Aprendizaje en un centro comunitarioel cine y el programa storybook weaver como núcleos generadores de cuentos

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: The objective of this study was to analyze the educational potential that can have a community center that possesses technological resources for the use of its participants. To achieve this objective, the study was centered fundamentally in the analysis of: the community center as an informal learning setting and the products that were achieved, in which the narrative mediated by the technological resource was axis to achieve them. The structure of this thesis is presented in two sections: the theoretical foundation and the empirical research. Upon developing the theoretical foundation, the researcher considered the sources that the scientific field recognizes as important, particularly, the work of american and of prominent international scientists. The researcher also wanted to approach European and Hispanic models, so she could have a more extensive theoretical framework, closer to the cultural perspective of Puerto Rico, where the community center is placed, such as to, upon carrying out the analysis of the data that were collected, the theoretical explanations could turned out to be pertinent and revealing. METHODOLOGY: The methodological focus of this study was a qualitative one, in which the Ethnography and the Action Research were utilized as methodological tools to compile the data that subsequently were analyzed. This research work approached the natural environment –a community center-, to observe, to film and document, and subsequently, to analyze the learning processes that were observed and to be able, subsequently, to present a detailed description of cases in which can be explained how the people attribute sense to their activity in defined sociocultural contexts. It has been utilized besides, the methodology inspired in the sociocultural theory and that is supported, so much in etnographic focus, as in the Action Research for the data analysis. The role of the researcher was a dual one upon analyzing the activity: as a participant-observer and as a researcher. Both roles helped assisted the researcher to be able to reach a greater knowledge of what happened in the workshops as for the participants activity and besides, to be able to identify the learning goals reached as for the media utilized and the results obtained. To present and to describe the moments or phases of the research, the descriptions that are presented in this work have a certain order that not necessarily is the one that occurs when the research process is carried out. The processes implied in this the study were connected between themself and in many times, occurred simultaneously. The place where the workshop was carried out, that served as an activity system to collect and analyze the data in a natural learning context, was the Support Center for the Community Self-Management (CAADEC); a community center that serves to the marginalized communities of San Juan, capital city of Puerto Rico. This community center, when the study was carried out, included a virtual library with six computers, a TV, video and a work station in a big room. The participants of the workshop were six boys and three girls; the assistant to the researcher and co-facilitator of the workshop and the researcher, whose role was also that of facilitator of the workshop. The workshop that was the activity system studied, was comprised of ten sessions of two hours, two times a week. To compile the data, summaries, audio recordings that were subsequently transcribed, videos of each one of the sessions and the documents generated by the participants were utilized. RESULTS: From the methodological and theoretical considerations, a deep and exhaustive analysis of the data compiled was conducted to give answers to the questions that were gestating during the study. A triangular analysis of the data was carried out for the purpose of achieving a deep description of the observations made. It was sought to insert the story in the experience to be able to establish its meaning. The first unit of analysis was the context of the workshop that created learning nvironments in which a community of practice was constituted. In this community of practice, the observation was slanted to analyze with detail the activities organized by the researcher as the facilitator of the workshop and to observe besides, the activities that carried out the participants in its interaction among them and with the technological resources in the workshop setting. The second unit of analysis were products that participants developed: the narratives (stories).