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Technology enters the picture, and we have more questions to ask. If students are talking online instead of face to face, how is the situation different? Are the same people “speaking?” Are power relationships any different online, compared to face to face? Does participation in an online chat lead to learning in the same way as face to face? If the students are connecting from their dorm rooms or homes, are we even sure the quiet ones are really there?
These are not questions about technology—they are questions about learning in the presence of technology. As soon as we begin to try to answer these questions, we are just drawn back to our more basic questions: How do educational conversations work anyway? Studying learning in the presence of technology can be a catalyst for asking more fundamental questions about learning in general.
It takes a special skill set to study these kinds of issues—someone equally comfortable with technology and with learning, with qualitative methods and quantitative. And few people have mastered that range of skills as well as Jim Hudson. In this book, Jim applies those interdisciplinary talents to ask some important and fundamental questions. To shed light on things we rarely see because they are so familiar. Teachers, educational researchers, and educational technologists will all find this account interesting and useful, especially for the questions it asks.
Dr. Amy Bruckman
Associate Professor
College of Computing Georgia Institute of Technology