Cyber Families: Bridging Multigenerational Technology Gaps Through La Clase Mágica Familia After-School Family Program

• In Event: La Clase Mágica: Generating Transworld Pedagogy

Abstract

Objectives
This presentation examines how Latino/a family members participating in La Clase Mágica, an afterschool technology program, use technology as a bridge to connect with their children and get involved in the community. This presentation provides a counter-story to the technology gap that often exists between children and parents.

Theoretical framework
The frameworks include sociocultural theories of learning and development (Vygostky, 1978) and parent involvement (Delgado-Gaitan, 1990; Darling-Hammond, 1997;Valdez, 1996), sociocultural literacy (Flores & Diaz, 1997), funds of knowledge (Moll & Gonzalez, 1997),family computer literacy (Vasquez, 2003; Machado-Casas, 2006, & 2009). All which highlights the importance of research that recognizes families as an integral part of children’s academic success and growth particularly in a technology oriented era.

Methods:
This paper draws from La Clase magica an ongoing qualitative study that focused on the digital literacy as UTSA bilingual education teacher candidates (aspirantes) and their amigas/os worked together during LCM, families were invited to be part of the LCM family technology workshops called talleres. In Spanish, the term talleres conveys something beyond the simple top-down approach utilized in most workshops; it requires what Vasquez (2003) calls a “participatory approach,” where researchers are mediators and families are full participants in their learning processes, collaboratively deciding on the learning process/direction to determine what they would like to learn to how they would like learn it. During these talleres, families were invited to reflect on their own journeys as immigrants in the US and how using technology would help them in their new lives, in addition to learning the latest technology and creating digital literacy projects.

Data sources:
Data included weekly reflections from professor; monthly reflections from some family members; video-taped interactions of parents; digital literacy narrativas, and literacy projects; digital videos created by parents; interviews, and digital book interpretations created by parents.

Results
LCM@UTSA provided family members with a space to make sense of rapidly growing technology world that often times fails t include them as active participants and it gave families and opportunity to engage with their children in our current digitally driven world. By doing so, it allowed parents to become active participants, creators and co-creators of knowledge in addition to helping them complete important daily practice task such as paying bills online, using email, and communicating with school officials. Furthermore, families began to use and create biliteracy projects mediated by digital tools and they began to see and explore the ways in which technology can serve as a bridge for working with their children but most importantly as digital family.

Scholarly significance of the study
This research is of particular significance because it highlights the need to involve families in the use of technology in schools and communities. It also provides framework that describes the technology resources available to families in communities and the importance of tapping into these and gives future educators and community leaders with knowledge about the ways Latino families use and understand technology.

Author

• Margarita Machado-Casas, The University of Texas - San Antonio