UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The Coded Schoolhouse: One-to-One Tablet Computer Programs and Urban Education Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/70p3g8rh Author Crooks, Roderic N. Publication Date 2016 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles The Coded Schoolhouse: One-to-One Tablet Computer Programs and Urban Education A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Information Studies by Roderic N. Crooks 2016 © Copyright by Roderic N. Crooks 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION The Coded Schoolhouse: One-to-One Tablet Computer Programs and Urban Education by Roderic N. Crooks Doctor of Philosophy in Information Studies University of California, Los Angeles, 2016 Professor Jean-François Blanchette, Chair Using a South Los Angeles charter school of approximately 650 students operated by a non- profit charter management organization (CMO) as the primary field site, this two-year, ethnographic research project examines the implementation of a one-to-one tablet computer program in a public high school. This dissertation examines the variety of ways that information and media technology function in everyday life within the institution — including classroom instruction, school discipline, and evaluation — through qualitative methods, primarily class observations, photographs, and interviews with teachers, students, and administrators as the program evolved over two consecutive school years. This project contributes needed empirical context to questions of technological innovation in public education, providing the first-ever multi-year study of a one-to-one tablet computer program in a California public school. I argue that a number of factors contribute to an overall resistance among teachers and students toward the use of tablet computers for instructional purposes, including the mandates of administrators, ii publishers, and hardware manufacturers; the resource requirements of network infrastructure; a number of professional demands placed on teachers; and a lack of autonomy among student users. By contrast, school administrators experience few barriers to using tablet computers for surveillance, discipline, and recordkeeping. I explore issues of labor and surveillance related to this program to dispute persistent narratives about the so-called digital divide and to complicate the virtue of access espoused by the library and information professions. iii The dissertation of Roderic N. Crooks is approved. Jenna Burrell Louis Gomez Christopher Kelty Leah Lievrouw Jean-François Blanchette, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2016 iv I dedicate this work to the students, faculty, staff, and families of the school I call Number Seven. The entire school community welcomed me, supported my research, and taught me new ways to think about technology and social justice. This work is also dedicated to all those who have contributed to the struggle for access to quality public education in marginalized communities. A dissertation is but a moment in a years-long process of learning and writing, the captured record of thought in flux. Like all creative works, a dissertation requires care and resources in order to come into the world. I would not have been able to write this dissertation without a humbling amount of support over the long and meandering course of my education. I extend deepest gratitude to the Bond-Disbrow family, the Jonas-Gomez family, the Azara-Bjork family, and the Forsyth family, to the people who spent years feeding, housing, and helping someone else’s child through school and life. I would never have made it anywhere without such kindness. This work was helped immensely by the input and care of the dissertation committee and my advisor. I wish to thank Professors Michelle Caswell, Anne Gilliland, Joseph Hankins, Greg Leazer, Lilly Nguyen, and Ricardo Punzalan for their advice and mentorship as well. The best ideas came to me in conversation with my colleagues: Kelly Besser, Kathy Carbone, Joan Donovan, Morgan Currie, Jesse Erickson, Seth Erickson, Dalena Hunter, Patricia Garcia, Tammi Kim, Andrew Lau, Robert Montoya, Hemy Ramiel, Danielle Salomon, and Andrew Shrock. I am also grateful to the family I was born into: my mother and father; Derric, Thursday, and LaTonya; all my nieces and nephews. During my doctoral study I met and married Brian Schetzsle, who has helped me in every conceivable way and welcomed me into a loving and decent people. Thanks to Hattie, Tony, and Todd for letting me join. v TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE 1 FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL 1 ONE-TO-ONE COMPUTING PROGRAMS 5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 14 METHODS 16 DESCRIPTION OF FIELD SITE 18 ORGANIZATION OF THE DISSERTATION 19 CHAPTER ONE BIBLIOGRAPHY 23 CHAPTER TWO: WHAT IT TAKES TO DO TABLETS 28 INTRODUCTION: TIME OUT FOR TABLETS 28 LOCATING INFRASTRUCTURE STUDIES IN THE MATERIAL TURN 32 INFRASTRUCTURE STUDIES AS ATTENTION TO CONTEXT 33 MATTER BELOW THE INTERFACE 35 EDUCATION RESEARCH IN THE MATERIAL TURN 39 GOING BACKSTAGE WITH TABLETS 43 STAKEHOLDERS 45 STUDENTS 45 TEACHERS 48 ADMINISTRATION 50 THE COMMUNITY 51 THE CHARTER MANAGEMENT ORGANIZATION 53 MARKETS 55 WORK INFRASTRUCTURE 57 vi COMPUTERS 58 SPACE 58 ADMINISTRATIVE TECHNOLOGY 61 TABLETS 62 PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER 67 “MASS-USER-UNFRIENDLINESS” 70 INITIAL TEACHER REACTIONS 72 MAKE-WORK INSTRUCTION 74 AN EMERGING NORM 77 CONCLUSION: INFRASTRUCTURAL DIVIDES? 90 CHAPTER TWO BIBLIOGRAPHY 93 CHAPTER THREE: THE VALUE OF YOUTH 100 INTRODUCTION 100 WATER COOLER TALK 103 A PERPLEXING MOMENT FOR DIGITAL YOUTH 108 CHARACTER OF USE 110 EDUCATION 111 SOCIAL EQUITY 113 ETHNOGRAPHIC PORTRAITS 115 ESKA 116 HENRY 119 ALMA 120 THE EDUCATIONAL SITUATION 123 EVERYTHING IS FREE IN THE NEW MEDIA ECONOMY 124 ON THE JOYS OF UNWAGED WORK 125 vii SITES AND CIRCUITS OF EXCHANGE 133 BUSY WORK FOR STLS 137 BACKGROUND OF STL PROGRAM 137 UNBOXING 146 GOING RED 148 THE DEAL WITH TABLETS 153 CHAPTER THREE BIBLIOGRAPHY 156 CHAPTER FOUR: SMALL DEFIANCES 164 TELLING STORIES ABOUT SCHOOL 164 SURVEILLANCE AND THE MECHANICS OF ACCOUNTABILITY 169 SCHOLARLY APPROACHES TO SURVEILLANCE 175 FICTIONS OF SURVEILLANCE 176 PERFORMATIVITY AND AGENCY 180 SURVEILLANCE IN SCHOOLS 183 ACTING OUT IN CLASS INSTRUCTION 185 SURVEILLANCE THEATER 187 HACKING AS NON-EDUCATIONAL USE 191 COUNTERPERFORMANCES 194 BENEVOLENT SURVEILLANCE 196 NOVEL METRICS 203 SURVEILLANCE(S) AT SCALE 213 CHAPTER FOUR BIBLIOGRAPHY 219 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION 226 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 226 viii DIALECTIC OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE 228 FOR EVERY USER A COMPUTER, A COMPUTER FOR EVERY USER 232 THE MEANING OF COMPUTERS 237 CHAPTER FIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY 242 APPENDIX 245 ix My doctoral work at UCLA was supported by the Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship — funded by the University of California Office of the President, the UCLA Graduate Division, and the Department of Information Studies — and by a Dissertation Year Fellowship, awarded by the UCLA Graduate Division. x Roderic N. Crooks grew up in Los Angeles, California; Memphis, Tennessee; Portland, Oregon; and Vancouver, Washington, where he graduated from Hudson’s Bay High School. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York, New York in 1999. He entered The Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa in 2003 and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in 2005 with a thesis project called “The Human Technique,” a work of fiction. During his time in Iowa City, he worked as an art handler at the University of Iowa Museum of Art and as a technician for the International Writing Program. He taught English composition classes at Borough of Manhattan Community College and Kingsborough Community College between 2007 and 2009. In 2009, he returned to Los Angeles to enroll in the Department of Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angles. He received a Master of Library and Information Science in 2011 with a thesis project called “Exploring Paradoxical User Reactions to iPhone Tracker: Journalism, Business, Cyberinfrastructure, Privacy, and Regulation.” During doctoral study at UCLA, he completed a graduate certificate in digital humanities, volunteered for OUTreach, an LGBT+ service organization, and worked for seven years at the Civil Rights Project at UCLA, an education research institute. xi CHAPTER ONE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL On November 18, 2013, after several weeks of intense and sometimes frantic planning, staging, and troubleshooting, administrative staff at Los Angeles Academy Schools College Prep # 7, a public charter school in South Los Angeles of roughly 650 students, oversaw the distribution of over 500 Apple Computer iPads, one for each student in grades nine through eleven. School principal Dan Montoya, his three assistant principals, and Sonia Quezada, a remedial math teacher recruited to serve as tech support, were tasked by “Home Office,” the charter management organization (CMO) that owned their school, to pull off the implementation without controversy1. Figure 1.1. iPad checkout, directed by Student Technology leaders. 18 November 2013. 1 For a sense of the incredible outpouring of bad publicity related to tablet computer programs in Los Angeles public schools, see http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/04/opinion/la-le-0104-lausd-ipad-mailbag-20140104. For a summary of legal actions, see http://projects.scpr.org/timelines/lausd-ipads/.