Children's literacy perceptions as they authored with hypermedia

This study explored children's literacy perceptions as they authored with hypermedia within the context of classroom literacy lessons. The fifth grade children authored two hypermedia projects and linked these projects to novels that they read in their classroom. The learners used two different multimedia authoring tools. The children based the hypermedia projects on critical literacy themes suggested during classroom discussion. The data yielded six broad themes along with new definitions of literacy that included technology. The children made a distinction between two types of literacy with regard to writing. Their definitions of literacy reflected both linear and non-linear types of reading. Writing conventions utilized by the children included traditional conventions and non-linear writing conventions that utilized symbols and signs. Notions of readability were redefined to reflect new definitions of literacy and included hypermedia design and sign systems as a way to add meaning for the anticipated reader. Technological Changes In Education Technological changes since 1980 have moved fast and fiercely. This change has had a large impact on the modes of reading and writing. The ways we read and write now are augmented to include such means as E-mail and the World Wide Web. Learners are able to send and get quick responses to E-mail. On the World Wide Web, learners encounter conflicting interpretations of text and must be able to generate good key terms when searching for information so that they can sort through these interpretations. These changes are beginning to impact literacy instruction as more schools come into the on-line environment and seize it as a way to promote literacy understanding throughout the curriculum. The Uses of Hypermedia One particular technological change is the use of hypertext for authoring. According to Reinking (1997), the use of hypertext can be seen as an extended metaphor to guide reading, writing, and thinking. It is only in the hypertext environment that readers and writers can digress, jump around, and link to others' writing. The literacy experience can become collaborative and intertextual. The social element of learning, involving intertextuality and collaboration, is also expanded with technology as learners read and write in real-time with those halfway around the world and have their learning scaffolded by many capable others. This dialogic use of text functions as a vehicle to generate meaning with each new reader and writer who comes into contact with it (Wertsch, 1991). Salomon, Globerson and Guterman (1989) refer to this type of learning as computer mediated communication (CMC). According to these researchers, this term suggests that a computer provides a zone of proximal development for reading and writing that leaves the learner with socially constructed knowledge that is carried off into other forms of reading and writing away from the computer. Technology's Impact on Schools and Literacy Learning This notion of literacy learning is very different from the type of literacy learning that traditionally has been supported in our schools. The question of how this type of interaction with print fits with literacy instruction in schools as a new tool becomes salient. With the use of CMC and computer software packages to support literacy learning, traditional models of literacy thought and instruction must be recast. Hypertext allows learners to construct multiple interpretations of a text (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1989). Learners can reflect on their actions and try on new perspectives. Thus, literacy practice becomes broader and more authentic (Pea, 1993). Purposes and Research Questions The purpose of this research was to understand children's literacy perceptions as they authored with hypermedia. It is important to investigate children's perceptions since they reflect their understanding of new learning. Two main questions from this purpose guided the study: What were children's literacy perceptions as they authored with hypermedia? And what were children's literacy perceptions of their writing growth as they authored with hypermedia? When technology is introduced as a factor to be incorporated into these perceptions, different ways of thinking may be introduced (Leu, 1996). A pertinent example of this might be book reading and reading on the Internet. Book reading is a linear process. One can read paragraphs and pages forward or backward, but essentially reading can only move in one way. Web reading, or reading on the Internet with hypertext-markup language (HTML) based documents, is a nonlinear reading process. It has also been described as a multi-linear reading process (Reinking, 1998). One can read backwards, forwards, jump to term definitions inside the document, read excerpts that go with video or audio clips, and jump to other documents embedded in the original document. This way of reading and writing can be related to notions of intertexuality (Reinking, 1997). Linear and Nonlinear Text as a Meaning Making Process Nonlinear reading allows the reader to acquire intertextual excerpts all in the same document, thus representing the way we think. Given this notion of nonlinear text, it is appropriate to think about how this nonlinear form of reading and writing may shape children's perceptions of their own writing development with regard to literacy and technology. Questions about literacy growth and development hinge on how the learners' perceptions are shaped by what counts as knowledge, whether they believe knowledge is discovered or created, and where this knowledge is located relative to themselves. These epistemological lenses can be used to look at literacy development and how technology may or may not play into this development. Semiotics fits into the equation of understanding literacy development because it recognizes that all meaning making is contextual and that many systems of meaning transact with one another (Berghoff, 1994). Sign systems can be used in flexible ways to learn and to communicate as one layer for gaining a deeper understanding of how literacy development is defined by epistemological perceptions of the learner.