17 Sept. 2019
● A descriptive narrative: What story or event drives your inquiry? This could be personal,
I remember when my middle school got Chromebooks. Until that point we had really old
computers that were only used for testing really. Those Chromebooks were a luxury to
us, as it was during a time when teachers still used CRT TVs to show movies on free
days, and when we had to look up information in textbooks. I remember seeing those
laptops for the first time and now that I look at the laptop I am using now, I think to
myself, “Is this better at helping us learn than doing things the old way?” We have access
to millions of pieces of information, but I feel like people often forget that and don’t use
technology efficiently. How has technology changed the way instructors teach, schools
● A brief history/context of the question. Consider the reporter's questions: Who? What?
Technology has been around for a long time, however, it had been mostly used for
government purposes until the 1980’s. IBM pioneers the Personal Computer (PC), and
after that, many companies began to make their own PCs. Many of these PCs were still
not widely used in schools, and if a school had one, it was mainly for business purposes
as opposed for teaching purposes. In 1995, the Internet and World Wide Web began to hit
the mainstream, and as it’s popularity increased, so did it’s usage. After this, schools
began to use more computers, about one PC for every 5% of students, and as the
technology became more widely available in the form of laptops and smartphones,
schools across the nation now have technology implemented in their courses.
● What did you know about your subject before you began? How did you learn it?
I knew that technology has been a prominent feature in schools for a while now, and it
seems that many public schools now spend most of their budget on new technology.
Being born in the 2000s is great because I still experienced school with little to no
technology. At my elementary school there was a library where a computer lab is now,
and that really shows how big of a presence technology has in schools. All I have learned
is through personal experiences, and I’m excited to learn how statistics in testing scores,
● What evidence have you gathered to establish that it is researchable? Include a couple
In text citations and a Works Cited are optional, but not required for the Proposal.
● What keywords/subject words can you generate related to your inquiry? Consider
advantages, disadvantages
● Where might you look next for more perspectives on your question?
I could ask adults as well as younger children to recall how they have learned and then
compare the two experiences.Looking for articles that were written when computers were
first introduced into the classroom could also help in comparing how things used to work
to how they work now. Searching for statistics in test scores and graduation rates before
● Can you limit or enlarge your question in terms of geography (UNCC, N.C., the U.S.),
time, or population?
I could, and I think I am going to focus on the nation as a whole. However, as some states
are more technologically advanced than others, I may just limit it down to NC, as I have
more people that I know in different universities and even high schools, so this would be
● What specific questions are occurring to you now that you’ve begun to think on paper
How does accessibility play a part in this? Is it easier for more underprivileged children
to excel in school or harder because they may not have access to technology at home?
Does using technology more and more create a bigger divide between the lower and
higher class? Do children that live in higher income homes have the upper hand in
community?
just hurts them due to more distractions. Perhaps I could research how third-world
countries learn compared to the United States due to not such a wide access to
technology. Researching this can perhaps let people see that this is a good thing, a bad
https://web.csulb.edu/~murdock/histofcs.html
https://online.purdue.edu/blog/evolution-technology-classroom
https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01272195/document