References

Reference:

Acikaln, M.(2009). Pre-service elementary teachers’ beliefs about use of the internet in the social studies classroom. //European Journal of Teacher Education.// 32 (3). 305-320. DOI 10.1080/02619760802553030.

This study was conducted on how the internet is used in pre-service schools in Turkey. According to the study over 99% of the United State schools have access to the internet, whereas about 70% have access to the internet in Turkey and most of these schools are high schools. When this study first started it was to mainly involve literature but moved into social studies. In the role of social studies the internet is the best place to gather written and visual information, which help the students acquire multiple and global perspectives, as well as think, analyses, synthesize and make informed decisions. Within the study a group was given an assignment in which they had to complete and then report back on how the research went. Most of the students enjoyed the research and the project, but some of the participants felt like online project could be a problem when it came to the use of computers in the classroom and keeping the students from inappropriate websites. The study participants felt if the internet worked in social studies classroom then it would work in any subject area. “When the research was completed the pre-service teachers felt the internet was a useful tool for all subjects, but must be careful about the reliability of information (pg. 312).”

The reason this study was chosen for out project was the thought of using the information from this study in our project and also including adding addition classes from across the county to our online newspaper. In addition, this study shows how the internet was a good tool to use in researching subjects within a classroom. This study also showed how teachers in other parts of the country looked at the use of the internet which could play a part in how we develop and use our classroom newspaper. Overall, this article gives good information which can be used in the process of developing our project.

Alber, S.R (1999). “I don’t like to write, but I love to get published”: Using a classroom newspaper to motivate reluctant writers. //Reading & Writing Quarterly,// 15(4), 355.

This article encourages a variety of strategies for reluctant writers. One way is to allow them to work in groups. The article also suggests that students, when given the opportunity to publish their work, feel more motivated and engaged and take more ownership and pride in their work. It suggests a classroom newspaper as an outlet for students’ writing. A classroom newspaper allows students to choose topics that are of interest to them. The article suggests strategies for getting started with writing a classroom newspaper, tips for effective revising and editing conversations between students, and teaching students how to be good reporters. There are also suggestions for how to work with students on different sections of the newspaper.

This article is relevant to my group’s project because we can readily apply some of the tips and strategies discussed in this article within our instruction to help our students be as successful as they can. The article suggests ways to introduce the idea of a classroom newspaper that would be especially helpful with the younger students involved in this project as they might not necessarily be familiar with the layout and style of a newspaper.

Bell, S. (2010). Project-Based Learning for the 21st century: Skills for the future. //Clearing House,// 83(2), 39-43. Doi: 10.1080/00098650903505415

This study is about project based learning. The study tells how PBL is student driven and the teacher becomes the facilitator. The students ask question about the project but try to discover the answers on their own. Research on PBL has shown that standardized testing grades have improved because the student has to think critically. With a PBL the learning is self-reliant through planning. There are several phases learning goes through by using a PBL. The students are given an inquiry question, and then they have to brainstorm and use research to come up with an answer to the question. Next, the students have to design a display to show their results, this can be completed in groups. In addition, PBL promotes social learning as student practice the skills in which they need to know for the 21st century.

The reason I chose the study is due to our students are working together on a newspaper project. This newspaper project does not included only one classroom but three different classrooms from three different areas. I feel the students need to know how to work together and come up with ideas on their own and the teacher should just be the facilitator. In addition, I feel this study goes along with collaboration within the classroom and within any type of learning environment.

Boss, S. (2009, March). //High tech reflection strategies make learning stick.// Retrieved from [] This article starts out talking about a classroom who did not like writing and the teacher decided to start a classroom blog in which the students would have to post to the blog weekly. At first the students hated to write, but after a month of blogging about books or other things about their work in the classroom the students enjoyed writing all together. The students writing improved as the kept blogging. The article also talks about how reflection helps the students to grow, and how the students should be given a way in which to show their reflections, from wikis, blogs, and podcasting. The article concludes by noting another benefit of students’ reflection is a good way for teachers to keep a digital archive of the students work.

The way in which this article is important to our project is it teaches us how using technology by use of blogging, wikis, and audio and how it can help the students improve their writing ability by using multi-media. We plan of using a wiki to start our newspaper and I feel this article shows even more ways in which our project could expand. In addition, our goal is to encourage our students to begin reading and writing more efficiently. Plus we also want our students to be able to reflect on what they have learned through the year.

Brookhart, S. M. (2008). //How to give effective feedback to your students.// MA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

The text I chose was How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students. One reason for choosing this text is there is a wonderful section on Kid-Friendly Rubrics. The rubrics will be made for our UDL in order to help the students understand the assignments and monitor their work on their blogs or articles. The rubrics will also help them to understand feedback from the teacher (Brookhart, 2008).

Damber, U. (2011). Literature and empowerment: A study of multicultural grade three classes overachieving in reading. //US-China Education Review//, //8//(6a), 88-102.

This research study utilized mixed methods. The goal of this study was to look at how teachers could help their students become better readers who also enjoyed reading and showed increased engagement in reading. The students involved in this study were from a lower socioeconomic status school in a third grade classroom. The article highlights how collaboration leads to increased reading achievement. This article also highlights the importance of collaboration among the teachers involved as well as the parents of the students.

This article is relevant to my group’s project because it highlights the importance of collaboration among the students as well as the teachers. Two of the schools involved in our group project are lower socioeconomic status schools, so it is pertinent to see that positive results can be achieved using this type of teaching and learning. The students’ collaborative efforts were received positively and helped to engage them in learning which is the desired result of our own project. The teachers collaboration is also important because we must work together to ensure that our students are successful in completing this project.

Erstad, O. (2010). Educating the digital generation. //Exploring Media Literacy for the 21st Century //, 1-18. n the article of “//Educating the Digital Generation//”, the author Ola Erstad is a Professor at the Institute for Educational Research, University of Oslo, Norway, conducted a research about how should we raise awareness for the young people of this age and those to come. Dr. Erstad has published multiple articles on “media literacy” and “digital competence”. In this study, Dr. Erstad posed the question,” //What does it mean to read and write in a culture such as ours//”. There were four areas where they saw digital media having an impact on media use and literacy by young people.


 * 1) **Participatory** culture where they are sharing with each other such as social networking sites.
 * 2) **Information** access and since the invention of the WWW this is an advantage of access to digital media. The possibilities are endless from starting a wiki to reading a book
 * 3) **Communication** possibilities are also endless, with Skype, voice over IP, chat, SMS, and email.
 * 4) **Content** production has changed dramatically as anyone can be a producer of anything they want to post to the web, for instance My Space, Face book, and YouTube and with the inventions of the new software tools, this makes editing something that has been termed as remixing.

With this study, Dr. Erstad showed that digital media was used widely and in the most integrated educational was as part of a project work in schools. His study took place between two lower secondary schools one in Eastern Oslo and one in the Western suburbs of Norway. At each school the students were in the ages from 13 – 14. At the school in Eastern Oslo, the students came from many different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. From the Western side had families from high socio-economic status with only one student who was non-white. The teachers used this collaborative project to have students write about the prejudices about living in the East or the West of Oslo. For the project, the students used different digital tools to collaborate and create an online newspaper, one for each school, which consisted of reports about the students at the other school and their community. The students ended up working with their counterparts to help answer questions and alleviate fears on either side. They formed groups from within their own and joined with their neighbors. This study showed that different approaches and aspects of the educational implications of young people’s use of digital media are linked to digital literacy. As educators it is our responsibility to help our students to learn how to use the many resources we have available to us (Erstad, 2010).

Friedman, L., & Friedman, H. (2011, June 22). //Online learning as a change agent in education.// Retrieved January 15, 2012, from Social Science Research Network: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1870008 In the paper, “//Online Learning as a Change Agent in Education//” Dr.’s Friedman show how online learning is an important tool for achieving the goals of education that include creativity, collaboration, communication, critical thinking and problem solving. As the Friedman’s stated academics are in the knowledge “business” they are to enhance students’ ability to thin and learn for themselves. They should provide students with the tools and desire for lifelong learning. They found in their study that a skill such as storytelling, the ability to communicate in a creative way, is very important in the business world. For example, Xerox found that their repair personnel used stories rather than information in their manuals to find out what was wrong with their machines. Also, medical schools are teaching their future physicians to listen compassionately to their patient’s ailments. A study was done in 2009 of more than 1000 studies published from 1996 to 2008 comparing online with traditional classroom teaching. They found that online learning offers many advantages over classroom learning and most students who take courses that are all or partially online perform better than traditional students (Friedman & Friedman, 2011).

Kershner, R., Mercer, N., Warwick, P., & Kleine Staarman, J. (2010). Can the interactive whiteboard support young children's collaborative communication and thinking in classroom science activities? //International Journal Of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning//, //5//(4), 359-383. doi:10.1007/s11412-010-9096-2. This study examined the classrooms of twelve classroom teachers who taught students ages 8-10. This study used observational analysis of the teachers’ classrooms. The goal of this study was to examine the role of the interactive whiteboard in collaborative learning. The communication between the students using the interactive whiteboards was examined. Students were encouraged to use “talk rules” such as asking for reasons why throughout their collaborative discussion. The students and teachers involved in the study all felt that the interactive whiteboard helped to foster more collaborative discussion because the size of the pictures and text allowed for all of the members of the group to see and interact. This is relevant to my group’s project because interactive whiteboards are a tool that all of our students will have access to. Students will be able to use the interactive whiteboards in a variety of ways to help facilitate communication and collaboration throughout the project. As they are evaluating others’ articles, they can use the interactive whiteboard to highlight important features and make note of things that they would like to include in their own articles. The interactive whiteboards can also be used as a center for brainstorming ideas so that all of the students can see the ideas that are being suggested and can discuss them as they are introduced.

Kervin, L. & Mantei, J. (2009). Using computers to support children as authors: an examination of three cases. Technology, Pedagogy and Education. 18(1). 19-32. DOI. 10.1080/14759390802704014.

This study focus on three case studies in different grade levels as well as different schools. The first case study is with lower primary students who had to create a collaborative of designing a Power Point, from the research in which they have completed on a toy unit. The research in which the students completed was helped out by the teacher planning ahead and marking the websites they wanted the students to use. The students planned their task by designing a storyboard of the different websites they investigated. Next, the students had to design their own text by using PowerPoint. The second case study students were given a list of topics and had to choose which one they wanted to research on. Upon completing their research they had to design a webpage and present it to the class. The third case study involved students designing a family tree and presenting it to the class. Each case study the students had to use technology, and also do research. In these case studies we learn about how important collaboration is to a classroom as well of having student complete projects.

The reason I chose this study was due to the fact our project is based on designing a web based newspaper. I felt some information in this study would be important to us for this project. For example as students complete research the teacher needs to be able to insure students go to sites that are appropriate for their age group. This study also provides information on how students handle independent work. I feel this article shows how students can master independent research, collaboration and writing within group projects.

Luna, K. (2008). //Arizona elementary kids find online school newspaper an eco-smash//. Retrieved from Treehugger: [] This article is about students and staff from a school Arizona who had a school newspaper but realized only 100 students had access to email. The students decided to publish their paper online in order to get more students to use email and other online media in order to read the online paper. The students cut down on the use of paper and more importantly students started enjoying reading online articles. The students learned how important it was to use online media as well as using other online sources. The way this article is important to our project is due to we are developing an online paper. This article shows how technology changed a school and the way in which they were publishing their newspaper. The article will show us how important it is to use technology to get students more involved in reading online articles as well as newspapers. Plus it will show the students how much fun and economical it is to public a school newspaper online.

Mallet, M. (1999). //Young researchers informational reading and writing in the early and primary years//. London: Routledge. Retrieved from [] This book explores different strategies for encouraging children to develop research skills from a young age. Many of the strategies encouraged in the book promote collaboration among students and between students and their teachers. This book includes case studies to demonstrate the strategies application in real classrooms. The sections are broken down by age-level to highlight different skills that are important at each level. This book is relevant to my group’s project because it will help provide us with strategies for teaching students how to do informational writing and reading more effectively. Because writing a newspaper article requires a style of writing that the students might not be used to, the strategies suggested by this book will prove to be very useful.

Mayer, R., E. (2009). //Multi-Media Learning (2nd ed.).// New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

This book focuses on the use of multi-media within the classroom. The book decides some of the principles of multi-media learning and how these principles are incorporated into the classroom and online learning. It explains how students learn more from pictures and text, then from text alone. This book goes on to explain to teachers as well as parents if multi-media is used in a created way students can learn more efficiently. In addition the book talks about how collaboration is an important process of using multi-media learning. Overall, the author feels multi-media is the tools to students succeeding in the classroom as well as in the workplace.

The way in which this book is important to our project, is due to the different principles included within it. If we use the principle of pictures and text then our students will achieve their overall goal of becoming better writers. In addition it is very important for our students to be able to collaborate in order to have a better project. The books explain different ways in which we can use the multi-media as well as teaching our students to work together.

Oldendorf, S. B., & Calloway, A. (2008). Connecting children to a bigger world: Reading newspapers in the second grade. //Social Studies and the Young Learner//, 17 - 19. In this article a second grade teacher implements reading a newspaper to help them understand the world better and to make real world connections for math, reading, and language. The teachers, Sandra Oldendorf and Annie Calloway, integrate the hard copy of the newspaper and online versions. The students report on blogs their ideas and suggestions. She said that she had considered having the students do a newspaper but that will be coming in the future. These second graders already discuss world news and local news in their everyday discussions and relate these to real world problems. What better way to learn (Oldendorf & Calloway, 2008)?

Sahn, L., & Reichel, A. (2008). Read all about it! A classroom newspaper integrates the curriculum. //National Association for the Education of Young Children//, 12 - 18. Using a classroom newspaper is what our project is for this class group. This was a perfect article to read. The only difference in what we are doing is sharing with third grade, and two sixth grade classes. In this first grade class, the students spend the first twenty minutes excited about what they are learning in math, reading, writing, science, social studies and art. The way the teachers integrated across the curriculum is through the reading, students are reading the actual newspaper and recommended books. They are writing to express their ideas, thoughts and feelings and are experiencing writing as a process by analyzing, synthesizing, and prioritizing information. Through math by gaining calendar skills and applying math vocabulary such as: most, least, highest, and lowest. By incorporating all curriculums you are engaging the students on a much higher level. The benefits of this have been their students are highly motivated to use their literacy and math skills. They think about the “big” ideas all day even when they are not at school. They learn to accomplish their tasks at their own level in their own way. The class also flourishes as a community of learners. And best of all, the newspaper strengthens the home school connection. These students are most assuredly engaged in active inquiry based curriculum that will serve as a solid foundation to their education (Sahn & Reichel, 2008).

Sefik Yasar, P., & Gulbeyaz Unluer, P. (2011). Effect of using newspaper in social studies on academic success and attitudes of fourth grade students. //Elementary Education Online//, 109 - 120. The article on the “//Effect of using a Newspaper in social studies on academic success//”, Dr. Yasar tries to determine the effect of using a newspaper with academic success in a fourth grade class. There was a pre-test, post-test control group model among the experimental models. For the results of the study showed there was significant improvement in the class that used the newspaper in Social Studies and the control group that didn’t use the newspapers, in favor of the experimental group by means of their academic success. In conclusion, using newspapers in Social Studies classes enhances their academic success and gives them a positive attitude towards the class (Sefik Yasar & Gulbeyaz Unluer, 2011). Stark, H. (2009). Writing effectively in pairs and small groups. //Virginia English Bulletin//, //59//(2), 47-50. This article was written by a teacher who found that many of her students had a negative attitude towards the writing process. She took into consideration that her students expressed a desire to work with groups and changed her mode of teaching writing. She placed the students’ desks into cooperative groups so that students could talk to each other about their writing. She found that students’ attitudes had changed when they were able to communicate about their writing. She also highlighted some other instructional techniques that worked for her and her students during their writing time. This article is relevant to my group’s project because our students will have to write articles collaboratively. Some of the strategies suggested by this teacher, like the editing and revising strategies will be especially useful in giving the students ownership of their writing.

Syh-Jong, J. (2010). The impact on incorporating collaborative concept mapping with coteaching techniques in elementary science classes. //School Science & Mathematics//, //110//(2), 86-97. This research study used a mixed method design. The participants in the study were the science classes of two fourth grade teachers each of whom taught two classes each. There were 114 students involved in the study. This study found that collaborative concept mapping in a science lesson increased student achievement. The study was conducted over an 8-week period during 40 minute class sessions. Because this was a new technological tool that the students had never used before, it was thought that a team approach would be best to introduce the students to the tool. The article also states that collaborative concept mapping can help lower achieving students gain a better understanding of the subject matter and make stronger connections with their prior knowledge. Students involved in the study indicated that collaborative concept mapping helped them to organize the concepts, increase their understanding of the concepts, and gave them greater opportunities for self-correction which helped increase their engagement in learning. This article is relevant to my group’s project because collaborative concept mapping could be utilized as a pre-writing tool with my students. This study highlights the effectiveness of collaborative concept mapping in increasing student understanding of content. As the students are gathering ideas for their articles for the newspaper project, they could use collaborative concept mapping as a brainstorming tool to help organize their thoughts and ideas as a group.

Tunnard, S., & Sharp, J. (2009). Children's views of collaborative learning. //Education 3-13//, //37//(2), 159-164. doi:10.1080/03004270802095421 This article examines how a group of students feels about collaborative learning and how effective it is. This article suggests that no researcher had ever considered asking the students directly how they felt about collaborative learning. The students had a generally positive attitude toward working collaboratively and felt that working in collaborative groups was beneficial even though some of the children had expressed that missing out on opportunities to work with other students who were no longer in classes with them had led to lost friendships. They equated working together with building friendships. The students preferred to work with groups of their own choosing rather than groups pre-selected by the teacher. However when they worked in groups of their own choosing, the individual contributions to the group work was not always equitable. The students also pointed out that they were concerned about the weaknesses of others when working in groups. This article is relevant to my group’s project because it shows the importance of including the students’ in the process. Taking into consideration the needs and interests of our students will be very important to their success. Allowing students to self-select groups but with some guidance may be beneficial so that students still feel motivated to work together but also work together effectively.

Webb, C. (2009, April 11). //Writing Articles for the School Newspaper//. Retrieved from Go Articles.com: []

This article is about how a school newspaper should be published. It goes into telling you what is the most important thing to include in your article and how to lay out the article. It also tells the students to make the articles interesting and not boring. The article goes into explaining what should be in the first paragraph; who, what, where, when, maybe, why and how. Plus it talks about including pictures, but make sure they are in focus. In addition use good grammar when writing your newspaper. Most of all when publishing a school newspaper is fair and accurate. Remember you are telling a story of what happened or will happen.

The reason this article is important to our project, it tell us how to go about putting a newspaper together. It goes into the detail of what is important in a newspaper and what is not. Plus the article tells us how to go about laying out a paragraph and what should be in the first paragraph of the article. In addition, it reminds us not to keep on putting the same information in the newspaper and if you have to please make it sound different.

Wingate, U., & Dreiss, C. (2009, January 8). Developing students' academic literay: an online approach. //Journal of Academic Language & Learning//, A-14 : A-24. In my article, “//Developing students’ academic literacy: an online approach//”, the study was done in the UK. It was created as an initiative to help students acquire academic literacy through an online writing course through the Pharmacy Department at King College in London. One advantage to using e-learning for the development of academic literacy is it can assist in deep processing/ or learning, offers more flexible learning opportunities, and provides immediate feedback. For the student experience this study provided the environment for constructivist learning by providing the resources needed for students to engage in rich and useful construction of knowledge. One of the pieces to the study was the students were given an unstructured text and had to divide it into paragraphs. They had to be able to identify types of writing not learn to write, but through this process their writing did improve. The ultimate recommendation was that e-learning helps the students improve their writing and this is not a “fix”, but it does provide an introduction to academic writing and raises awareness of the disciplines specific writing requirements (Wingate & Dreiss, 2009).