You will explore a vast database drawn from World Bank data and test the power of relationships between infant mortality and variables such as rates of innoculation to see which variables deserve the greatest attention. The teams brainstormed variables, posed hypotheses, explored the electronic encyclopedia and then dove into the immense database, cutting and pasting data into a spreadsheet and beginning the generation of graphs. Easy as these first graphs were to create, they soon discovered that powerful representation of complex data requires artistry and design rather than simple automation. They sorted infant mortality rates in ascending order for their comparison groups so the relationship with a second variable would stand out more clearly. This ranking supported generalizations.
Infant mortality is likely to rise as the rate of innoculation against disease . . .
They also saw the effectiveness of showing infant mortality as a consistent set of bars in contrast with the other variable as a line chart. They were puzzled by the quest for meaning, challenged by the question and motivated by making of meaning. It was a constructivist classroom and they were inventors. We may have come to the great divide in educational technology as rich information sources suddenly become available and the sounds of traffic on the electronic highway penetrate the walls of schools. Even though technology refusal may have been rooted as Hodas claims in the nature and purposes of schooling designed for a different kind of society and economy, the technology choices offered to teachers in the past and the failure to provide appropriate adult learning opportunities may have contributed dramatically to patterns of refusal.