Secondary Science Teachers,the Internet,and Curriculum Development: A Community of Explorers

Abstract

The Community of Explorers Project studied how secondary-school science teachers applied desk-top access to Internet resources in their science curricula. During the project, high school teachers and students engaged in scientific problem solving using advanced network technology and innovative pedagogy. One of the lessons that the project offers is that a professional community involves adaptation to options and constraints encountered through interaction in everyday work settings. An initial research expectation was that the teachers would quickly adopt e-mail as an efficient means of communicating and collaborating with their colleagues. However, the use of e-mail for collaborative curriculum development did not follow expectations. The project resulted in the development of a different type of community than initially envisaged. While neither the researchers nor the teacher-participants could precisely control the nature of the community, their respective forms of participation distributed information useful for influencing the community's form and function. Analysis of CoE e-mail in the context of ethnographic research points out the important effects of organizational and occupational cultures on the application of technology in classrooms as well as on the development of a professional community oriented toward designing innovative curriculum.