Sustaining local identity, control and ownership while integrating technology into school learning

Abstract

Empowering Minds (EM) is a project that has deeply integrated technologically expressive materials, including robotics and presentation and programming software, into the educational practices of teachers at more than a dozen primary schools across Ireland. Here, we present Empowering Minds as a model of constructionist learning and teacher professional development. As the project continues to grow, organisers are challenged to aim beyond sustainability to scalability, encouraging participants to develop ways of maintaining their local identities and their senses of control and ownership of the work and ideas. In this paper, we describe a collaborative project among four participating schools, including one teacher's account of his students' adapting a folkloric story in order to appropriate it for their own technical, narrative, and learning purposes. We emphasise the importance of a diverse, supportive community and adequate time for teachers' self-directed learning to develop and epistemological changes to occur. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.