Bayside Middle School has opened up an academic potential I thought to be in my distant academic future. I would also like to thank Leslie Francis-Pelton, a researcher in secondary Mathematics Education, and Pierce Sarragher, a researcher in secondary Science Education for welcoming me as a team member. Kevin Elder, the Vice- Principal, and Joe Grewal, a teacher, and the young people of the Bayside have given me a renewed sense of respect and admiration for what schools can be like for young people. Thank you for providing a research home that I look forward to visiting! Mike Hoebel and Dave Wighton from the Educational Technology Center have supported this research with funds for travel. I thank them both. Lyn Schaverien from the University of Technology, Sydney, has provided insightful editorial comments. Thank you, Lyn. REFERENCES Atwood, M. (Broadcast date: October 8, 1992). Television interview of poet and author, Margaret Atwood by June Callwood, CBC, Canada. Barone, T. (1983). Things of Use and Things of Beauty: The Swain County High School Arts Program. Deadalus (Journal of American Academy of Arts and Sciences), 112 (3). Barrett, E. (1992). Sociomedia: Multimedia, Hypermedia, and the Social Construction of Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bruner, J. (1986). Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Cambridge, MA & London, England: Harvard University Press. Eisner, E. (1993, April 14). Forms of Understanding and the Future of Educational Research. AERA Presidential Address. Eisner, E. (1992). The Enlightened Eye: Qualitative Inquiry and the Enhancement of Educational Practice. New York: MacMillian Publishing Company. Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books: New York. Geertz, C. (1988).Works and Lives: Anthropologist as Author. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Goldman-Segall, R. (1993, in press). Interpreting Video Data. Journal for Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia. AACE. Goldman-Segall, R. (1992). Collaborative virtual communities: Using Learning Constellations, a multimedia ethnographic research tool. In E. Barrett (Ed.), Sociomedia: Multimedia, Hypermedia, and the Social Construction of Knowledge (pp. 257-296). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Goldman-Segall, R. (1991a). Three Children; Three Styles. A Call for Opening the Curriculum. In I. Harel & S. Papert (Eds.), Constructionism, Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishers. Goldman-Segall, R. (1991b). A multimedia research tool for ethnographic investigation. In I. Harel & S. Papert (Eds.), Constructionism, Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishers. Goldman-Segall, R. (1990). Learning Constellations: A multimedia ethnographic research environment using video technology to explore children's thinking. Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. Goldman-Segall, R. (1989). Thick Descriptions: A tool for designing ethnographic interactive videodisks. SIGCHI Bulletin, 21 (2), 118 122. Harel, I. and Papert, S. (Eds.). (1991). Constructionism. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishers. Illich, I. & Sanders, B. (1989). ABC, The Alphabetization of the Popular Mind. New York: Vintage Books. Lather, P. (1991). Issues of Validity. Interchange, 17 (4), 63-84. Papert, S. (1990). Introduction. In I. Harel (Ed.), Constructionist Learning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Media Laboratory. Resnick, M. (1991). MultiLogo: A Study of Children and Concurrent Thinking. In I. Harel & S. Papert (Eds.), Constructionism. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishers. Seixas, P. (1993). The Community of Inquiry as a Basis for Knowledge and Learning. American Educational Research Journal, 30 (2). NOTE: Electronic Conceptual Director: Ricki Goldman-Segall, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia Site Project Manager: Ted Riecken, Faculty of Education, University of Victoria Authors: Ricki Goldman-Segall, Ted Riecken, Amber Adams, Kelli Dianne Taaffe, John Isles, & Wendy Van Osterhout HyperCard Designers for "Welcome to the Bayside Middle School": Joe Grewal, Amanda Thompson, Roger Milner, Darcy Anderson, Amber Adams, Kelli Dianne Taaffe _____ Articles and Sections of this issue of the _Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture_ may be retrieved via anonymous ftp to byrd.mu.wvnet.edu or via e-mail message addressed to LISTSERV@KENTVM or LISTSERV@KENTVM.KENT.EDU (instructions below) Papers may be submitted at anytime by email or send/file to: Ermel Stepp - Editor-in-Chief, _Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture_ M034050@MARSHALL.WVNET.EDU _________________________________ *Copyright Declaration* Copyright of articles published by Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture is held by the author of a given article. 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