Setting
and Participants
The Classroom
The classroom was structured to enhance literacy learning from a physical
standpoint. The children had their desks in clusters of four to maximize
collaborative learning. A classroom library housed a collection of nonfiction
books and a collection of fiction books with a specific emphasis on
history and historical fiction. There was a bathtub with pillows in
it as a comfortable place to read along with a reading loft that was
elevated six feet off the floor. Three computers and a printer were
together on a table and one computer was connected to the Internet.
One large table was used for student-led group projects while the other
round table in the classroom was used for teacher and student conferencing
during reading and writing workshop (Atwell, 1987). Multiple art projects
and student-authored books were suspended from the walls and ceiling.
One bulletin board contained torn art pictures reflecting feelings from
the novel, Number the Stars (Lowry, 1989). Student writing was displayed
in the classroom library and current themes, novels, or units being
taught were directly connected to this.
Learning in this classroom was collaborative by design and structured
by the teacher's constructivist, approach to teaching literacy (Lane,
1993; Rosenblatt, 1978; Tompkins, 1996; Vygotsky, 1978). Daily literacy
learning focused on the reading and writing workshop model (Atwell,
1987). Learners were immersed in extended amounts of time to read freely
alone or with a partner. While learners were reading, small groups of
children met with the teacher to conference about the books they were
reading. The class also took time to read a class novel together daily
and reflected on the readings in a response journal. The response journals
included writing or drawing prompts suggested by the teacher. The teacher
responded to all responses written in the literacy journal with comments
as a way to assess the students.
Visual literacy (Flood and Lapp, 1995) was a large part of the reading
and writing processes that took place in the classroom. The teacher
utilized art instruction as a way to connect meaning from what the children
read into what they knew through a visual medium. The learners in this
classroom utilized this type of meaning construction daily as a way
to extend their learning within other sign systems.
The learners closely linked technology use and literacy learning because
they were already experts at employing transmediation as a learning
strategy. The classroom contained three computers with one of them networked
into the district Internet connection. Learners used the computers in
the classroom to play learning games or to find information on the Internet.
Classroom use of the computers was limited and only three to four children
per day could use them. The class visited the school computer lab once
or twice a week and sometimes published their writing with the available
word processing program. This limited amount of time each week was due
to an insufficient number of computers available for use. However, while
in the computer lab there were enough computer stations to accommodate
an entire class. The fifth-grade participants were members of one classroom,
and the focal children were chosen randomly from the group. The focal
children were interviewed and contrasted with the entire class through
field notes and observations.
The 20 class members had been divided by the teacher into dyads for
the purpose of authoring throughout two hypermedia projects. The teacher's
rationale for how she selected dyads was based on her knowledge of their
personalities and writing strengths. She felt that certain children
had great difficulty in working together and she wanted to specifically
avoid personal conflict within the dyad. She also considered the child's
writing strengths and tried to pair dyads based on what each could contribute
to the collaboration as a strength. The eight focal children in the
study were randomly selected from the ten dyads. Four dyads participated
as focal children and they were contrasted with the entire class through
field notes and observations. The focal group consisted of three female
students and five male students. Pseudonyms have been used for confidentiality
of the children.
The focal children in authoring dyads were Sean and Allison, Sue and
Angela, Bryan and Taylor, and Jack and William. Sean and Allison were
both avid computer users who had computers in their homes and Sean had
previously authored with HTML. Sue and Angela also had computers in
their homes with Internet access and both had participated in on-line
chat sessions outside of school with each other. According to the teacher,
Sue and Angela were considered expert writers both in the classroom
and the computer lab. They also had a strong friendship that extended
into their personal lives. Bryan and Taylor often found it difficult
to author together since Bryan was able to fluently type at the keyboard.
They were observed during three authoring sessions in heated discussions
regarding who would type at the keyboard. Despite the differences in
typing fluency Bryan and Taylor chose to write together. Taylor remarked
during an interview that he trusted Bryan with his writing because he
knew Bryan would not make fun of his ideas. Bryan had a computer in
his home with Internet access; however, Taylor did not. Taylor would
often go to Bryan's house after school to use his computer. Jack and
William were the quiet dyad. They were reluctant to express ideas during
interviews and during writing workshop in the classroom. They were reflective
with their prewriting documents and used the writing rubric to help
them design the second project. Jack had recently gotten a computer
in his home and often brought to school stories he had typed for others
to read. William did not have computer access in his home.
Data Collection
Data collection focused on exploring the processes the children engaged
in during two authoring tasks in hypermedia authoring environments.
The first writing task involved the use of Hyperstudio
(Wagner, 1993) as a tool to author a critical literacy project based
on a novel, The Giver (Lowry, 1991). This program allowed the students
to use multi-linear writing and it was used to introduce the students
to notions of multi-linear writing before proceeding to HTML authoring.
Hyperstudio also included word processing elements and the ability to
add graphics, sound, and animations to pieces of text. The second writing
task involved the collaborative writing of an HTML document with Pagemill
(Adobe, 1997). Pagemill was used as an HTML editor so that the learners
could write in multiple ways while they were free from writing HTML
code. The program utilized word processing along with the addition of
graphics, animations, quick-time movies, and sound. The second writing
project was also tied to a chosen theme that incorporated three novels
and a social issue selected by the children during a class discussion.
The three novels read during reading workshop included: The
Giver, (Lowry, 1991),
Number the Stars,
(Lowry, 1989), and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry,
(Taylor, 1976).
Hypermedia authoring took place from mid-January through mid-May. The
children evaluated each other as they presented their final projects
to the class. While working on the Hyperstudio project, collaboratively,
they created a writing rubric that incorporated elements of traditional
writing and multi-linear writing. The students used this rubric to evaluate
each other.
Data collection began with observations of the classroom literacy lessons
three times per week. The first three weeks of field notes focused on
the literacy context. During the first week I became acquainted with
the children and took field notes about the context of the literacy
instruction, noting social interactions of groups and how the children
engaged in authoring. I met individually with the eight focal children
and explained that they had been chosen to help me understand more about
how children author with hypermedia. The identity of the focal children
was not explicitly made known to the members of the class.
Data sources included extensive field notes of classroom literacy lessons
and computer lab sessions, student prewriting documents, project changes
at the end each of week of authoring, the student created writing rubric,
final authoring projects, and three semi-structured interviews conducted
with the eight focal children. The weekly writing changes, prewriting
documents, and the semi-structured interviews only involved the focal
children. The data were then compared with the field notes. Semi-structured
interviews took place before beginning the first authoring project and
after the first authoring project, which used Hyperstudio (Wagner, 1993).
The third interview took place at the end of the second authoring project.
This triangulation of the interviews with the field notes, prewriting
documents, and final projects the students used throughout the authoring
process supported some understanding for the students' perceptions as
they authored with hypermedia. The triangulation of the data also offered
a lens used to peer into the child's perspective of how they believed
that they may have grown as writers. Interviews were used as the primary
data source and field notes, observations and writing artifacts were
used as secondary sources of data to triangulate the data and add trustworthiness
to the findings.
Data Analysis
Analysis as a Sense Making Process
Multiple methods of data analysis, which crossed research methodologies
such as grounded theory, semiotics and discourse approach have appeared
in the literature as a way to creatively answer questions (Berghoff,
1994; Fey, 1994 Labbo, 1996). Miles and Huberman (1994) suggested that
it is this creative stance in analyzing data that makes the data a rich
bed of information and that analytic problems can be approached in many
different ways. A unique approach to analytic problems with data was
illustrated in a study done by Smagorinsky and O'Donnell-Allen (1998)
in which they used Peirce's (1933) triadic framework to construct a
two tier coding system in conjunction with coding systems used in the
cited literature. Smagorinsky and O'Donnell-Allen created a multi-method
approach for understanding students' visual text contrasted with the
students' own words. They sought to understand how students composed
meaning from literature through creating interpretive texts.
Data Analysis
Clarification
Analysis of the data, including the interviews and field notes, utilized
the constant-comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) for a line-by-line
analysis. Questions from the semi-structured interviews, were rephrased
to inquire about similar topics in three different ways. This rephrasing
of questions made it possible to triangulate the data and add internal
consistency to the interviews (Miles & Huberman, 1996). Analysis
of the field notes also utilized the same approach and added further
triangulation to the analysis of the children's perceptions. Writing
artifacts were analyzed though the use of memoing to summarize the final
projects and matrices were constructed from the data based on the children's
rubric they designed. The use of a matrix organized the data to draw
some conclusions from the children's writing based on applying the rubric
they designed to see if their described growth stated in the interviews
coincided with their rubric.
All of the data were thoroughly read before open coding (Creswell, 1998)
began. Initial codes were developed to characterize large themes in
each of the interviews. Initial coding categories grew out of the questions
from the interviews but were later refined and written in the children's
own words based on reoccurring phrases and words in the data that the
children used during the interviews. Additional coding was done to further
develop codes and tie themes together through relationships established
by the theoretical framework. The coding of the data yielded six broad
themes. Matrices of the artifacts were contrasted with final matrices
from the interviews. The matrices from the artifacts were used to support
initial findings from the interview data.
Findings
This research is the story of eight children and their perceptions of
authoring with hypermedia over a period of five months. Included in
the findings are the accounts of how the children believed they grew
as literate people during the time of authoring. The children's perceptions
of authoring with hypermedia yielded six broad themes: defining literacy,
ways to write, collaboration, meaning construction, web writing and
school writing, and ways I have grown as a reader and writer.
Definitions of Literacy and the Ways Hypermedia Impacts that Definition
All the children
defined literacy in the study as the ability to read and write. Linear
writing conventions were also included as part of their definitions
and they included the ability to write using punctuation, spelling,
choosing the right vocabulary to mean, and handwriting. The definitions
of literacy were varied with regard to conventions of writing; however,
definitions of literacy that included nonlinear writing conventions
were consistent across all eight interviews. All of the children stated
that being literate involved not only the linear ways, but also nonlinear
ways that equated the ability to be a good writer with also being a
good "techie." Those who were literate could not only manipulate
text in a linear format, but also in a nonlinear way that suggested
expertise with hypermedia tools. William elaborates on this idea as
he describes writers in his classroom:
William: In our writer's workshop I sit and talk with three
people who can't write on paper, but we all talk about how we can
write on the computer really well. What I mean is that I can write
a story or poem using a program like Hyperstudio, but I start with
my drawings first and then add words. My friends say that this computer
writing makes us better at it (writing). So as I learn the program
I am getting better at writing.
Literacy
Is
Literacy definitions were described by the focal children as reading
and writing in a linear sense. Descriptions of knowing how to read,
writing rough drafts, writing complete sentences, understanding who
your audience was, and the school literacy club were examples cited
by the children as the most prevalent ways to be literate. Other examples
that were talked about by two of the students included storytelling,
being open minded when trying to figure out a topic to read or write
about, and reading to build vocabulary.
A typical response given when asked, "What is literacy?" was
cited from Sean's interviews:
Interviewer: What
does the word literacy mean to you?
Sean: You have to
know how to read. You have to have ideas in your head, and know who
your target person is when writing, whether it's kids, about kids,
toddlers or grownups.
Interviewer: Are
you describing your audience?
Sean: Yeah, the
audience, of your books you are writing. You have go to what they
are mostly interested in, go to that sector. You can't change the
mood of your writing in the middle, it confuses everyone. You can't
change the whole idea from chapter to chapter, it is important to
carry your ideas all the way through the story. I've had problems
with this. Changing the mood means you have to change chapters.
Interviewer: Why
do you do this?
Sean: You eliminate
confusions if you stay with your main topic in writing, but it is
hard to do this sometimes with a lot of characters.
Sean elaborated on what he thought literacy was in terms of his own
writing and also his experiences as a reader. This was cited as a typical
example because in trying to define an abstract concept such as literacy,
the focal children described situations of reading or writing that they
had engaged in.
