Developing Web literacy in collaborative inquiry activities

Although many children are technically skilled in using the Web, their competences to use it in a critical and meaningful way are usually less well developed. In this article, we report on a multiple case study focusing on the possibilities and limitations of collaborative inquiry activities as an appropriate context to acquire Web literacy skills in primary education. Four 5th grade school teachers and their students worked with collaborative inquiry activities on the subject of ‘healthy food’. The project was aimed at both the development of Web literacy skills and content knowledge building. Data from a variety of sources were collected: videotaped and written lesson observations, interviews with teachers and students, teacher diaries, student questionnaires, and student assignments. The teachers appeared to be able to carry out the program to varying degrees. Contextual factors that influenced the realization of the project’s goals and results were the adequacy of the research questions formulated by students, students’ inquiry skills, and the teachers’ teaching styles. Students’ learning results show that it is possible to teach Web literacy skills in the context of collaborative inquiry activities. All classes show knowledge gain with regard to the subject healthy food and all classes but one show knowledge gain with regard to Web literacy skills. Although many students show adequate use of particular Web searching, reading and evaluating skills after the project, inconsistency, impulsiveness and impatience are also typical of their Web behaviour. In the context of collaborative inquiry activities teachers are challenged to deal with the paradox that they want their students to be active knowledge builders with help of the Web, whereas the Web seems to invite students to be more or less passive searchers.     

English outside the academic sphere: A mobile-based context-aware comparison study on collaborative and individual learning

Context-aware ubiquitous learning (CAUL) technology provides language learners with interactive learning environments and has been found to increase learning effectiveness and self-efficacy due to student interaction, discussion and evaluation of the entire learning process. This study used a mobile-based ubiquitous learning system combined with a collaborative learning approach to develop Fitness-specific English listening and reading, and fitness knowledge. The researchers recruited two groups of participants, an individual learning group (N = 31) and a collaborative learning group (N = 30), and evaluated their learning performance via pre-and post-tests. In addition, a questionnaire explored the perceived usefulness, usability, follow-up intention of using the system and self-efficacy regarding fitness-specific English. The results show that both groups improved fitness-specific English in terms of listening and reading comprehension. Moreover, collaborative learning was found to facilitate fitness-specific knowledge, and those in the collaborative learning group improved their self-efficacy more than those in the individual learning group.     

Developing a reciprocal teaching/learning system for college remedial reading instruction

In face-to-face instruction of Reciprocal Teaching (RT), students’ reading processes and dialogues with their peers are hardly observed. As a result, the teacher has few clues to identify students’ learning difficulties and provide further scaffoldings. To record students’ reading processes and enhance their comprehension, this study reports on the design of an online reciprocal teaching and learning system to support teachers and students in college remedial reading instruction. A sample of 129 under-prepared college students voluntarily signed up to participate in a remedial reading program. They were encouraged to use multiple strategies such as predicting, clarifying, questioning, and summarizing, which were supported by the functionalities of dialogue box, chat room, discussion forum, and annotation tool in the system. In this study, it was observed that students employed the multiple strategies to enhance their reading comprehension, as revealed by the students’ reading processes recorded in the system. When encountering difficulties in using these multiple strategies, students expressed that they observed and learned from the teacher’s or their peers’ externalization of strategy usage. Students’ reading progress in the remedial instruction incorporating the RT system was also identified by the pre- and post-tests. This study suggests that there may be benefits for teachers in encouraging students to interact with others in order to clarify and discuss comprehension questions and constantly monitor and regulate their own reading.     

Enhancing digital reading performance with a collaborative reading annotation system

As children now spend considerable time reading electronic media, digital reading skills and good reading comprehension are essential. However, many studies agree that screen-based reading leads to shallow reading, short attention spans, and poor comprehension. Therefore, this work presents a collaborative reading annotation system with a reading annotation and interactive discussion scaffold (CRAS-RAIDS) for improving reading performance in collaborative digital reading environments. This study used a quasi-experimental design. Fifty-three Grade 5 students were recruited from two classes of an elementary school in Taoyuan County, Taiwan. One class was randomly designated the experimental group used the proposed CRAS-RAIDS support for collaborative reading. The other class was designated the control group and used the traditional paper-based reading annotation method and face-to-face discussions. The two groups were then compared in terms of reading attitude, reading comprehension, and use of reading strategy in an active reading context. Analytical results show that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group in direct and explicit comprehension, inferential comprehension performance, and use of reading strategy. Moreover, the experimental group, but not the control group, had a significantly improved reading attitude in the total dimensions and in the behavioral and affective sub-dimensions. Additionally, the experimental group showed positive interest and high learning satisfaction.     

Exploring students' learning effectiveness and attitude in Group Scribbles‐supported collaborative reading activities: a study in the primary classroom

Improving students' reading comprehension is of significance. In this study, collaborative learning supported by Group Scribbles (GS), a networked technology, was integrated into a primary reading class. Forty‐seven 10‐year‐old students from two 4th grade classes participated in the study. Experimental and control groups were established to investigate the effectiveness of GS‐supported collaborative learning in enhancing students' reading comprehension. The results affirmed the effectiveness of the intervention designed. In the experiment group, students' learning attitudes, motivation and interest were enhanced as well. Further analyses were done to probe students' interaction processes in the networked collaborative classroom and different collaboration patterns and behaviours were identified. Based on the findings obtained, implications for future learning design to empower L1 learning were elaborated.     

Individual and team annotation effects on students’ reading comprehension,critical thinking,and meta-cognitive skills

Many students enter college without the needed skills to be successful. Colleges and universities are seeking instructional interventions to address these needs. Various classes are leveraging web-based social media to provide new instructional technologies that will help students learn. This paper reports on two studies related to the potential of online social annotation for improving teaching and learning in second-semester Freshman English classes. The approach, referred to as the Social Annotation Model-Learning System (SAM-LS), combines various instructional strategies, team-based learning, and a social annotation computer-supported collaborative learning tool, HyLighter, to increase student engagement with selected essays and with classmates. SAM-LS stimulates students to actively monitor their thoughts and compare them to both peers and the instructor (or domain experts). Study 1 showed no significant difference between the SAM-LS approach and a control; however, results appear to be related to confounding factors. Study 2 showed that students achieve better outcomes on measures of reading comprehension and meta-cognitive skill, but not critical thinking, when SAM-LS activities include small team collaborations. The two studies suggest future directions for research and development of SAM-LS and the HyLighter tool.     

Promoting reading comprehension with the use of technology

The research presented here explores the impact of two web-based applications (an interactive, multimedia literacy software and a digital process portfolio) on early elementary students' reading comprehension. Two studies were conducted during the 2010–2011 and the 2011–2012 school years, targeting 26 teachers from elementary schools (grades 1–2), and their students (N = 517) from six English school boards in Quebec, Canada. Analyses of covariance showed that students using both tools performed significantly better (p < .001) compared to controls in reading and written expression as measured by standardized tests.     

Comprehensive evaluation criteria for English learning websites using expert validity surveys

This study aimed to develop a set of evaluation criteria for English learning websites. These criteria can assist English teachers/web designers in designing effective websites for their English courses and can also guide English learners in screening for appropriate and reliable websites to use in increasing their English ability. To fulfill our objective, we employed a three-phase research procedure: (a) establishing a preliminary set of criteria from a thorough review of the literature, (b) evaluating and refining the preliminary criteria by conducting interviews with in-service teachers and learners, and (c) validating and finalizing the criteria according to expert validity surveys. The established criteria have 46 items, classified into 6 categories (the number of items within the category) – general information (12), integrated English learning (13), listening (4), speaking (6), reading (5), and writing (6). The general information evaluates the authority, accuracy, and format of the learning websites. The integrated English learning evaluates the overall information relevant to English learning materials as well as the common features of the four language skills. The criteria for listening, speaking, reading, and writing, for example, examine the suitable intonation, skills of discourse, classification of reading articles by their attributes, and the proper use of discussion boards for students when practicing their writing skills. Based on qualitative and quantitative analysis of the interviews and expert validity surveys, we confirmed the effectiveness of the developed evaluation criteria with satisfactory indexes of inter-rater reliability, content validity, and factorial validity.     

Improving literacy skills through learning reading by writing: The iWTR method presented and tested

Learning to read and write is a basic skill that unfortunately not everybody acquires sufficiently. Lack of teachers and time in school are some of the reasons, but in addition the enormous rise in informational activities due to the Internet and other information technology-enabled opportunities has made literacy skills increasingly important to ever more people. This means literacy education must be improved so more children in the world get better chances. In order to contribute to developing better methods for learning to read and write in early years this study tests a new method developed to improve reading and writing learning in early ages. The ICT (Information and communication technologies) supported “Integrated Write to Learn” (iWTR) method lets children in 1st grade use computers and other ICT tools to write texts and subsequently discuss and refine them together with class mates and teachers. Handwriting is postponed to 2nd grade. While the traditional method requires students to go through two development processes in parallel, a cognitive (learning to read and) a motor (learning to write with a pencil), iWTR works with one process at a time, first cognitive development, then (from grade 2) motor skills training. iWTR extends previous WTR methods by more social work methods using a web site and peer comment for providing social meaning and feedback.The method was tested using two test groups and two control groups (total n = 87) by systematically measuring performance in reading and writing using standard tests in combination with observations and student evaluation to assess social and individual effects of work methods.The results show that while reading skills were improved considerably the biggest improvement concerned writing skills. Students in the test group wrote longer texts with better structure, clearer content, and a more elaborate language.     

Electronic literacy, critical pedagogy, and collaboration: A case for cyborg writing

This study concerns the convergence of electronic literacy, collaboration, and critical pedagogy in the classroom. I argue that teachers in the humanities must relinquish the vestiges of non-electronic criteria in their assessments of electronic literacy. Instead, the interplay of human and technological factors in the classroom leads to a reaffirmation of literacy as a social process. The radical democratization and multivocality of the corporate or collaboratively-written text demands a critical problematizing of our roles and actions as teacher-readers. The viability of static criteria for good literacy practices vanishes with electronic literacy. Feminist cyborg theory offers a useful paradigm for understanding the corporate text by bridging theories of electronic literacy and theories of collaborative learning. The cyborg is a dynamic techno-fusion of difference and contradiction: much like the corporate text. A cyborgian perspective reaffirms the polyvocalic, instable nature of postmodern literacy and calls for contextual writing criteria.Carol L. Winkelmann, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. She teaches electronic literacy, linguistics, and seventeenth-century women's literacy. Winkelmann has written forLinguistics and Education, The Oxford Companion to the English Language, andThe Sixteenth Century Journal. Currently, she is writing about women's political language, violence, and social change education.     

The role of tasks and epistemological beliefs in online peer questioning

The current study examines the assertion that students are motivated and learn more by carrying out tasks consistent with their epistemological beliefs in web-based learning environments. In the study, 120 undergraduate students in an educational technology course participated as part of their coursework. Using a wiki, triads reciprocally asked and responded to questions as constructing either a group summary or a group argument. Students with less advanced epistemological beliefs more actively coordinated formats and procedures for group work and achieved higher comprehension of reading materials in the collaborative summary than in the collaborative argumentation. By contrast, these differences were not found for students with more advanced epistemological beliefs. However, the interaction effect between tasks and epistemological beliefs disappeared for the quality of argumentation on case problems. Independently of epistemological beliefs, collaborative argumentation promoted more constructive and interactive peer questioning activities and helped to construct higher quality arguments in case problems than collaborative summary. Therefore, the effects of matching tasks and epistemological beliefs varied depending on types of learning outcomes (comprehension vs. argumentation) in online peer questioning.     

Exploring college English language learners’ self and social regulation of learning during wiki-supported collaborative reading activities

Students’ regulation has been conceptualized as an important impetus for effective and efficient collaborative learning. However, little empirical evidence has been reported about language learners’ regulatory behaviors in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). The purpose of this study is to investigate the occurrence of self and social aspects of regulation during wiki-supported collaborative reading activities in the context of learning English as a foreign language (EFL). Sixty Chinese college students organized in twelve groups participated in this study over a sixteen-week semester. Using an integrated method of content analysis and sequential analysis, students’ chat logs were coded and analyzed to explore the characteristics of students’ self and social regulatory behaviors in terms of regulation type, regulation process, and regulation focus. Results indicate that all groups demonstrated active social regulation in the collaborative activities. Compared with low-performing groups, high-performing groups displayed distinctively different patterns of regulatory behaviors in “social regulation,” “evaluating,” “content monitoring,” and “social emotional regulation.” Moreover, the analysis further reveals a more continuous and smooth regulation in the high-performing groups, while low-performing groups tended to be lost in a single repeated regulatory behavior pattern such as “self-regulation” or “organizing”. This study not only fills a gap in the current collaborative English learning literature, but also contributes to our knowledge of social regulation in CSCL. Pedagogical implications and future research are also addressed.     

Using ubiquitous games in an English listening and speaking course: Impact on learning outcomes and motivation

This paper reports the results of a study which aimed to investigate how ubiquitous games influence English learning achievement and motivation through a context-aware ubiquitous learning environment. An English curriculum was conducted on a school campus by using a context-aware ubiquitous learning environment called the Handheld English Language Learning Organization (HELLO). HELLO helps students to engage in learning activities based on the ARCS motivation theory, involving various educational strategies, including ubiquitous game-based learning, collaborative learning, and context-aware learning. Two groups of students participated in the learning activities prescribed in a curriculum by separately using ubiquitous game-based learning and non-gaming learning. The curriculum, entitled ‘My Campus’, included three learning activities, namely ‘Campus Environment’, ‘Campus Life’ and ‘Campus Story’. Participants included high school teachers and juniors. During the experiment, tests, a survey, and interviews were conducted for the students. The evaluation results of the learning outcomes and learning motivation demonstrated that incorporating ubiquitous games into the English learning process could achieve a better learning outcomes and motivation than using non-gaming method. They further revealed a positive relationship between learning outcomes and motivation.     

The effect of reflective learning e-journals on reading comprehension and communication in language learning

This study focused on the use of reflective learning e-journals in a university web-based English as a foreign language (EFL) course. In the study, a multimedia-based English programme comprising fifteen different units was delivered online as a one-semester instructional course. Ninety-eight undergraduate students participated, and they were divided into two groups: the treatment group used reflective learning e-journals, while the control group completed content-related exercises. The study investigated the effects of reflective learning e-journals and how students used them to aid learning. Results show that when learning from web-based instruction, students who used reflective learning e-journals outperformed students who did not do so in terms of reading comprehension. Using reflective e-journals improved the academic performance of learners in the online course. In addition, journal writing students claimed that they also improved their organisational skills and writing abilities through their reflective learning e-journal writing and found the journal writing to be a very helpful tool in reviewing the course and preparing for the exam.     

Student perceptions of collaborative learning,social presence and satisfaction in a blended learning environment: Relationships and critical factors

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships of the students’ perceived levels of collaborative learning, social presence and overall satisfaction in a blended learning environment. This research studied the relationship of these three variables and identified critical factors related to them. The participants were 48 graduate students who took a blended-format course in health education and worked on a collaborative group project related to the development of a comprehensive HIV-AIDS prevention plan. Data was collected from the Student Perception Questionnaire and face-to-face interviews. The analysis of quantitative data indicated that student perceptions of collaborative learning have statistically positive relationships with perceptions of social presence and satisfaction. This means that students who perceived high levels of collaborative learning tended to be more satisfied with their distance course than those who perceived low levels of collaborative learning. Similarly, students with high perceptions of collaborative learning perceived high levels of social presence as well. Surprisingly, the relationship between social presence and overall satisfaction was positive but not statistically significant. Interview data revealed that (a) course structure, (b) emotional support, and (c) communication medium were critical factors associated with student perceptions of collaborative learning, social presence, and satisfaction. Explanations about findings and implications for instructional design are discussed in the conclusion.     

Politeness strategies in collaborative e-mail exchanges

Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) has been the subject of a wide range of studies over the last twenty years. Previous research suggests that CSCL exchanges can facilitate group-based learning and knowledge construction among learners who are in different geographical locations (Littleton, K. & Whitelock, D. (2004). Guiding the creation of knowledge and understanding in a virtual learning environment. Cyberpsychology & Behaviour, 7(2), 173). A less known fact, however, is that successful CSCL exchanges depend on the social interaction that takes place among participants. This social interaction is crucial, since it affects both cognitive and socio-emotional processes that take place during learning (Kreijns, K., Kirschner, P., Jochems, W. & Van Buuren, H. (2004). Determining sociability, social space, and social presence in (a) synchronous collaborative groups. Cyberpsychology & Behaviour, 7 (2), 156). Nevertheless, its presence in these exchanges should not be taken for granted, since there are certain barriers which may impede interaction; for example, students may not know each other previously (high social distance) and requests and offers which appear recurrently in collaborative learning messages can threaten the participants’ negative face ( Brown and Levinson 1978, 1987). In order to explore how participants overcome these barriers, we have analysed the linguistic features of politeness strategies used in the introductory e-mails exchanged between eleven students and their partners, who are students of English and Spanish, respectively. Our findings show that partners in collaborative e-mail exchanges do not use negative politeness strategies as often as we might expect in encounters where the social distance between participants is high, but they rely heavily on positive politeness strategies, especially those relating to ‘claiming common ground’, ‘assuming or asserting reciprocity’ and ‘conveying cooperation’. The presence of these strategies would indicate that fostering closeness, solidarity and cohesion becomes the priority to be achieved between the partners, instead of the expected negative politeness mechanisms whose aim is to demonstrate high social distance and, therefore, formality and impersonality.     

Self-regulated learning through writing on computers: Consequences for reading comprehension

The overall aim for the present study was to analyze the consequences for reading ability among the children of a computer supported self-regulated learning environment in grade two. By means of a quasi-experimental design in a natural setting, an experimental group (n = 39) was compared to a control group from a national sample (n = 3409) on reading comprehension. The statistical analyses showed that the experimental group achieved better on reading comprehension both as a group (p < .001) as well as girls (p < .001) and boys (p < .05) separately. The proportion of high achievers was higher, and the proportion of low achievers was lower in the experimental group. In order to explain the level of reading comprehension in the experimental group Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used. The main explanatory factor for reading comprehension was writing with β = .44. As a tentative conclusion it was suggested that the extended writing in combination with the self-regulated learning environment can promote reading comprehension in grade two, whereas home literacy had no impact on reading comprehension in this context.     

Instructional effectiveness of a computer-supported program for teaching reading comprehension strategies

This article examines the effectiveness of a computer-based instructional program (e-PELS) aimed at direct instruction in a collection of reading comprehension strategies. In e-PELS, students learn to highlight and outline expository passages based on various types of text structures (such as comparison or cause-and-effect) as well as to paraphrase, self-question, and summarize. The study involved 1041 fourth-grade elementary students from 21 schools distributed in three regions in central Chile. Participant teachers integrated this program into the Spanish language curriculum, instructing their students during thirty sessions of 90 min each during one school semester. Pretest-to-posttest gains in reading comprehension scores were significantly greater for students instructed with this program than for students who received traditional instruction (d = .5), with particularly strong effects for lower-achieving students (d = .7). The findings support the efficacy of direct instruction in specific learning strategies in a computer-based environment.     

Performance,cognitive load,and behaviour of technology‐assisted English listening learning: From CALL to MALL

This study examines differences in English listening comprehension, cognitive load, and learning behaviour between outdoor ubiquitous learning and indoor computer‐assisted learning. An experimental design, employing a pretest‐posttest control group is employed. Randomly assigned foreign language university majors joined either the experimental group (outdoor ubiquitous learning), with 80 participants (26 males and 54 females), or a control group (indoor computer‐assisted learning), with 80 participants (27 males and 53 females). The experiment lasted 3 weeks. Both groups were administered a test of English listening proficiency before and after the experiment along with a questionnaire of cognitive load postexperiment. Prior English listening proficiency forms a covariate for the multivariate analysis of covariance. Results show (a) students in the experimental group exhibit significantly better English listening comprehension after the experiment compared to the control group; (b) students in the experimental group reported significantly lower cognitive load than the control group; (c) English listening comprehension and cognitive load exhibited a statistically significant negative relationship; and (d) outdoor ubiquitous learning enhanced self‐reported learning interests and interactions more than indoor computer‐assisted learning. Contributions and significances of this study are presented based on these results. Finally, implications for teaching practices are proposed.