A project on integrated ICT-use in elementary school (10-12 year olds): n www – site construction n www – site consultation n email.

A project on integrated ICT-use in

elementary school (10-12 year olds): www – site construction www – site consultation email

The kidNET team:

K. Th. Boersma, F. Janssen, B. de

Vries, J. M. Pieters, H. van der Meij,

M. van Graft, D. van Weelie & J. Zwiers

Presentation for ICO division ICT

21 januari, Twente University

Key points: Learning by designing Dialogic learning (read, write, talk) Functional use of ICT tools

Upper grades elementary school (ages 10-12)

Learning by designing: Create meaningful Context Create meaningful Task & Problem Provide Structured Freedom (e.g.,

guiding questions & paper dummies)

Site construction

Domain: Design & technology (no sites

for consultation)

Context: Your own messy room

Task & Problem: Design ‘cleaning robot’ in ‘jig-saw’ like teamwork – Report via site

Provisional findingsProvisional findings

Site construction

Technical skills (pc use) are hardly an obstacleSites did NOT invite exchanges with family and

friends (access obstacle)

Teamwork vital for articulation/reflection

Statistically significant improvement in domain knowledge (post-test with control group)

Statistically significant increase in domain-specific self-esteem of girls

Site consultation

Domain: BiologyTask & Problem: Redesign a bee orant populationScaffolding questions: Who am I? What

is my function? What do I need for that? What and who do I need in my surroundings?

Why did we design a portal?

Deficient typing skills & no monitoring Search engines yield

incomprehensible results for children

Why did we redesign our portal?

Portal should reflect domain structure Afford search by category Anchor route

Provisional findingsProvisional findings

Site consultation

Portal helped re-evaluate meaningfulness of certain questions

Portal + provisional answers strongly encouraged more meaningful searches -> less question drift

Email

Context: Partner schools working on the same project with a shared time schedule (same task – same time)

Task & Problem: Design an airplane that can fly long and far

Email

Main research question:

Is there interactional coherence? - conditions for functional email use- findings on email use

Email from group K

1. Hi Flying Children

2. You asked us how we construct our plane

3. which materials we are going to use

4. and how we will let it fly.

Email from group K, cont’d

5. We don’t know yet how we will construct it

6. but we think we’ll use kite-wood, plastic trays and maybe cloth.

7. How we will let it fly we don’t know yet

8. We apologize for knowing so little

Email from group K, cont’d.…11. Friday march 19th we went to the library.12. where we found siso numbers 659.2,

640.5, 659.6 13. maybe you can do something with it.…16. Which materials do you have17. And how will you let it fly?

K’s partner

1. Hello flying four

2. These are the answers to your questions.

3. We use triplex for the plane.

4. We throw it in the air.

5. We are going to stand on the climbing frame

6. and throw it away.

K’s partner

1. Hello flying four

2. These are the answers to your questions.

3. We use triplex for the plane.

4. We throw it in the air.

5. We are going to stand on the climbing frame

6. and throw it away.

K’s partner, cont’d7. We have a tip for you.8. You can go to a home centre9. and ask for cast-away wood….11. Would you please mention some

titles of books that you use.12. Because we don’t understand that

sisonumber at all.

Email – The CRS-Profile

Contextual dimension: Task – relevance Time – production time, view time, project

time Tools – physical, mental Setting – pedagogy, instructional design

approach, teacher roles Conditions – facilities, knowledge & skill

Email – The CRS-Profile

Rhetorical dimension: Frequency – number of emails,

exchange pattern Structure – size, macro-structure Grammar – speech acts,

communication threads, meta-tags

Email – The CRS-Profile

Semantic dimension: Topic – content Motivation – expression of affect,

valence

Provisional findingsProvisional findings

E-mail

Extremely strong impact of turn-taking pattern

Talk about Domain & Communication dominates (email is not a chat box)

In due course emails have fewer positive expressions of affect

Findings … many things will go wrongFindings … many things will go wrong

Contact informationContact information

Hans van der Meij

Universiteit Twente

Faculteit Toegepaste Onderwijskunde

Afdeling Instructietechnologie

Postbus 217

7500 AE Enschede

[email protected]

http://www.kidnet.utwente.nl/kidnet/