ImpacT2 project: preliminary study 1: establishing the relationship between networked technology and attainment

This report explored teaching practices, beliefs and teaching styles and their influences on ICT use and implementation by pupils. Additional factors explored included the value of school and LEA policies and teacher competence in the use of ICT in classroom settings. ImpaCT2 was a major longitudinal study (1999-2002) involving 60 schools in England, its aims were to: identify the impact of networked technologies on the school and out-of-school environment; determine whether or not this impact affected the educational attainment of pupils aged 816 years (at Key Stages 2, 3, and 4); and provide information that would assist in the formation of national, local and school policies on the deployment of IC

Reading instruction practices by teachers of Hispanic elementary students: A teacher survey of classroom time spent in 25 reading instructional activities

This study was conducted in order to measure the amount of time spent among Hispanic elementary students in each of the most commonly used reading instruction methodologies. A survey was conducted among 500 randomly selected pre-kindergarten through fifth grade teachers instructing students who are 95% Hispanic and 63.4% English-as-a-second-language (ESL). Twenty of the 221 elementary campuses within a two-county area were randomly selected, representing ten school districts. All teachers at selected campuses were asked to estimate the amount of weekly class time spent in 25 reading and reading-readiness activities and methods of instruction. In addition, teachers provided various demographic data. Findings included areas of major variance within each grade level and, for the most part, predictable trends from grade level to grade level. Findings were also discovered in teacher demographic trends (years of experience, educational level, and gender). Variances among districts and campuses were also analyzed. And finally, significant variance was measured between the reading instruction time provided in non-bilingual versus bilingual classes, with bilingual classes receiving significantly less instruction. Further research is recommended to discover why this anomaly exists and to see if increasing the reading instruction time will improve the reading achievement of students in bilingual classes

How is Fanfiction Framed for Literacy Education Practitioner Periodical Audiences : Media Frame Analysis (2003 - 2013)

This dissertation reports out the results from a socio-cultural media research study that examined how professional periodicals written for United States K-12 public school literacy educators described fanfiction-based recreational literacy practices between 2003 and 2013. In the first decade of the 21st century, many K-12 literacy scholars advocated for the adaptation of predominantly out-of-school literacy practices for use within US public school literacy instruction programs. During this period, some literacy researchers expressed concerns that teachers may have held incomplete or inaccurate conceptions of fan-based literacy practices such as fanfiction, to the detriment of their students and the literacy practices themselves. This research study investigates these concerns within the context of journal articles that describe and discuss fanfiction literacy practices. Practitioner research journal articles were collected and analyzed using socio-cultural media frame analysis in order to determine how fanfiction was presented and evaluated for inclusion within US public school classrooms. Analysis of data uncovered three dominant frame categories -- the youth practice frame, the out-of-school practice frame and the utilitarian practice frame -- each of which reflected how discussions of fanfiction literacy practice were aligned with particularly salient perspectives on the nature and worth of K-12 students\u27 recreational literacy practices. The youth practice frame reflects an orientation toward the view that recreational literacy is juvenile, the out-of-school practice frame reflects the implications and connotations associated with labeling recreational literacy practices as non-academic, and the utilitarian practice frame reflects how recreational literacies are evaluated in terms of their ability to foster in-school literacy performance and assessment. By exploring how fanfiction literacy practices were framed over a decade punctuated by successive US K-12 public school literacy education reforms, this dissertation helps to illustrate the extent to which the qualities and merits of recreational literacy practices are often reoriented, reshaped, and resold to educators as solutions to classroom problems