I am normally not one of those people who needs to print out long articles. Sometimes "Clearly" will do when I am struggling with distractions. Sometimes I am in a place where paper is more convenient than a device, and I DO print out an article. I prefer paper, but I read books on devices.
I find it difficult to read scholarly articles deeply. The format and vocabulary make the articles "feel" important and credible, but it is distracting to read around the parenthetical citations. Between that and the multi-syllable vocabulary, sometimes I may as well be reading in a foreign language! I read sentences aloud to my family (or students) for a good laugh. Sometimes I wonder if some articles are just a mass of connections from others' writings. I found this true in the Leu (et al) article, What is New About the New Literacies. Coiro's article, Exploring Literacy on the Internet, though scholarly, did not have as many distracting parenthetical citations.
In this module, I was able to quickly connect with Hodgsen's Reading Comprehension article because there was familiar background and I did not have to read around the citations. There were also practical applications in the material. Don't get me wrong. I did glean some new information from the scholarly articles, but it was difficult to stay focused... until I printed one out and used an index card as a crutch.
This week, I saw a number of boys on a site entitled NNDB: Tracking the Entire World, and I asked them what they were working on. For their US History class they had to write an epitaph and obituary for a famous person from a specific period they were studying. I asked about NNDB, and one student told me it "is like Wikipedia, but not just anyone can change it." Upon reading an entry, I saw it was an easy way to get two paragraphs of basic facts about the important things a famous person has done. Using a website credibility checklist, the site has no merit. I don't think the teacher cares.
In this module, I was able to quickly connect with Hodgsen's Reading Comprehension article because there was familiar background and I did not have to read around the citations. There were also practical applications in the material. Don't get me wrong. I did glean some new information from the scholarly articles, but it was difficult to stay focused... until I printed one out and used an index card as a crutch.
This week, I saw a number of boys on a site entitled NNDB: Tracking the Entire World, and I asked them what they were working on. For their US History class they had to write an epitaph and obituary for a famous person from a specific period they were studying. I asked about NNDB, and one student told me it "is like Wikipedia, but not just anyone can change it." Upon reading an entry, I saw it was an easy way to get two paragraphs of basic facts about the important things a famous person has done. Using a website credibility checklist, the site has no merit. I don't think the teacher cares.
Teachers need to understand that their students are going to go to the web and pick the first entry that seems to give them the information they want with minimum effort. For the above project, and Encyclopedia would have worked, even the set I have had for 10+ years. In order to effectively use web-based resources in school projects, teachers need to be able to orchestrate what happens on the web (Leu, What is New.) Students may know more than the teacher about navigating the web, but often do not know how to translate that information to a school environment. As Corio mentions in her article, a WebQuest or other well-planned Internet experience can help with that.
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