The Internet goes to school: mastery and incorporation of cultural tools

Abstract

The objective of this article is to describe and analyze the process of introduction of the Internet in a school community, and to observe how the mastery and incorporation of the cultural tool and the purposes of the mediated action intervene in that process. From the description and analysis of the process, the elements intervening in the mastery and incorporation of the cultural tools are identified, based on the concept of telematic environments. Internet environments are defined based on the concept of cultural tool, and from the properties of mediated action. The introduction of the Internet at a school in a continuing education course is described, whence evidence is obtained of the preponderance of the purposes and manners of use of the cultural tool by the agents over the processes of creation of meanings, and of the incorporation of electronic mail by teachers and institution. The discursive modes observed in the dialogues are analyzed to explain teachers' internal and external actions, from which a discussion is made about the interaction between discursive structure and structure of mediated actions, as well as on the functions of the dialogue and of the cultural tool in the production of meanings. Reasons are presented for the provision of programs of continuing education on the use of the Internet within schools, justified by the transformations observed in the teaching and learning milieu.