Implications for literacy learning as urban second grade students engage in digital storytelling.

The purpose of this year long strategic ethnography is to discover how introducing digital storytelling into an urban second grade classroom impacts the study of language arts and repositions students as literacy learners. Research questions include: (1) In a classroom where most of the students have never used computers before as learning tools, what happens as they learn to create books using digital means? (2) How do the students position themselves as authors, and how do they use imagery in representing their alphabetic (or regular print) texts? For this study, the students write stories in cooperative writing groups and choose their own topics. The students illustrate their stories and the illustrations are scanned for digitalization. The students learn how to word process their stories, and the students also learn how to incorporate both image and text onto a page using a computer application. The researcher is a participant/observer, spending one language arts period per week in this classroom. The methods of data collection include: fieldnotes, digital photographs, audio tapes, video tapes, student surveys, teacher interviews, news stories and demographic information collected from Winterdale school system, student generated texts and other student artifacts. The frameworks of this study include: The New London Group’s theory of multiliteracies, Kress and van Leeuwen’s theory of semiotics, and Spradley’s analysis techniques based on ethnographic participant observation. Analysis of these student generated texts using the frameworks mentioned, critical discourse analysis and domain analysis help to reveal emerging themes and how the students position themselves as writers. Video footage, fieldnotes, participant observation and dialogical data show that the students in this study were excited and energized by their involvement with the Digital Storytelling Project (DSP) and that the use of computer and digital media technology was very well received. As the students shared in the decision making involved in designing a story, they positioned themselves and one another as authorities, and as successful and creative writers and illustrators. Creating the images for their stories opened up yet another mode of communication and became a source of competence for the students. They used their imaginations and elaborated on their story lines as they added visual details that were not found in the written texts. The DSP also raised the classroom teacher’s awareness of computer technology and gave her the courage to be an active participant in the realm of technology alongside her students. Three of the student participants exhibited positive behavior changes as a result of participating in this project. This study implies that pairing social semiotics with computer technology can enable students, including at-risk students, to find modes of communication that they can employ, and this has the potential to increase active engagement with literacy learning

Narrative, autism and mainstream secondary schooling in England: Issues in assessment, inclusion and intervention

Narrative research has been the focus of investigation for many years and has provided insights in to communication, the development of society, individual identity, and psycholinguistics. In recent years, interest in the narrative abilities of individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has developed and the field has advanced rapidly. This thesis investigates the abilities of high-functioning individuals with ASD with regard to narrative structure in the context of inclusive practice within mainstream schooling in England. It is motivated by the implementation of inclusive education policies and focuses on using the abilities of children and young adults with ASD to overcome their weaknesses. This positive view of ASD forms the ethos of this thesis and the data it presents. The discussion encompasses research from the fields of Education, Psychology and Linguistics to develop the initial investigation into the level of structural narrative abilities in high-functioning individuals with ASD. Through an investigation which uses Labov's (1997) framework of analysis, these initial studies identify impairments in the narrative structure produced by these individuals. In addition, this initial analysis identifies the potential impact of elicitation techniques on the narrative data yielded. These results are discussed in relation to the existing research, to inclusive practice, and their implications for the intervention study undertaken as part of the current research. The intervention presented in the second part of this thesis aimed to provide teaching staff with an additional tool in order to meet the needs of high-functioning individuals with ASD in mainstream, inclusive education. As such, the intervention design is unobtrusive and flexible in its application. The results of case study analyses for five high-functioning individuals with ASD are inconclusive but nonetheless highlight the importance of individualising interventions where possible. They reveal that whilst three individuals benefit from the intervention, two do not. Further discussion identifies several areas for the development and further research of the techniques used. In particular, it is suggested that more discrete task levels reflecting more discrete ability levels would enable the intervention to remain applicable in inclusive classrooms whilst providing additional support at a variety of levels. These conclusions are related to inclusive practice, and recommendations and implications for future research are highlighted

A transformative journey of cultural recovery: Te Ao Maori

Historical and contemporary cultural trauma continues to impact on the health and well-being of Indigenous people globally. Located within Australia this thesis employs Kaupapa Maori theory and autoethnography to explore a process of cultural recovery and healing. This is a self-decolonising journey from cultural trauma to recovery, through the researchers cultural immersion within te ao Maori. This interwoven approach speaks to the new era of qualitative social research. Concluding that cultural recovery and the healing of cultural trauma are connected to the core of self and to subjective experiences of well-being, influencing health outcomes for Maori people

Cultural Aspects for Technology Acceptance: Asian Perspectives and Research Techniques

This study continues previous research on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1986) conducted in Australia (Evers & Day, 1997) by reporting findings from data collected in the Peoples’ Republic of China. This study extends the TAM model by introducing cultural preferences for interface design features. It finds a strong relationship between perceived usefulness and attitude of satisfaction as well as confirming many other relationships between the constructs in the extended TAM model. Secondly, it addresses an important issue in cross-cultural empirical research: the potential impact of administering surveys in respondents’ native languages rather than in the researchers’ own languages and finds that responses of a single culture (Chinese) differ between indigenous Chinese and ex-patriot Chinese

“Digital by Necessity”: An Interview with Dr. Jane Wanninger

In the summer of 2020, Dr. Jane Wanninger participated in a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute hosted by Agnes Scott College to learn about implementing digital storytelling in the classroom, which ironically, had to be completed digitally due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Her experience was the inspiration for this issue of Early College Folio as she pitched her ideas using the phrase “digital by necessity.” Issue Editor Julia Carey Arendell interviewed Jane, captured here, on all that she learned to think more deeply about using the virtual tool of digital storytelling as a teacher, a student, and a medium

Pitfalls associated with the use of molecular diagnostic panels in the diagnosis of cryptococcal meningitis

Abstract We report the case of a kidney transplantation patient on chronic immunosuppressive therapy presenting with subacute meningitis. The final diagnosis of cryptococcal meningitis was delayed due to 2 false-negative cryptococcal results on a molecular diagnostic panel. Caution with such platforms in suspected cryptococcal meningitis is needed.</jats:p

The Intellectual Advancement of Human-Computer Interaction Research: A Critical Assessment of the MIS Literature (1990-2008)

This paper assesses the intellectual advancement of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) scholarship as one of the five research streams of the Management Information Systems (MIS) discipline. It particularly demonstrates the vitality and maturity that the HCI stream (or sub-discipline) has achieved in recent years, and adds to the few studies that draw an overarching picture of HCI. This study uses the same approach as that of Zhang and Li (2005), and delineates the intellectual development of HCI research in MIS by employing a multifaceted assessment of the published HCI articles over a period of 19 years (1990-2008) in eight primary MIS journals. In addition, this study includes several journal special issues and two book collections in the assessment. Twenty-four specific questions are addressed to answer the following five mega-research questions about the HCI sub-discipline: (1) What constitutes HCI’s intellectual substance? (2) What relationships does HCI have with other disciplines? (3) How is HCI evolving? (4) What are the patterns of HCI publication in the primary MIS journals? And, (5) Who are the contributing scholars? A number of areas for future research are predicted, along with a discussion of potential future directions for the sub-discipline. This study is of interest to researchers in the HCI sub-discipline, the MIS discipline, and other related disciplines to inform future research, collaboration, publication, and education. It should also be of interest to doctoral students for identifying potential topics for dissertation research and to identify academic institutions for future employment where such research is understood, appreciated, and encouraged