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COMUNICACIN CONGRESO ECER 2014

Case Study in an Abalar Classroom (Galicia, Spain). The Spatial Dimension in the One

Laptop per Child Model.

There has recently been a big development and progress in the technological field, and this hasaffected all the vital spheres. Because of that, Education becomes a fundamental pillar todevelop digital competences, which allow children become active and participative citizens inthe modern society. Due to the technological imperative, which dominates the digital era, a bigamount of proposals and politics have appeared to regulate the digital technologies used ineducation. In this sense, many countries have incorporated educational politics based on OneLaptop per Child Model. This is the case of Spain,which in its 2006 Organic Law of Education(LOU) established, for the first time, the so-called Handling Information and DigitalCompetence. In 2009, the State promoted the program Plan Escuela 2.0, whose aim is

implementing the 21st Century and digital classrooms with technological infrastructure andconnectivity. The Autonomous Community of Galicia took this program, which is set it in theAbalar Project. So, a big amount of classrooms of different Galician schools are

technologically immerse in the One Laptop per Child Model.Beyond the operational and administrative analysis, that are also necessary, the situation of thelaptops into the classrooms needs a reflection about the reality in each school and a contextualanalysis (Casablancas, 2014).With the aim to understand and describe the organizational classroom transformations thathappen (or not), with the incorporation of the digital technologies in schools, to develop thedigital competence, we wonder: what happens in our schools?In this paper, we concretely focus on the organizational changes required by the incorporation

of digital technologies in the curriculum and classrooms. These changes are based on theevidence that the new educational scene is distinguished for having in each classroom thetechnological devices (mini laptops, DIBdigital interactive board-, wireless internet access);instead of moving to a specific and shared classroom (the computer lab) as it used to be beforethe Abalar Project.Escolano (2000: 183) remembers us that spatial and temporal dimensions, as essential issuesin the scholar culture, are not simply abstract diagrams or structures in which the

scholar action is . The scholar space is not only a , where the institutionaleducation is placed, that is to say, a scene designed from exclusive and formal premises, inwhich the agents that act in teaching-learning process are to execute a determinateassortment of actions.

The classroom's space is by itself a discourse stablished in its materiality, organization,discipline, social control, symbols, representations and value system.The schooll scene is an invisible part of the curriculum. It is invisible because it is constituted aspart of schooll shapes, they have always been there, as a common and natural experience thatbecomes familiar. Its power is neither discussed nor considered, making it paradoxically morepowerful (Chartier, 2002).In this space, historically constructed, the difficulty resides in incorporating the digitaltechnologies, new devices for the school; and consequently, unknown devices for existing andfamiliar educational practices

The way in which the materials are organized in the classroom (desks, blackboard, tables)give different and specific places to the teacher and pupils, and it determines the socialrelations among them (Naranjo, 2011). That is why analyzing the space of the classroom

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suggests approaching pupils and teachers, as active meaning producers, that contribute to theclassroom space construction, as a social space.

Methods/methodology (up to 400 words)A qualitative methodology is proposed based in cases study with an ethnographic approach.Case study is used to bring towards the problem, because it is considered a suitable method tounderstand the existing dynamics and speeches in a singular context (Yin, 2003). Theethnographical approach in education with participant observation, based on taking part in thepeoples daily life during a period of time, observing what happens, listening to what it is said,making questions and seeking all kind of data (Hammserley & Atkinson, 2005), allowsrebuilding the daily interaction processes related with the space (classroom).

The case study was the fifth course of one Galician primary school. The classroom had 15pupils, 5 girls and 10 boys, aged between 10 and 12 years old. It was the first time they workedin the classroom with personal computers (laptops). The teacher, active from 1993, did not haveany previous experience in this new modality of technologies integration in the school.

The corpus of the data was by a field diary. 34-day observations, 5 sessions each one, havebeen thoroughly registered.13 class days have been registered in video and audio. 3 interviews(the teacher, the ITC school coordinator, and the headteacher), and 2 focus groups (with 6pupils each) have also been realized. They have firstly been registered in audio and thentranscribed.

Expected outcomes/results (up to 300 words)

The teacher constantly rethought the spatial design of the classroom, principally about thepupils distribution, because the furniture and other objects (closet, IDB, blackboard, corkboard)

were beforehand placed, and they could not be modified. The observations manifest theteachers preoccupation about her own practice in the reflection about spatial aspects toimprove the learning processes.

The classroom design is not ingenuous, but it fixes a social meaning which is thoroughly andnavely shared, to be understood as a natural one (Naranjo, 2011).The design of the studiedclassroom, as it happens in other classrooms of the same school and of other schools, presentsa delimited space for the academic work, a space in which the school works are done,specifically for teaching and learning. But the designed scene to work the curricular contentallows the entry to other environments. Since through the window of the classroom the peoplepassing by and the village people can be observed and that reveals openness to the outside

space and visibility. Several events leave tracks of this attitude, which allows the halt ofacademic work to contemplate the reality, without considering it a distraction, but an opportunityto open them to the community. Equally, there are moments in which the academic worktranscends the physical limits of the classroom. The observations reveal that the materiality ofthe classroom, as a physical and closed space, does not hamper that the teachers attitude

opens the classroom doors to other non formal curricular learning experiences.Nevertheless, tensions between the imposed meanings by the historical construction of thescholar space, now routinized, and the particularities of the new devices, the digitaltechnologies and the interaction of the actors with these, have been observed in theincorporation of the classroom design. The closet location (with the pupils laptops), behind the

teachers table, determines its access, under the surveillance of the teachers authority.

The spatial distribution of the scene portrays a pedagogical teacher-centered model, as a resultof both the own tradition of the materiality of the classroom and the teachers decisions. Thecommunication is mainly established from the teacher to the pupils to transmit information

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(Naranjo, 2011). In the use of technologies, a pattern of teacher-centered model is maintained,communicating to the pupils the guidelines of her central position.

References:Casablancas, S. (2014). The matter of teacher training in 1-1 model: The case of Innovativeschools, Connecting equality programme, Argentina. Revista Educar, vol. 50 (1), 103-120.Chartier, A. M. (2002). Um Dispositivo sem Autor. Cadernos e fichrios na escola primria.Revista brasileira de histria da educao, 3, 9-25.Yin R. K. (2003). Case study research: design and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: SagePublications.Escolano, A. (2000). Tiempos y espacios para La escuela. Ensayos histricos . Madrid:Biblioteca Nueva.Hammersley, M. y Atkinson P. (2005). Etnografa. Mtodos de investigacin. Barcelona,Paids.Naranjo, G. (2011). La construccin social y local del espacio ulico en un grupo de escuelaprimaria. CPU-e, Revista de Investigacin Educativa, 12, 2-27.