Abstract:
What started as an investigation of technology to teach became a qualitative research to tell the story of an innovative educational experience with technology and how teachers’ lives have been affected as they became co-designers and protagonists. Our collaboration on a virtual social network provided a consistent digital record to this research as we collaborated and co-elaborated teaching plans with active methodologies and technology. Like in a novel, this story involves tensions, predicaments, conflicts, struggles, challenges and how the protagonists were able to overcome those obstacles towards resolution. After a series of events, the group was set apart, but the virtual group remained strong. Those records have been the basis of a study on these teachers’ perspectives, their teaching practice, their view of innovative pedagogies, public policies, their references and their views about the school, the students, their peers and themselves and how it has changed over time. From constructionist pedagogy and social justice lenses, the teachers' ontologies, epistemologies and ideologies have been transformed as their voices and agency emerged in the text analysis and is recounted on the narrative. The political context and the school culture and infrastructure (labs and connectivity) have also been part of the analysis as the narrative is written based on the extracts from their group chat. Despite all the adversities some of the teachers, who became heroes to me, remained hopeful and took ownership of those innovative pedagogies and managed to apply their new skills and tools to create more opportunities for underprivileged kids through their teaching practice.