SECOND INTERNATIONAL HARVARD CONFERENCE ON INTERNET & SOCIETY  may 26-29, 1998

Interview with Margaret Riel, Associate Director, Center for Collaborative Research in Education, University of California, Irvine by Kris Manjapra See also Schools and Communities in Cyberspace. Q: What is your academic background in Technology and Education? Riel: My Ph.D. is in social science [interdisciplinary with a focus in sociology from the University of California at Irvine], and I have an MA in educational psychology [University of Chicago]. My dissertation involved the use of computers in examining the skills of language-handicapped students.      My first appointment was as a researcher in the Interactive Technology Lab, at UCSD where I continued my work with computers as learning tools. It was there we created the Intercultural Learning Network [1984-86], a connection between eight schools in four countries [the U.S. (including Alaska), Mexico, Japan and Israel]. It was through this first project that I began to understand the power and potential of this medium for building understanding across cultures and creating different learning environments in the classrooms. Q: Is disparity the chief problem with education today? If not, what is? Riel: I think that I would be more direct and say that one of the biggest problems is that we are failing to reach students in our urban schools. We are failing too large a percentage of our population. And I believe that a central reason is that we are not creating for these students a sense of community. Their need to be a part of a community is what makes them such easy targets for gangs.       For me, there are two problems that I have spent my life trying to solve. The first one is most students when asked about school say it is BORING. It doesn't have to be. There are times when it isn't, so the problem is how to make school less boring.       The other problem has to do with teaching. We don't respect it as a profession. We give little respect to the job and the people who fill it. I think we need to think seriously about our professional teachers. These would be more skilled individuals, not represented by trade union, who take a leadership role in implementation, and evaluation of learning activities. They work in the classrooms, across classrooms and from within the educational community. Q: How does technology engender the values of international exchange, empathy and pro-action in children? What other values, positive and negative, does technology encourage? Riel: I am not sure I would say that technology engenders any values. Values are orientations that come from interaction with people. To the extent that computers are a communication medium they carry the interactions that may lead to values. The power comes from being a part of something larger then oneself, of being able to form friendships and relationships with people who you would never have had access to in the past. Q: Is technology itself a tool of the privileged? Does Internet access create a group of "have-not" students who cannot afford access? Riel: All tools create "have" and "have not." Even tools that we all have access to like language are differentially available to people so that they are marked. The task is to find ways to increase public access to technology. We can put computer labs in all schools. Instead of spending so much money testing students in a language that they can not read, as we are doing this week in California, we could use this money to make sure schools have the technology that they need to assure all students a minimal level of access. We also need to put Internet stations in public libraries or make school computer labs—community computer labs—open in the evenings so that students and community members can come and use them. Q: How is the Internet changing real-space societies around the globe? Riel: The world is shrinking. It is happening because of communication and transportation technology. I know far more people in my field than those far more successful than me a generation ago. My children have already been to more countries than most adults in my parent's generation. The more contact you have the more likely you are to find a way to meet the people in person. Q: What is the long-term benefit of internationalized education via the Internet? Riel: We have a much wider and richer understanding of the multiple perspectives that comes from life in different conditions. We personalize our knowledge about other places. Japan becomes the home of my friend/colleagues, Naomi and Misaki, and not a shape outline on a map. I come to understand that my way of seeing things is just that, mine and not the only way. That world history is a perspective and we learn world history from a U.S. slant, not from some absolute stance. Q: How do innovations for children on the Internet make you feel? What are your personal sentiments? Riel: I am impressed by the care and concern that people have for one another. When we make the world small, we can help one another. Large scale problems cannot be addressed, they feel too large. But connections among small groups can often solve big problems in new ways. For more about the work of Margaret Riel, visit her web office. Kris Manjapra (Harvard College 2000) concentrates in Economic History and Philosophy. He is Executive Editor of Diversity & Distinction Magazine, a publication that features the diversity of cultures and opinions of students at Harvard. Mr. Manjapra works as an intern at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, where he is learning the power of cyberspace in shaping modern life. In the summer of 1998, Mr. Manjapra will be conducting independent research in New Delhi, India, on the effectiveness of government-sponsored education on slum youth. His goals are to travel, understand the world, and help enrich and empower children.