Site Selection and Population
I selected a high school in western Massachusetts for most of my observations. The school has a mixed population of students in areas of socio-economic, ethnic and academic backgrounds. Having this mixture of backgrounds at the school enables me to have a more diverse population mix at my disposal. The high school has approximately 1000 students and is located within a city. The students, being that they are in the middle of the downtown district, are allowed to leave the grounds during lunchtime to walk to nearby eating establishments, so they are used to having a fair amount of freedom. The school is an old building that includes 4 floors of classrooms where the various departments are divided around the building, for example, science on the third floor, east wing. Much of the architecture has remained unchanged in the building, floors and walls show their age, yet some of the quaintness of past times still permeates parts of the building. It is a large school requiring much maintenance and the building can be either over-heated or freezing dependent on where you are, just like most old public buildings. The technology available within the school for teachers and students is average. The library has a dozen networked computers for general use plus many of the classrooms have a computer that is networked for security, file sharing and Internet access. The school runs a dual-platform system using both Macintosh and Intel based machines. There are 3 computers labs in the school used primarily by the business department and the vocational department. The level of technical expertise throughout the general staff is mainly in the beginner stages while the student population is a bit more advanced in the level of user capability and understanding.
I continued with the observation portion of my research at numerous private homes. The homes that I was able to visit and do observations at were those of some of my co-workers and their families. All are nestled in the Berkshires, known for its natural beauty, numerous cultural attractions and quaint New England charm. This piece of information is important to keep in mind, since we, who live in the Berkshires, are really never more than a few minutes away from nature. We can escape the rigors of our technologically driven society very easily…if we wanted to. This is an important point to keep in mind. The data that I have collected through observations and interviews may have been very different if it was gathered in a different location. The online surveys, on the other hand, were collected from a wide range of geographical areas, making the analysis of the resulting data more 'worldly' in nature.