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Winter 2004-2005
by
Savilla Banister and Dodi Hodges
This study investigates how various methods of using digital technologies can support qualitative study.These technologies impact the research processes of data collection, data conversion, data organization, data analysis, and presentation of results (Bruce & Levin, 1998; Fetterman, 2002). Examples of three qualitative studies are shared that incorporated the gathering, analysis, and integration of digital data. Findings indicate that incorporating digital resources can provide “e-readers” with evidence relating to issues of methodologies, researcher intrusiveness, participant voice, and context.These benefits combine to strengthen the genre of portraiture, by making the processes and products of this type of qualitative study more public and open to evaluation (Anfara, Brown, & Mangione, 2002). This paper presents an empirically based model of how people make sense of information they find when searching online. Fifteen graduate students enrolled in a course on Webpage Design were asked to search for information on "electronic literacy," thinking aloud as they did. Subjects' think aloud protocols and their stimulated recollections about these activities were captured on videotape. The videotapes were transcribed, analyzed and coded. The working model of how these subjects made sense of the information they found online is presented and researchers' preliminary observations concerning subjects' sense-making activities are discussed. Of particular interest in this regard is the pervasiveness of subjects' use of scanning, "circling," and bricolage, and the seeming absence of the "linking by association" predicted by media scholars. The purpose of this study was to analyze the daily teaching practices of an elementary teacher who was identified as being an exemplary integrator of technology in her classroom. In addition to this inquiry, a collection of audio and video clips from the observations and interviews was used to create DVD resources to be used in a Midwestern university’s teacher education program. Excerpts from these resources are included to allow readers the opportunity to evaluate such products for their possible effectiveness in encouraging teacher candidates to be innovative users of technology in their classrooms, as well as provide evidentiary support for the assertions presented. A story of this teacher’s vision of “transparent technology” and how she integrates technology into daily curricular goals is told. In this story, themes of purpose, risk-taking and sacrifice/investment are identified and elaborated upon as possible critical factors for effective technology integrations. Scenes include students using wireless Internet workstations to complete current events assignments, students working collaboratively on social studies projects that required multiple computer applications, tech team and video team work with digital video, student work with second-grade partners (helping the second-graders to construct a multimedia report on insects), and various other examples of students using technologies strongly tied to their classroom curriculum. Student and teacher interviews are woven throughout, as members of the classroom community share their interpretations of how the use of technology impacts their teaching and learning. This paper will describe and analyze key aspects in the creation of a multimedia curriculum linking professional development with literacy and social studies concepts and targeted at teachers and students in the third and fourth grade. It was expected that the outcome of the originally planned professional development was teachers would adopt the use of the curriculum to accomplish content goals in the areas of language arts and social studies while seamlessly integrating technology. The outcome of professional development for the OhioTrek curriculum was the wide use of one component rather than the multi-faceted technological project. Teacher readiness for multimedia curriculum and adaptability of techniques cannot happen without the existence of an organized system of professional development and administrator support for technology. This investigation was designed to examine the features of teacher-student interactions in a ubiquitous computing environment. The study focused on the learning context created by the teacher when interacting with students as they used technology to support their learning. Data obtained from quantitative and qualitative analyses of the teacher-student discourse were examined. Interpretation reflected the context of existing research documenting specific teacher linguistic and communicative behaviors that tend to facilitate students’ use of problem solving and higher order thinking skills. A primary finding of this investigation is the suggestion that when technology is part of the classroom interaction context, the teacher-student dyad may expand to a “triad”, comprised of teacher-student-technology.
This book review examines Michael Moore and Greg Kearsley's second edition of their book about distance education.
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