Graduation Year

2003

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Granting Department

Childhood Education and Literacy Studies

Major Professor

Jim King, Ed.D.

Committee Member

Susan Homan, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Mary Lou Morton, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Frank Briet, Ph.D.

Keywords

technology, multimedia projects, computers, curriculum, academic tasks

Abstract

This study describes in-class and home literacy events that occur when students work in groups to create web pages as evidence of learning the academic content that was presented within a fourth grade classroom. The constructivist approach to learning was the underpinning idea examined as well as its connection to technology and group work. Data were collected in a variety of ways to obtain a picture, as comprehensive as possible, of the oral, listening, viewing, and written on-task communication and interactions that occurred. As the in-class and home literacy events emerged, the competencies and strategies that students used while interacting with traditional text were uncovered. These events encompass the strategies that the students used after they encountered the text and had to modify it for one reason or another. These literacy events illustrate how the Internet supports reading and writing in the elementary classroom when it is utilized as a tool for promoting instruction.

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