One Teachers’ Interpretive Knowledge of the Adoption of Blackboard in Teaching

Recognizing the need for reform of K-12 education in the postmodern, digital age, this paper based on narrative inquiry explores the personal practical knowledge of a 6th grade teacher who has taught at a high-needs rural elementary school in New York State, using the course management system of Blackboard for seven years. This paper seeks to make sense of how the senior teacher with 32 years teaching experience conceptualizes the use of technology in his classroom, how he create different forms of teaching with the help of technology, what pedagogical reasons he has for using technology extensively, and what results he has seen after integrating technology in his teaching. The implications of his narrative give us lessons as to what a teacher can do in terms of technology integration other than Internet search projects and practice and drills and to what extent we can stretch the use of technology in the K-12 environment. A close examination of this teacher's adoption of computers may help illuminate different approaches to teaching elementary students.