A Tecnologia Digital na Escola: um estudo etnográfico

Abstract

This dissertation aims to study Digital Technology. It is an ethnographic study that, in addition of using traditional ethnographic instruments such as: participant observation and the interviews, introduces observations of participation a digital interactional group using WhatsApp as data source. The study was carried out in a public school of the State of Rio de Janeiro in the city of Nova Iguaçu. The school, unique in the neighborhood, serves as a scenario for observations and listening that extrapolate the classrooms spaces. The main subjects of the study were the students of the 9th grade class of Elementary School. The research was conducted in two stages, one dedicated to a bibliographic review on the object of study and another to the field work. The data was comprised in four corpuses of analysis performed: a database on Technology, that was built from the software EndNote; records of the field notes with interpretations and inferences of the researcher; interviews and informal conversations with students, teachers, managers and the school inspector; and, the WhatsApp group posting records. The analyzes were processed manually and through the software ATLAS.ti. The main categories derived from these analyzes were: Subjects in School Spaces; Technology; and Control. The results are presented based on the voice of the participants and from them it is considered that the student, unlike the school, has access to and uses digital technology in their very day life, while the school uses strategies based on a traditional and outdated pedagogy to deal with them, prevent them from accessing technologies. In the discussions of the results, the students' creativity and dynamism stand out against the resistance of the school to include in their academic practices apparatuses and dynamics that demonstrate that it is possible to participate actively in the digital culture regardless of the school approach toward it. This dissertation is expected to alert teachers, managers, and those interested in Digital Technology about the need to listen to the student's voice in a way that broadens the understanding about them and thus, apply their creativity and energy in dealing with technologies, improving the interactions in school s spaces and the quality of teaching and learning