literacy

Literacies and technologies in the study sites

To maximise the focus and 'evenness' of site study reports, we employed a template. Each study report began with a succinct overview: the study 'at a glance'. The site itself was then described (in terms of socio-economic status, physical characteristics, size, demographics and the like), along with its particular policy context. The body of each site study comprised an account of the practice we observed and otherwise gleaned from interviews, documents, artefacts, etc. Distinctive features of the practice were identified, described, and analysed. Each study report concluded by distilling significant issues and implications emerging from it. The site studies constitute volume 2 of the project report.

The classrooms we observed varied considerably in terms of technological 'tools' employed, and the relative extent to which and ways in which they were employed in learning generally, and literacy education more specifically. One classroom employed no 'new technologies' whatsoever in the component of its subject Technology program we observed. In designing, making and appraising their home garden projects, students and teacher in this classroom employed pen and paper, blackboard, and OHP only. At the other extreme were classrooms employing Internet access (email, WWW) and an array of (other) multimedia applications &endash e.g., CD-ROMs, presentation software, Quick Take cameras, sound and animation software -- on a daily basis. In one case, a site had indirect access to a CD-ROM burner, by which their Hypercard presentations were published as a CD-ROM. In between these poles, classrooms ran the hardware gamut from Apple IIe's to pentium-powered PCs, employing diverse word processing, drawing-painting-graphics, and desktop publishing software.

Literacy activities were varied, if to a large extent predictable and characteristically 'school-like'. In possibly the most pedagogically sophisticated site, a Year 5 class in a low socio-economic status area undertook an integrated theme-based unit of work in which learners produced film narratives (movie scripts), biographies, reports, poster advertisements, invitations, explanations, justifications, evaluations, and procedural accounts, as constitutive elements of the overall unit. Literacy activities across all of these forms (and more besides) were encountered within single observation sessions. A 'snapshot' from a different site describes students trying to access information on the WWW and, when it was not available, soliciting it by email request to the relevant Website personnel. Another captures SuccessMaker and SentenceMaster programs being used to improve mastery of basic literacy skills. Examples are provided of teachers and students working together to format email interviews for presentation on the Web, to present projects (e.g., on local endangered species) as a series of web pages, and to create individual student web pages. One such example portrays a 12 year old student laboriously producing a sentence stating his name and age, with close support from the teacher, prior to beginning his web page. In most cases, 'web work' &endash indeed, computer-produced work in general -- was roughed out first using pen and paper before being produced in electronic form. Other examples capture students using computers for producing 5-minute plays, jointly constructed retellings of individual pages of The Magic Flute, producing newspapers reporting stories about the school, making Christmas cards, and producing brochures about aspects of the local town. Hypercard presentations were popular forms. These ranged from sequences of individual stories (including voice overs and illustrations to supplement straight text), to a presentation designed to augment the Principal's end of year speech; via information reports on Olympic athletes, a history of the school, environmental project reports, and the like. At primary school level, producing stories using a range of computer applications was strongly in evidence. These activities ranged from producing interactive stories based on modern myths and legends to more straightforward productions using story board panel formats and software which simulated storybook space. In the one 'traditional' classroom observed, students maintained garden diaries, produced 'spec analyses' and 'consider all factors (CAF) statements. They interviewed neighbours about what grows well and doesn't under local conditions, wrote reports of their projects, and made formal oral presentations of reports using card notes, OHTs, and other prompts - aiming to get as close as possible to how 'experts' present technology project reports in real life.

http://www.schools.ash.org.au/litweb/bigum.html