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CHICAGO AREA MID STATE DOWNSTATE |
Earlier project write-upsOriginal project proposal (September 20, 1998)
My reasoning in choosing the project goal I did ran as follows: Any development in student and teacher technical skills over the course of Project I-57 would be fairly salient and easy to measure. But assessing more intangible changes such as growth in students’ knowledge about and change in attitude towards their peers in sociologically divergent schools seemed more of a challenge and humanistically a “higher” goal than tracing merely the development of Web and internet skills among K-12 students. The community-building potential of the Internet has been one of its prime selling points to education over the last decade, and I-57 provides a ready-made case on which to try that claim out.
To assess whether or not any change has occurred, I am using a classic pre- and post-test design: one measure (a “pre-survey”) which I had administered in classes at the beginning of the implementation of I-57 this Fall 1998 Semester and one (a “post-survey”) to be given in June 1999 at the end of the school year and the end of Project I-57.
To limit the scope of the inquiry, I narrowed down the schools I sought to participate in my evaluation to three: Benton Middle School, Fisher Grade School, and Maine Township High School East (ethnically the most diverse of the three Chicago schools, with many immigrants and non-native speakers of English). To narrow down the unwieldy age span of the students participating, I requested a class in the upper grades of the participating grade school and in the lower grades of the high school - ideally, one grade below middle school and one grade above middle school in addition to the middle school class at Benton.
To evaluate (formatively) where students at the various schools are starting with respect to attitudes towards and knowledge of the diversity in the state of Illinois, I prepared an open-ended two-question essay with a following demographic questionnaire for students to complete in class (estimated student time for the entire pre-survey: one half hour). The two questions sought to determine students' perceptions (and misconceptions) of the other two regions of Illinois outside their familiar turf. For children in the Chicago school, for instance, the two essays asked their opinions of life and people in farming and mining communities further south in Illinois. For students in Fisher, on the other hand, the two essays dealt with life in Chicago and southern Illinois. For students in Benton, the two essays dealt with perceptions of Chicago and farming communities.
The twelve questions following the essay (included at the end so as not to influence the direction their open-ended writing takes) dealt with the child's family and personal background -- his or her ethnicity, social class, travel experience, etc. This was to highlight learner variables that may explain individual variation in attitudes/perceptions at the start and influence variation in final results later in 1999. One hypothesis I have, for example, is that respondents with prior travel experience in Illinois and - especially - beyond should show less growth in knowledge of and positive attitudes towards other Illinoisans than respondents who have spent their entire lives centered in one location since the former are presumably more advanced on both scales to start with (a fairly safe hypothesis).
As always, as required by university human subjects research policy, a consent form was given the students prior to their filling out the essay/questionnaire forms. This was generally uncontroversial except in the case of Benton, where the administrative staff objected to sending yet one more form home to the parents, who, apparently, had been inundated with other forms related to technology in the schools and Project I-57. We compromised (with Sonda Gabriel’s consent) by letting the teacher administer the test without requiring parental consent (as the instrument was within normal educational practices) and having her return forms using numbers instead of names
In addition to the actual student surveys, the I-57 teachers participating in my project were given a written explanation of the project and instructions in administering the essays to their students (e.g. collecting the completed forms from students unseen to store in a mailing envelope to be returned to me). In addition, they were given their own questionnaire, in which I hoped to see if there is likely to be any subtle influence on student attitudes from the teacher. Where is the teacher from originally? What is her/his ethnicity? How much has the teacher traveled or interacted with people unlike her-/himself? What is her/his attitude towards the teaching of "multiculturalism" in schools? In addition, I was counting on the teacher's adult perspective on their class to give me a more objective view of the students' ethnic and socio-economic make-up via their answers to some of the teacher questionnaire questions.
To evaluate (summatively) where students at the three schools end up
with respect to attitudes towards and knowledge of Illinois diversity,
I will prepare a similar two-question essay plus questionnaire in May/June
1999 asking them about students at the two schools they have been in contact
with and what they have learned about their lives and communities.
I will also ask in more detail about the amount of internet contact the
three schools have had and how many different children the students have
had the chance to communicate with at the other schools over the course
of the year. My main worry is that the cognitive and maturational
gap between grade school and high school students may prove a more insurmountable
obstacle to real communication in the end than their sociologically diverse
backgrounds. Finally, I will question the teachers on what their perceptions
are of any change in attitudes towards and knowledge of Illinois diversity
among their students as a result of their internet interactions.
Other Project I-57 schools not a part of my original evaluation design have shown a willingness to participate in my attitudinal evaluation: Maine Township High School West (in addition to Maine East) and Notre Dame High School for Boys in Niles, Illinois (Chicago suburbs). I have already received pre-survey forms back from John Aldworth at Maine West (not included in this final report) and have received an e-mail request from Sister Donna Bebensee at Notre Dame requesting the packet of school pre-survey forms be sent. In addition, Deanna Alexander, technology coordinator at Fisher GS has enlisted a second teacher (4th grade English teacher Ms. Warner) to administer the pre-surveys to her class and submit the results on-line rather than by snail-mail, unlike all the other data packets evaluated above. Evidently, the participating staff at the I-57 schools have seen some value in the attitudinal and diversity research project I am conducting.
On October 30 (1998) Sonda Gabriel in COE Human Subjects Review Committee sent letter approving my research project "Evaluation of Awareness of Illinois Diversity Among Students and Teachers Participating in Project I-57". She judged it to be expect from formal prior review in federal regulation exemption category 46.101 (b) 1 for research conducted in established educational settings involving normal educational practices.
She sent a packet containing copies of all the materials to the following administrative staff in each of the school districts involved to get their approval for their teachers to participate in my evaluation project:
Maine Township High School East - Alice Davitt, coordinator of grantsFollowing that initial official college-level contact with the schools involved, I sent an e-mail introduction (“cover letter”) introducing myself and the evaluation project to each of the contact people and teachers. Communication for the present evaluation project was, of necessity, conducted via distance communication media, primarily e-mail, although some chose to use the telephone (Faulhaber, the assistant principal at Maine East) rather than respond via e-mail, or because of a time constraint (once when a Fisher teacher was bringing her class to the UIUC campus, I telephoned the technology coordinator Deanna Alexander to arrange pick-up details rather than trust the asynchronous nature of e-mail). On campus, I communicated with Sonda Gabriel either in person in her office, or via e-mail.
Fisher Grade School - principal
Benton Middle School - Principal
The participants with whom I maintained contact primarily during the months of November and December, when the pre-surveys were actually distributed, administered and returned, are listed below and in a log of e-mail communication published on-line.
UIUC, COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
Sonda Gabriel, human subjects review committee
MAINE TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT
Alice Davitt, coordinator of grants
MAINE EAST HIGH SCHOOL
Ken Faulhaber, asst. principal
MAINE WEST HIGH SCHOOL
Audrey Haugan, asst. principal
John Aldworth, teacher of English,
Maine West
FISHER GRADE SCHOOL
Deanna Alexander, technology coordinator
Erin Remington, 5th grade teacher
at Fisher
BENTON MIDDLE SCHOOL
Kathy Auten, tech coordinator
Ronald Knox, principal
NOTRE DAME HIGH SCHOOL FOR BOYS
Sister Donna Bebensee, principal
E-mail proved an ideal communication medium for the most part: for introductions, short up-dates from their end, gentle reminders from my end, and arranging mailing/submission logistics. In a recent, unforeseen turn, a teacher (Ms. Warner) at Fisher Grade School had her class compose [[responses to my essay questions]] on computer. I then suggested to the technology coordinator, Deanna Alexander, that they be submitted to me via e-mail in one mailing, which she did. As I wrote her upon receiving the second mailing:
“I've spent the last 5 days tabulating all the survey info from Maine EAst [sic] HS: two classes sent 47 forms, making 47x3 pages to decipher, type in and format in html. It's such a relief to have the latest Fisher surveys come in already in computer-ready format!”
One unfortunate incident transpired during e-mail exchange between me
and Alice Davitt, coordinator of grants for Maine Township High School
District due to my original request to have the pre-surveys administered
and returned by the November 21 Poster Board session. Although Sonda
Gabriel had sent all the forms to Davitt the end of October, Davitt didn’t
receive them until about November 10 since she had been out of the Chicago
area on business. She therefore felt my requested deadline was unfair.
I made the mistake of commenting via e-mail about her negative response
to the assistant principals at Maine West and Maine East, and apparently,
the Maine East principal Faulhaber had then gone to discuss my feelings
with her. This provoked a more heated response from Davitt.
Not wishing to lose their good-will and cooperation, I eventually managed
via e-mail to extricate myself diplomatically from the developing situation,
again by e-mail. Perhaps, a better means of dealing with misunderstandings
and disagreements during similar virtual projects would be more synchronous
communication, e.g. the telephone.
Forms and other project
documentationE-mail log of project correspondence (principals, teachers)student essay forms (blank)
student consent forms (blank)
teacher questionnaire forms (blank)
teacher explanation cover letter (administration of pre-surveys)
Fisher Grade School is much smaller, drawing on students in the small town of Fisher and students, including Amish, in the rural district around it. While students from farming families do attend the school, this segment was hardly in evidence from the job data given by Fisher students. The school’s composition is heavily white; the I-57 teacher I surveyed gave the percentage as “100%”. She, too, felt that many of her students held stereotypical views of people of other races and religions in other parts of Illinois. Most students’ parents appear to have working class or middle-class jobs, with a few professionals. The district has made a concerted effort through local town meetings with local business and parents to build the technological infrastructure at the school in close cooperation with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Benton Middle
School sits in a largely blue-collar mining community in Southern Illinois,
which due to the slump in mining operations in Illinois, has been economically
struggling. The community has seen technology as an economic life-line
for its schools and ultimately, the community, however. Most of the
inhabitants of Benton appear to be long-time local families or immigrants
from other parts of Southern Illinois and the central South. Its
small white-color and professional sectors appear to come primarily from
SIU and other southern state institutions. Culturally, it seems to
have few ties and relations with Northern US culture and the rest of the
state generally.
Ms. Garvy and Mr. Lundberg’ s two 9th grade English classes at Maine East High School displayed an amazing collection of ethnicities. The Webpage for the district describes Maine East HS as "more than half the students enrolled at Maine East--representing more than 60 different nations--did not speak English at home ..." Perhaps because of the strong strain of immigrant students in the Garvy/Lundberg class -- 49% were born outside the US and 55% had parents or family born outside the US -- there was palpably more defensiveness about origins, more “no responses” than other districts surveyed. Perhaps also due to the lower-class jobs often taken by recent immigrants there was a high number of respondents who opted not mention their parents’ job: 32%. Nearly 60% had lived in the Chicago area 10 years or more, however, so given this group’s presumed age of arrival (3-5 years) in the area, a high degree of acculturation to American linguistics and cultural norms could be assumed. Only 8 respondents out of 47 (17%), however, return home to monolingual English-speaking parents every day, however. The rest have parents who speak languages such as Spanish, Polish and Urdu (and often English as well).
Maine East, obviously, afforded its students the greatest cultural diversity
of schools in the three I-57 regions. Only 16 out of 47 students
(1/3) fit the traditional definition of “white” (including many students
born in Eastern Europe). The other 2/3 represent a myriad of nationalities,
ethnicities and language backgrounds (12 different languages besides English
are spoken in these students’ homes). Only one African-American was
found in the two classes, however, only 3 “Latinos” who had been born in
this country, and no Native-Americans. The diversity is thus heavily
due to immigration.
As a result of the inescapable diversity within the study body, fully
2/3 of the students claimed off-campus friends of another ethnicity than
theirs, and only 8 of the 47 claimed “no” friends of another ethnicity.
This latter non-mixing minority, however, was largely composed of males
(only one female on the list), including one outspoken Eastern-European
male who wrote in bold letters “No. They’re all S...s!”
The two other Illinois regions were predictably less immigrant, more uniformly European-American (white): Fisher (17 out of 21) and Benton (100%), although my limited sampling should not imply that there is no ethnic diversity at either school. Two students at Fisher claimed to be Native-American, although it is impossible to determine if this implies 100% purity of descent or merely an Indian ancestor; one other student claimed to be part white and part Indian. It was curious at Benton that all the students claimed to be “white”, yet two mentioned that their parents spoke Spanish and English at home, and one of the two showed signs of Spanish interference in the English of her essay. Very few of the downstate students mentioned any other language being spoken at home other than English: two in Benton mentioning Spanish and all 21 mentioning “only English” in Fisher. Thus, even local contact with non-American cultures is extremely limited. In terms of diversity in friends, five students in Fisher mentioned friendships with African-Americans outside of school and one with an “Indian” (whether from India or Native-American, it wasn’t said). Although opportunities to form such friendships appear to be statistically limited: one Fisher student wrote “no, there really isn't any other groups in Fisher.” Only three students in Benton unambiguously related having friends of another ethnicity: two mentioned African-American friends, and one had a Korean in-law.
3.2.2. Mobility and travel experience
Very few respondents from any of the schools had lived their lives entirely within their own region, however. Most had traveled to other states (68% from Maine East, 100% of the Benton students, and 95% from Fisher) - if only to neighboring states such as Wisconsin, Missouri, Kentucky, and Indiana. Only the students at Maine East HS, however, had any extensive experience of the world outside the US -- an astounding 81% -- although the majority of these had only visited the countries their parents came from or counted the countries where they had been born. Benton, surprisingly, included 4 students who had traveled outside the US: to Canada, Mexico and the Bahamas, although it is questionable how much contact other than touristic they had with local residents. None of the Fisher students mentioned visiting a foreign country.
Of travel within Illinois, Chicago was the region most widely visited;
only 5 of the 21 Fisher students hadn’t visited it and 6 out of 16 Benton
students hadn’t. Visits to central Illinois farm country were well represented
among respondents at Maine East (about half); however, only 4 of the 16
Benton respondents claimed to have visited the region. Southern Illinois,
however, appeared to be terra incognita to nearly all students except,
of course, those from Benton. None of the Chicago area students had
visited a town in Southern Illinois, and only 8 students (38%) out of 21
in Fisher claimed to have been there, although even those eight included
examples such as Decatur, which makes one doubt whether they were quite
clear on the concept. Reliability of geography-related answers among students
in all the schools in general is suspect, however, given a sample of their
answers: several included “Canada” among the US states they had visited,
and one claimed to have visited “Michangton”.
E. Remington - FisherI included these with the packet of forms for each school since I wanted a broader picture of the instructional context and perhaps the attitudinal environment provided implicitly or explicitly by the teachers involved in the evaluation. Unfortunately, only two of the four teachers, Remington (Fisher) and Garvy (Maine East), managed to return their questionnaires by the date of this report, so the results are not very comprehensive and are of limited value. Lundberg, Garvy’s team teacher, and Johnson in Benton still have to return theirs.
M. Garvy - East Maine
Lundberg - East Maine (none submitted)
Johnson - Benton (none submitted)
Both Garvy and Remington come from English-speaking European-American backgrounds, are over 30 and were born in the general regions in which they now teach: G in Chicago and R in Watseka. G has lived all her life in the Chicago area, and R has been in Fisher/Rantoul for the past 30 years, although she has taught at Fisher Grade School for only part of this year, her prior teaching experience being in local Catholic schools. While Garvy’s mother was born in Boston, all of Remington’s immediate family are from Illinois. G has also studied in Indiana, Italy and England and traveled to a majority of the United States. R has also seen 35 of the 50 states and visited Canada. Their Illinois experiences have differed. G has never had first-hand experience with farm life (living, working, or have acquaintances with farm families), while she is intimately familiar with factory life (her family owns an Illinois factory), while R has had closer contact with Illinois farming life and factory/mining towns, as well as with urban Chicago. Both showed positive attitudes towards the teaching of “multiculturalism” in US schools and have spent time discussing and studying other regions and peoples in Illinois.
3.4 Results of the essays
The pre-survey contained to essays on the two regions of Illinois outside
of the respondent’s community. Thus, the essay form questions differed
for each school surveyed. A majority of the students in each school
preferred their own communities to the two other regions when asked.
Friends, familiarity with their own town, were frequently cited reasons.
essays on Chicago (Park Ridge, Des Plaines)
- by classes at Fisher (R), Fisher (W), BentonQuestion: What do you think life is like in Chicago - good and bad? Describe what the people are like who live there. Which is a better place to live - Benton or Chicago? Why?
Although the essays written by the 4th and 5th graders at Fisher Grade School and the 8th graders at Benton Middle School were often short, common themes and attitudes surfaced.
The positive aspects of Chicago included the expected sight-seeing attractions (Sears Tower, Navy Pier), museums and historical places typical of a touristic knowledge of a city, the malls and shopping opportunities and the professional sports, especially the Chicago Bulls. The big city would be “fun” and “exciting”. A few mentioned the greater job possibilities in the big city and opportunities to make money.
Negative aspects of Chicago mentioned frequently included the dangers
of crime, typified by mentions of violence, gangs, robberies, and drive-by
shootings - “you can get killed for your shoes.” Also cited were the busy-ness,
noise, crowds of people, pollution and traffic. Some were aware of
the greater ethnic diversity of the city: “People of all defrent
[sic] kinds, blacks, whights [sic], chincks
[sic], japans [sic], robbers” (a subject in Fisher). While there
was agreement that “mean” people were to be found there, many respondents
allowed for “nice” people, like in their home towns, as well.
Maine East respondents, themselves, considered “Chicago” to include either their suburban community or to refer to the downtown excluding their community. Surprisingly, they too mentioned the gang problems, drive-bys, and general worries about crime. At the same time, the majority much preferred the vibrant activity and diverse opportunities of their greater metropolitan area -- especially malls! -- to either of the smaller downstate towns. One resident, however, complained about suburbia as a “want-to-be, pretty boy infested area (white-boys)” compared to the urban grittiness of Chicago.
essays on Central Illinois farm towns (Fisher)
- by classes at Maine East, BentonQuestion: What do you think life is like in a central Illinois farm town - the good and bad points? What do you think the people are like who live there? Which is a better place to live - Chicago or a small farm town? Why?
The essay question was not phrased to refer specifically to Fisher (unknown to most Illinoisans in any case, even those living in central Illinois), but rather to “farm town in Central Illinois”. Some students seemed to believe the focus was on farms themselves and wrote disparagingly or rhapsodically about what they imagine the bucolic, agrarian life-style to be. Others saw the question as asking about small towns (nearer the point). Benton respondents, especially, were apt to think central Illinois farm towns as not too different from their own community, which has its own rural population.
The positive aspects of small-town life normally cited were the safety (lack of crime), peace and quiet (considered both good and bad), little pollution, more space (including living space - Chicago apartments can seem over-close to some). The work ethic is also mentioned: “In the farm you grow up to be a man not a woosh [sic]. In the city you sit your but [sic] in a chair and do little work; In the farm to survive you just work and work more. For exsample [sic] if a city man stay in a farm and doesn’t know how to work the man wont [sic] survive a week.” On the other hand, some thought life here would be simpler, with more time to enjoy life. Being close to agriculture would also provide material benefits, such as growing your own food.
Overwhelmingly, writers speculated on the friendliness of the people (although narrow-mindedness and racism, where mentioned by a few from Chicago). Occasionally a note of condescension seeps in: “The people would probably be good old time nice people” and “The people are probably nice but very quiet. They are use to not talking” and again, “the people who live there would probably Be farmers and they would be older in thire [sic] 40’s - 30’s.” The opposite trend was also visible: “People there are probably more respectful and civilized than they are here” (a Chicago respondent).
Negative aspects mentioned were nearly always related to the boredom (occasionally loneliness) and sameness of life in a small town or on a farm. “And maybe there’s no one to play with so you just have to play with pigs, the cows, and the horses” (Chicago respondent). Surprisingly, some thought country life would be more of an adventure: “...I love adventure anywhere than where I am now. My life is the same every day. On a farm, something new could happen” (Chicago respondent). Isolation and the distances in getting from place to place and to shopping and activities were also seen as a disadvantage. Limited opportunities for entertainment and eating out came up as well: “... down in central Illinois you eat the same restaurant. In a week I bet already you memorized the menu.” Some imagined a lack of freedom due to the small number of people and over-familiarity with each other’s lives: “I couldn’t live their [sic] because, anything you do your parents could find out.” Fewer jobs was another down side mentioned. Some imagined the vigors of farm life: you got to wake up early to go to work on the fields there’s not many enjoyable activities or where you can spend time like for example a theather [sic] or a park” (Chicago respondent).
Occasionally, the people were seen in a negative light: “The people
that here are hicks, they all hunt & have four-wheelers” (a Benton
respondent). “I think the people who live there probably have accents and
never seen some stuff that we have here” (a Chicago respondent).
Expected racism was another occasional theme: “People that live there are
probably mean because if your [sic] a new comer they might tell you to
leave because your [sic] not like them.”
essays on Southern Illinois mining towns (Benton)
- by classes at Maine East, Fisher (R), Fisher (W)Question: What do you think life is like in a mining town in southern Illinois - good and bad points? What do you think the people are like who live there? Which is a better place to live - Chicago or a mining town in southern Illinois? Why?
Of all of the three regions respondents were asked to write about, the “mining town in southern Illinois” drew the greatest mental blanks. Some based their answer on assumptions about mines and the process of mining: coal dust, polluted air (frequently mentioned), hard-working conditions, even explosions and the dangers associated with them! This was not always seen as negative; one respondent (male!) wrote that such a town would be “good - you could watch people dig into mountains and explode things.”
One Chicago respondent assumed abject poverty in the region, with residents
going about without food or shelter. Another imagined the pay
(for miners) would be low and the work hard. “I think the mining tow [sic]
is the worst place to live Because most of the mines are
closed. So the majority of people in a mining town are poor.”
One Maine East respondent, on the other hand, apparently associated “mining”
in the question with “gold mining”, felt it would be good to live in a
mining town because you could get rich.
A few positive points were mentioned: One male respondent in Fisher cited the greater emphasis on sports like football and wrestling and that people there were more “into” sports. The mine as a source of natural resources was seen as positive by some.
Speculation about Southern Illinoisans went the gamut. “There [sic]
very nice and kind. I think they will welcome us if we lived there” and
“They are probebly [sic] hard working and helpful to each other” (two Chicago
students). Others had quite negative associations about the people:
“People who live in the south are really mean. They don’t care about
anything. .... I went there for two days, and it was so bad. Honestly,
I think they are hicks” (Chicago respondent). One must have
assumed Southern Illinois was like stereotypical Chicago: “The people who
live there are stealers, criminals, and gangsters.” Racism was also
occasionally assumed: “...that is another racial town.”
Class data: statistics
and demographics 9th grade English class (2 classes) - Ms. Garvy and Mr. Lundberg
5th grade English/Language class - Ms. Remington
4th grade class - Ms. Warner (to come later)
8th grade English class - Ms. Johnson
Pre-survey essays (1
and 2)9th grade English class (2) - Ms. Garvy and Mr. Lundberg
5th grade English/Language class - Ms. Remington
essay on Chicago
essay on Benton4th grade class - Ms. Warner
8th grade English class - Ms. Johnson
These generous acts as well as prompt e-mail communication at all stages of the administration stage of my project has left me with more data than I ever expected or requested in the beginning. For the pre-survey segment of the project, in addition to the on-line data currently available on the date of this report, I already have essay data from a class at Maine West HS (John Aldworth, teacher) which, with the forms returned from Notre Dame High School for Boys, courtesy of Sister Donna Bebensee, I will post to the Web.
This exceptional level of cooperation I attribute to the fact that I am an insider to the I-57 project, working as Jim Levin’s research assistant rather than an outside graduate researcher whose research interests are incidental to those of the schools I seek to recruit. I also expect that the findings should be of value not only to me the researcher but more widely to the schools cooperating in the pre- and post-surveys. Oral confirmation to this effect was given on a voice message from Faulhaber at Maine East.
4.1 This report and Information Technologies
Perhaps ironically for the course for which the present project was undertaken, the data gathered in the present evaluation project are almost entirely unconnected with technology proper. This is not a mark against it, however, since the ultimate goal of the entire evaluation, including the summative post-survey evaluation, is to assess whether the information technologies and instructional technology activities of key pals, community Web site construction, etc. have led indeed to a broadening of students’ knowledge of the social diversity in the state of Illinois and a deepening of their understanding of fellow Illinoisans different than themselves. Can these expected changes in attitude be attributed solely to the information technologies used? Other factors may indeed turn up (perhaps interest in the project leads students to read more about other parts of Illinois on their own or real field trips between schools cement on-line friendships), but certainly if not for Project I-57 and its enforced contact between these formerly isolated communities, how else would the knowledge and human contacts needed to break stereotypes come? Technology will of necessity play some role and take some of the credit.
4.2 Weaknesses in the present study
One weakness I realize upon writing this final evaluation report is the fuzziness of my understanding of the broad social and instructional contexts at each of the three schools in the evaluation. The information I was able to obtain was limited to (a) the answers to a couple of questions on the questionnaire for teachers, (b) what could be gleaned from the school websites, and (c) from informal discussions with the Project I-57 coordinator at UIUC, Jim Levin. As the essays were primarily oriented to parts of Illinois in which the students weren’t living, it was hard to derive a picture of their own perspectives on the school and communities in which they actually are living. In retrospect, I should have included more context-centered questions in my pre-surveys, at least for the teachers, and perhaps an additional form for the principal, or administrative contact person for the evaluation. However, as this basic background information on the three schools should not change radically over the one-year course of my evaluation, it is not a grave limitation and should be able to be remedied over the coming months.
This concern also implies a lack in the original conception of the student evaluation instrument. Should I have asked students also to write about their own communities in addition to the two “foreign” communities included in the original instrument (in effect “Essay 3”)? Many, however, did bring up their views on their communities - positive and negative - in the comparative question “Which is a better place to live?” - X or their own community. On the other hand, students may not necessarily be the best judges of their own communities. Due to their ages and the economic status of their families, it is likely that their exposure to their own communities has been limited and knowledge of them sometimes erroneous.
Another weakness is the lack of parent voices in present study. What attitudes towards stereotypical “white” Midwestern Americans and other ethnicities are children imbibing from their parents? Where do their views of ethnicity and regionalism ultimately derive: parents, teachers, peers? How do the children’s parents feel about having them in contact with children of other races, nationalities, religions, economic classes in their present schools? In the schools they will be contacting virtually via the information technologies used in Project I-57?
Another limitation at present is lack of comparable sample size - in the case of Benton especially, with only 16 respondents to evaluate. The two classes at Maine East provided me with 47 subjects, so I may end up requesting Benton to administer the pre-surveys to yet another class to bring up the sample size to somewhere near that of the Maine East. In the case of Fisher, with the 22 new Fisher 4th grade students whose pre-surveys I recently received by e-mail, the sample size has now risen to 43.
Another weakness was my lack of realization of the ESL vs. native-speaker issue. I was surprised by the high percentage of non-native English speaker, non-US-born respondents from the Maine East sample, nearly half (23) of the students sampled. While language is one obvious mark of ethnicity, it is also a handicap in communication, perhaps greater than I had anticipated. Many essays written by 9th grade students at Maine East HS showed clear evidence of second language interference and the limits on vocabulary and syntax that accompany inexperienced ESL students writing in English. Yet I included no question on the questionnaire section of the pre-surveys inquiring about students’ ESL experience. The Project I-57 Executive Summary asserts that all of the schools involved (Notre Dame is not mentioned as it had not yet joined the Project) provide “mainstream, English as a Second Language, and special education services as needed.” I therefore intend to ask the teachers involved about any extra schooling the respondents are getting - either ESL or special education to see them in a more detailed learner context.
4.3 Methodological issues
For an ostensibly high technology evaluation project, the evaluation instruments still ended up as hand-written essays which had to be input into digital format later by the researcher, a very time-consuming task often plagued by ambiguities in students’ orthography, punctuation and paragraphing. Perhaps the way forward is one that came into being relatively late in the project, when I suggested to the technology coordinator at Fisher that the students word-processing their essays on computer submit the final essays via e-mail.
4.4 The future stages of the project
My most important objective in the months ahead is getting teacher and administrator feedback on some of the data, e.g. whether the two Benton students who claimed to be racially “white” although their parents spoke Spanish and English at home could possibly be Hispanic, and if so, why they would choose the “white” designation over a “Latino” one. The only real knowledge of the students and insight into their personalities, etc. I have at present are the few sentences of essay text and their questionnaires. I definitely plan to ask the teachers involved first of all to interpret the data already collected, and then, if possible, to fill in extra detail on their classes, the parents involved, and community attitudes towards immigrants, other races, the use of languages other than English. It is apparent from many of the essays that the immigrant Maine East students are members of a mostly powerless segment of even their local communities, struggling to understand and be understood in Des Plaines, much less Fisher or Benton.
Another neglected area to investigate - since this is, after all, an evaluation of a technology-based project - it might be good to send the classes involved in this evaluation a question or two on students' email/Web background, since that life experience, like travel, is one variable that may predispose students to cultural openness or have allowed the students to travel virtually. One such question could be: “Have you ever surfed the Web for sites about other countries or peoples?
A further complication which I became aware of only in the midst of my e-mail contact with the school administrators involved in Project I-57 is that not all classes will be interacting via distance with classes at all the other I-57 schools. Fisher 5th graders, for example, will be in communication with Notre Dame HS, while Fisher 4th graders will be in contact with Maine East. This lack of parallelism in inter-school contacts appears a serious weakness in the Project I-57 design as implemented. One class in Fisher will have year-long contact with Chicago students and none at all with Benton. From my perspective as a researcher, my post-surveys will show nothing valid in several cases because certain participating classes will still have had no virtual contact with one or another of the I-57 locations at the end of the school year. This is why half-way through the project I contacted Sister Donna at Notre Dame to involve her students, since they will be in contact with the Fisher 5th grade students who have already taken the pre-survey.
I will, however, take the liberty of offering some preliminary, very
tentative, recommendations based on insights I think I have gained through
working both with the data and my interactions with the I-57 personnel
with whom I have been in e-mail contact.
