Using gaming paratexts in the literacy classroom

This paper illustrates how digital game paratexts may effectively be used in the high school English to meet a variety of traditional and multimodal literacy outcomes. Paratexts are texts that refer to digital gaming and game cultures, and using them in the classroom enables practitioners to focus on and valorise the considerable literacies and skills that young people develop and deploy in their engagement with digital gaming and game cultures. The effectiveness of valorizing paratexts in this manner is demonstrated through two examples of assessment by students in classes where teachers had designed curriculum and assessment activities using paratexts

Portrayals of information and communication technology on World Wide Web sites for girls

This study reports a content analysis of 35 World Wide Web sites that included in their mission the goal of engaging girls with information and communication technology (ICT). It finds that sites emphasize cultural and economic uses of ICT, doing little to foster civic applications that could empower girls as citizens of the information age. The study also finds that sites foster a narrow range of ICT proficiencies, focusing mostly on areas such as communication, in which girls have already achieved parity with boys. An examination of the role models portrayed in ICT occupations indicates that the sites show females mainly in elite technology jobs, reversing stereotypical mass media depictions of females in low-status roles in relation to ICT. Employing an original index of ICT knowledge and skills, the study finds that the sites that scored highest both on fostering comprehensive knowledge and skills as well as featuring civic content were general interest Web communities. Ownership (for-profit or not-for-profit) of sites was less important than editorial control: Sites that offered girls a place to contribute their own content were more likely to offer civic material and a broader range of ICT knowledge and skills. We conclude with recommendations for Web site designers to rethink their design strategies and their rationales for closing the gender gap in computing

Designing Journalists: Teaching Journalism Students to Think Like Web Designers

The authors introduced 80 university-level journalism students to a web design program called Klynt and supervised the creation of multiple interactive documentaries. They discovered that fledgling reporters could effectively design interactive media while creating work that reflects their own candid and extemporaneous ethos. Building on the insight that journalism in the digital age must give rise to modified best practices, this study examines the complex production processes from which multiple i-docs emerged. The authors conclude by suggesting four tentative “new best practices” for journalists attempting to think and act like web designers

Collaborative authoring and the virtual problem of context in writing courses

Since the 1980s, the field of rhetoric and composition has embraced the idea of collaborative writing as a means of generating new knowledge, troubling traditional conceptions of the author, and repositioning power within the student-teacher hierarchy. Authors such as David Bleich, Kenneth Bruffee, and Andrea Lunsford and Lisa Ede have written about, and advocated for, teachers' engagement with collaboration in the composition classroom. Yet in discussions of collaborative writing, scholars have tended to ignore an important element: the limitations placed upon student agency by the institutional context in which students write. We can ask students to work together in the classroom, but limitations on their choice of collaborators, their time together, and their ability to determine the outcome of their work result in an unproductive simulacrum of collaboration in which students write together but do not engage deeply with each other in the ways scholars describe. Ignoring the fact that classroom collaborative writing is embedded in different fields of power than writing done by scholars working outside institutional limitations results in a conception of collaborative writing as little more than an element of pedagogy, one that can be added to a syllabus without significantly changing the structure, goals, or ideology of the course. Rather than approaching collaborative writing as a means of pushing against the limits of institutional writing, the context in which collaboration takes place is naturalized. As a result, the assessment and disciplinary structures of the academy, the physical division of the student body into class sections, and the tools available to support (or undercut) collaborative work vanish in the scholarship. To counter this trend, I explore how the denial of context and the resulting disconnection between theory (the claims for collaborative writing) and practice (the twenty-first-century composition classroom) promote not collaboration, but a simulacrum of collaboration: academic work that mimics the appearance of true collaboration while failing to enact the liberatory possibility of working with other writers. This project explores collaborative theory on three levels: the personal, in which collaborative writing is illustrated via specific business, public, and academic contexts; the pedagogical, in which current collaborative theory and practice is deployed and analyzed to understand its limitations; and the disciplinary, in which current collaborative theory and practice is questioned, critiqued, and remediated to propose an alternative collaborative classroom praxis. The structure of the dissertation, which uses interchapters to draw connections between larger theoretical issues and my ethnographic research, interviews, and analysis, reflects these three strands as a means of illustrating the interdependence of the personal, pedagogical, and disciplinary conceptions of and engagements with collaborative writing

Supplementing textbooks with computer-based resources in the primary EFL-classroom

Most reputable educational studies today show that there will never be a direct connection between the use of computers and learning outcomes because learning is mediated through the learning environment and the computer is only one element of that environment. Nevertheless, since most children in Germany have access to a home computer and the internet, the school as an egalitarian institute is obligated to offer pupils a level playing field. Providing some kind of access to computers is, therefore, school's responsibility to the disadvantaged and the underprivileged, irrespective of the reputed pedagogical value of such practice. As with any learning method, the use of computers in the primary English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom has to be practiced systematically. Until such use is anchored in the curriculum, it is essential that the teacher makes it a habit for the class to frequent the computer lab at regular intervals. Without frequent use, young learners will practically have to relearn the same computer program every time they use it. Under the tight time constraints prevailing in the EFL primary classroom and the school computer lab, and as most primary EFL teachers are generalists (non-specialists) who teach several subjects, the best possible solution would be to have the same computer program incorporated into other subjects as well, such as German or General Studies (Sachfachunterricht), similarly to content and language integrated learning (CLIL). Teachers should choose computer-assisted activities which reflect and promote pupils’ existing abilities rather than neglect or marginalize them. The suggested activity here is the production of talking books – audio-visual multimedia slideshows and photomontages. It requires pupils to use the listening and speaking skills of a storyteller rather than the reading and writing skills needed for authoring paper storybooks. Pupils whose capacity to express themselves in the foreign language is limited can achieve considerable satisfaction by using pictures to fill lexical and structural gaps. Desktop publishing software and multimedia authoring programs allow young learners of EFL to combine spoken, written, visual and graphic materials to create talking books, thus successfully expressing information and ideas which lie beyond their current level of English competence. The exposure to multi-sensory stimuli during the work with computers gives pupils more physical pegs to associate information with. Evidence suggests that this non-verbal support leads to increased learning and more effective remembering of information

Learn-ciam: a model-driven approach for the development of collaborative learning tools

This paper introduces Learn-CIAM, a new model-based methodological approach for the design of flows and for the semi-automatic generation of tools in order to support collaborative learning tasks. The main objective of this work is to help professors by establishing a series of steps for the specification of their learning courses and the obtaining of collaborative tools to support certain learning activities (in particular, for in-group editing, searching and modeling). This paper presents a complete methodological framework, how it is supported conceptually and technologically, and an application example. So to guarantee the validity of the proposal, we also present some validation processes with potential designers and users from different profiles such as Education and Computer Science. The results seem to demonstrate a positive reception and acceptance, concluding that its application would facilitate the design of learning courses and the generation of collaborative learning tools for professionals of both profiles

Web Site Content Management Systems: Selection and Usage at Land-Grant Universities

American land-grant universities generate large amounts of information for their Web sites, which serve a variety of audiences in addition to students, faculty, and staff. Many of these universities are beginning to search for Web site content management systems (CMS) to help organize this information. However, there are hundreds - if not thousands - of systems in this emerging arena, with no clear market leader. This paper provides a snapshot of the experiences of communicators at several universities where content management systems are in use. The purpose is to provide criteria to help Web site managers at universities and other organizations make more informed decisions as they consider which content management system to implement. Specifically, the study used an online survey followed by a questionnaire to selected Webmasters at land-grant universities across the United States, and tracked comments on a university Web developers\u27 discussion board to determine the Web site content management system that is currently in use or under consideration, usage patterns, advantages and disadvantages, staffing requirements, and advice to colleagues considering such a system. This study does not attempt to offer a definitive answer as to which content management system is the best. After all the questions, comments, and analysis, it confirms Noel Ward\u27s observation (2001), \u27No one-size-fits-all content management solution exists.\u27 However, it does offer some insights into what Owen Linderholm (2001) aptly described as the \u27seemingly endless array of content management software\u27 by identifying some criteria for evaluating CMS choices and it reveals a glimpse into fascinating possibilities for the future of content management systems. Criteria to consider when evaluating a CMS include: Usability of the authoring environment for developers and content providers Internal needs assessment (e.g., cost of the software and the personnel to develop/maintain the CMS and train/coach content providers) Vendor considerations (e.g., what is involved to make the system do what the sales representative says it will do

Towards a practitioner-centered approach to the design of e-learning competence editors

Girardin, F., Ayman, M., & Josep, B. (2007). Towards a practitioner-centered approach to the design of e-learning competence editors. In T. Navarrete, J. Blat & R. Koper (Eds.), Proceedings of the 3rd TENComptence Open workshop 'Current Research on IMS Learning Design and Lifelong Competence Development Infrastucture' (pp. 99-104). June, 20-21, 2007, Barcelona, Spain: TENCompetence.This article reports on the background research on requirements and current approaches to editors for learning curriculum designers. First we take a critique look at the state of the art in the domain of learning activity editors. We then look back in the information visualization and interaction literature to discuss the design challenged of such tools. From these current theories and applied works we define a set a rules that are crucial for the design of CDP editors based developed on top of complex e-learning models. Finally, we exemplify the set of design rules with a prototype integrating tightly coupled map-based and Gantt chart views.The work on this publication has been sponsored by the TENCompetence Integrated Project that is funded by the European Commission's 6th Framework Programme, priority IST/Technology Enhanced Learning. Contract 027087 [http://www.tencompetence.org