Bringing Inquiry and Community

to the Internet

LIS 391: Literacy in the Information AgeAnn Peterson BishopMuzhgan Nazarova

Inquiry Page Collaborative

Literacy in the Information Age:A Welcoming Attitude

Toward Change

Innis: Technology is destabilizing long-standing beliefs and ideologies, everyday lives and practices (p. vii)

Thoreau: Technology is an improved means to an unimproved ends (p. 6)

Communities of Inquiry

Community of Inquiry theory understands knowledge as communally constructed and emergent, proceeding through the interaction of critical and creative thinking

Kennedy, 1996

American Pragmatism

• William James (1675-1749)• Charles Sanders Pierce (1839-

1914)• John Dewey (1859-1952)• Jane Adams (1860-1935)

American Pragmatism andTheory of Inquiry

They all believed that ideas are not “out there” waiting to be discovered, but are tools - like forks and knives and microchips - that people devise to cope with the world in which they find themselves. They believed that the ideas are not produced by the individuals - that ideas are social.

Louis Menand, 2001

The Cycle of Inquiry

Communities of Inquiry

A group (a social setting) of individuals who use dialogue (interaction among participants) to search out the problematic borders of a puzzling concept (inquiry as philosophical)

Turgeon, 1998

Community Inquiry Labs

A place where members of a community come together to develop shared capacity and work on common problems.

"Community" = support for collaborative activity and for creating knowledge that is connected to people's values, history,and lived experiences.

"Inquiry" = support for open-ended, democratic, participatory engagement.

"Laboratory" = a space and resources to bring theory and action together in an experimental and critical manner.

A CIL is most importantly a concept…

Community Inquiry Labs

• Web-based suite of Open Source software tools to support collaboration and communication (e.g., bulletin board, document uploading, calendar, inquiry units)

• People create CILs (websites) on their own, to support their activities within and among groups

• Inquiry units = lesson plans, action plans, meeting minutes, research reports, journals, policy statements, etc.

Community Inquiry Lab Goalshttp://inquiry.uiuc.edu/cil

How can we:

a) connect learning & life?

b) support participatory design?

c) accommodate diversity & shared

values?

Connect Learning and Life: ESLARP

ESLARP Sample Inquiry Unit

Support Participatory Design: SisterNet

http://sisternetonline.org/ourinquiry.html

• New model for Black women's organizing

• Wholeness through physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual health

• Political strategy to resist oppression and shape livable communities

• Community health fairs, conferences, and learning/action circles

SisterNet’s CIL in ActionTaking Action for Water Quality

Accommodate Difference &Shared Values:

Paseo Boricua Street Academyhttp://inquiry.uiuc.edu/cil/out.php?

cilid=112

Co-Evolution of Internet Technology

Knowledge

Technology Community

Welcoming Attitude Toward Change: Active Participation

Every individual must be consulted in such a way, actively not passively, that he himself becomes a part of the process of authority.

Dewey, Democracy & Education

Welcoming Attitude Toward Change: Active Participation

Using inquiry and the internet in LIS 391:

Inquiry Units for student researchhttp://www.inquiry.uiuc.edu/bin/unit_search.cgi?command=search&search=liasp3

CILs for group communication, collaboration, content managementhttp://www.inquiry.uiuc.edu/cil/

CI Track: Perceptions of Students

“Learning is not linear; the inquiry cycle

allows me to perfect my work, and allow others to input.”

“I think the inquiry cycle is in general the learning cycle for me. To have the structure lets you feel through the part of the process you are currently in, and enable the focus of attention to the part of the cycle.”

CI Track: Perceptions of Students

“…In addition, the CIL allows for distant people to come together around the shared interest of a topic. Also, the CIL encourages the involvement by allowing for different interpretation of the information and its evolution by the members of the CIL.”

Resources

Bishop, Ann., Bazzell, Imani., Mehra, Bharat., & Smith, Cynthia. (2001). Afya: Social and Digital Technologies That Reach Across the Digital Divide. First Monday, 6(4). http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_4/bishop/index.html

Bruce, B. C., & Bishop, A. P. (2002, May). Using the web to support inquiry-based literacy development. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 45(8).http://www.reading.org/publications/jaal/index.html Clark, G. (1994). Rescuing the discourse of community. College Composition and Communication, 45(1), 61–74.

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Macmillan.

Glassman, M. 2001. Dewey and Vygotsky: Society, experience, and inquiry in educational practice. Educational Researcher, 30(4), 3-14.

Resources

Kennedy, D. (1996). Early Child Development and Care. Western Carolina University. 120, 1-15.

Reardon, K. M. (1998). Participatory action research as service learning. In R. A. Rhoads and J. P. F. Howard, eds., Academic service learning: A pedagogy of action and reflection (pp. 57-64). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Rinaldo, R. (2002). Space of resistance: The Puerto Rican Cultural Center and Humboldt Park. Cultural Critique , 50, 135-174. http://leep.lis.uiuc.edu/spring03/LIS450PAR/Rinaldo.pdf

Turgeon, W. (1998). Metaphysical horizons of philosophy for Children. Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy. Boston, MA August 10-15. http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Chil/ChilTurg.htm