The annotated bibliography fully breaks down each source as evaluations to further document your background information.
Burkart,
Gina. "First-Year College Student Beliefs about Writing Embedded in
Online Discourse: An Analysis and Its Implications for Literacy
Learning." ProQuest LLC (2010). ERIC. Web. 27 Sept. 2012.
This source basically speaks on the general effects of how
technology is becoming increasingly important to all aspects of life and how it
is transitioning over to modern teaching methods. Also the source writer describes
on how communication is becoming a known factor that is linked success. The
author then creates a study where she analyzes college freshmen’s writing over
their first semester and how they communicate and react with an online
discussion board with their peers. The author then finds the results to be how
this online peers board betters the students individually and they become
socially more able and open to new ideas. This source could prove valuable to
my issue because it has to do with the beneficial effects of using technology
along with writing courses. The author seems reliable due to her credibility
being that she’s a professor from the University of Northern Iowa. Also this is
an online web document and the author seems pretty un-biased, just that they
wanted to prove a point. Overall, the author is simply arguing that online
discussion boards should be implemented in the future and her reasoning is
because not only do they assist teachers, but students can easily share their
ideas with peers and communicate with their classmates at all times online.
Indiana
University, National Survey of Student Engagement. "Promoting Engagement
For All Students: The Imperative To Look Within. 2008
Results." National Survey Of Student Engagement (2008): ERIC. Web. 27
Sept. 2012.
Overall, the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE)
decides to document and provide academic help to institutions across the
nation, so they conduct a survey with a sampling of all college freshmen and
they are based on their emotions and writing skills and their writing courses.
The NSSE divided their results into three parts and the first reported that all
institutions are basically the same based on students’ responses; the second
reported that many students felt and were underprepared for their college
courses; and the third had to report about how students think during writing
courses and basically about their writing processes. This source would exemplify
importance in my studies by showing students’ thought processes and it would
also add to the argument of how students are underprepared for the rigorous
challenges of college. Also, this source
is completely reliable due to it being created by the National Survey of
Student Engagement. Therefore the NSSE are a government-funded program made
towards helping post-secondary institutions. This source is actually a research
report and the author’s central cause is to simply provide information to
college institutions across the nation. The author has no bias because they aim
to provide academic help to strengthen our modern teaching methods.
Rendahl,
Merry A. "Moving First-Year Writing Online: Applying Social Cognitive
Theory To An Exploration Of Student Study Habits And
Interactions." Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The
Humanities And Social Sciences 71.7 (2011): 2396. MLA International Bibliography.
Web. 27 Sept. 2012.
In this thesis
located within an academic journal, the author Merry Rendahl summons the
question of “What do students in an online first-year writing course perceive
as good study habits?” The author dug this question up by looking at previous
scholarly arguments based around the introduction of online learning and the
under-preparedness first-year college students portray by results. Gathering
data by surveys, interviews, course management statistics, and students’
interactions, the author focused and broke down his results into two sections.
The author revolved his data around the development of the students and their
communication skills. However, two of the four students reported that the
online course did not help or stimulate them in any way, and in contrast the
other two felt improved in their writing abilities and they became more social.
Overall, this thesis seems helpful because it adds new theories and ideas that
I can discuss in my personal argument. This paper adds the social
constructivist theories, which emphasize online interaction to promote expanded
knowledge. The social cognitive theory is also thrown in to contradict the
constructivists, to explain the possible reason for the other two student’s
negative feedback. This source seems to be credible due to the writer being a
doctor from the University of Minnesota and she is featured in an academic
journal. Also, there seems to be no bias apparent, the author simply wants to
find out both sides of this popular argument.
Yeh,
Yuli, Hsien-Chin Liou, and Yi-Hsin Li. "Online Synonym Materials And
Concordancing For EFL College Writing." Computer Assisted
Language Learning 20.2 (2007): 131-152. ERIC. Web. 27 Sept. 2012.
This source takes into account the foreign
first-year college students and has to do with English as a Foreign Language
(EFL) writing. The authors picked up on the grammatically disastrous phenomenon
of over-used adjectives used by non-native speaking learners (NNS). What the
authors did was create 5 units of online course work for a sample group of
NNS’s and they were specified for popular and over-used adjectives:
“important”, “beautiful”, “hard”, “deep”, and “big”. The data program’s name
was TANGO and for the first step of the process, the learners had to identify
from a set of words, which synonyms matched with their unit. After this, the
learners were given a three-part assessment to measure their newfound
knowledge, being administered by nineteen English majors. Months after the
experiment, the authors found that the students retained their synonyms their
learning skills improved and their vocab had increased. Also, many of the
students found the program to be beneficial, despite the rigorous content of
the program. Despite this being primary data, I am not so sure if this source
is hundred percent credible, but it seems legit to me. However, it says it has
been peer reviewed and it is placed in an academic article as research. Also,
the author is simply arguing that non-natives’ grammar can be improved with the
help of online modules. It also seems the authors are of Asian background, so
my topic could apply to other continents or ethnicities as well.
Ruefman,
Daniel Lee. "Examining the Influence of Multimodal New Media Texts and
Technologies on First-Year Writing Pedagogies: A Cross Sectional
Case Study." ProQuest LLC (2010). ERIC. Web. 28 Sept. 2012.
Within this source, the authors consist of a
group of professors, holding a doctorates degree, from the Indiana University
of Pennsylvania. What the authors researched was into recent years of gossip,
mentioning how multimodal technologies have been used to change how traditional
teaching is being administered. However, critics attack this idea by saying
that online writing systems cannot properly teach the school of grammar,
punctuation, spelling, and organization. Therefore, this group of doctors
conducted a project where they analyze three types of writing classrooms:
traditional, computer-oriented, and an online system. From here they measured
the students course work and improvements and they were asked how they felt
about each system of learning. Anyhow, the authors seem quite credible due to
having a doctorates degree and working from a post-secondary institution. It
could also be noted that this paper was not peer reviewed, showing that it
could potentially be scholarly. Plus this source would help add to my paper
because the authors take into account three types of classrooms to fully
analyze and correctly compare and contrast between different forms of teaching.
Also, the central argument of this thesis is to address and distinguish the
differences between the top three practical ways of our modern teaching.
Paquette,
Paige Fuller. "Virtual Academic Community: Online Education Instructors'
Social Presence in Association with Freshman Composition
Students' Critical Thinking and Argumentation." ProQuest LLC (2009). ERIC.
Web. 28 Sept. 2012.
This source is based on the notion from a
doctor from Auburn University and the basic topic surrounding this thesis is
how literature is a rising challenge that thousands of first-year students must
face, however they are both – not fully prepared and lack critical thinking
skills to develop a complete argument. It is said that students develop their
intellectual growth as they are encourage to think and write, but not too far
beyond their present abilities. Then this is tied into how critical thinking
skills could be developed within online writing courses and the authors write
how teachers would have to alter their methods to open newer opportunities for
students to learn besides the traditional way. Previous researchers also noted
that there is a relationship between critical thinking and social presence (Tu
& McIsaac, 2002). This gave way to the idea of online learning also
improving students’ communication skills. So to test this theory out, the
authors conducted a study where the would train four teachers to administer the
social presence technique along with their guidelines. The results received
portrayed that implementing social presence with the course work would only be
incidental if test scores rose up after. This source seems quite credible and
there could possibly be a slight bias within this source, leaning towards in
favor of online learning because it yielded results before commonly and the
author repeatedly speaks in favor of critical thinking being linked to online
modules.
Monk,
Susan V. "Project Vision: An On-Line Learning Initiative For College
Freshmen." (1996): ERIC. Web. 28 Sept. 2012.
Within this source,
the author writes on about Project Vision, undertaken by Pennsylvania State
University, which explores the idea of online interactive systems being used to
improve students’ literacy. Project Vision is encompassed around the idea
fostered that communication and technology lead to newer brain pathways. This
project was split into three small groups with students, a librarian, and a few
faculty members, to keep them isolated but still feel like it was a learning
environment. Then each campus was given the opportunity to choose which courses
they wanted to develop in. Along with this, students were provided with 24/7 Internet
access and had an infrastructure, which promoted communication amongst the
students’ peers. Besides its framework, students were practically forced to
work into groups and at the end of the project each group presented their
research work, dependent on their topic, and all of the information was shared
between groups smoothly. However, there were complaints of few students not
holding their weight, but this can happen whether in traditional schooling or
in online group modules. Overall, I cannot be so sure if this source is
full-proof credible due to there being not much credentials stated in the paper
and all I know is simply the author’s name. Nevertheless, this source would be
a great resource to add onto the others, which hold the constructivist theory
and feel communication is linked to scholarly success.
Meliha
Handzic, et al. "Do ICT Competences Support Educational Attainment At
University?." Journal Of Information Technology Education
11.(2012): 1-25. OmniFile Full Text Mega (H.W. Wilson). Web. 28 Sept. 2012.
This article was written up by Kurt de
Wit, Dirk Heerwegh, and Jeffrey C. Verhoeven; and their surface issue was if
information and communications technology (ICT) could influence first-year
college students’ capability of educational attainment in any manner. The
authors also created a research project to produce primary sample data, and
they based their results on educational attainment. They prescribed
“educational attainment” was measured in terms of any student’s persistence of
study choice, study efficiency, and their grade point average (GPA). It was
also noted that this project showed an improvement of the subject’s social
contact and maintenance, however contrary to the authors’ expectations,
educational attainment had little to no effect on writing literacy and ICT
skills do not provide better attainment. The researchers also found that
attainment involves a variety of factors, making it hard to truly account for:
including age, gender, parent’s occupation class, educational qualifications,
ethnicity, and more (Scherger and Savage, 2010). However, it was undeniably
admitted that basic ICT skills are required for most professions or majors. For
example, a student in the college of sciences would differ with a student in
the college of philosophy based on ICT skills because of a higher demand of
more advanced skills on a computer.
The central argument, however, was for
the authors to strike down the idea of basic ICT skills being essential for
improvement of educational attainment, or requiring technology to advance one’s
academic literacy. Even though it was noted that ICT competences influence
inter-communication amongst students with students, or students with
instructors (Nelson Laird and Kuh, 2005). Still, it was constantly said
throughout this article how technology did not enhance one’s literacy but only
one’s communication skills. So it seems the author is trying to strike down the
popular idea of how technology should be incorporated majorly into today’s
teaching practices. They also added onto the argument of how ICT has nothing to
do with academic attainment and how it adds onto values such as family income,
school urbanity, and environmental peers. The authors even wrote how “higher
incomes result to higher SAT scores” (St. John and GID. Musoba, 2011). Also,
their underlying issue could possibly be that the authors feel that modern
learning should stay how it is and technology should not be so revered with
teaching due to its little impact on students.
Mongillo,
Geraldine1, and Hilary Wilder. "An Examination Of At-Risk College
Freshmen's Expository Literacy Skills Using Interactive Online
Writing Activities." Journal Of College Reading & Learning 42.2
(2012): 27-50. Education Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 28 Sept. 2012.
In this source, Wilder and Mongillo
created a research project where they gathered samples of first-year college
students from a variety of diverse universities and entered them in online
writing labs and tested their literacy before and after. These two developed
this project for the subjects’ goal to use descriptive skills to portray
certain objects and have their peers try to guess them from the writing. Based
on the results, the data qualifies that interactive online writing activities
improve literacy skills. This data would be strengthened due to the fact that
students must focus on who their main audience is and properly manipulate their
word choice to appeal to their appropriate audience. It has also been reported
as a theory that learning is enhanced in “social contexts” or environments
(Vygotsky, 1978). Along with the project improving literacy skills, Wilder and
Mongillo reported that online learning labs improve the use of social
communication because of students having to spread and interpret data to their
peers, also leading to improved awareness and adapting previous information to
add onto their own arguments. It was also noted that about 36.2% of students
going to American universities require at least one developmental course due to
lack of readiness; as well as 48% not meeting the reading college readiness
level (ACT 2010). Another piece of support was that many students, across
America, that are disinterested in school-based literacy, they perform quite
proficiently as users of technology – forcing them to become problem solvers
and thinkers (Anstey & Bull, 2006).
However, I felt the author’s true
argument was that American students are not college ready and that they feel
online learning labs would better prepare first-year students rather than
school-based teaching. I have written all of the support in the previous
paragraph for this claim and the authors constantly spit out information that
give a negative connotation to how students are presently prepared. Like it was
mentioned that that due to the lack of preparation for first-year students, the
government is hit with an extra $3.7 billion per year (Wise, 2009). The
unarticulated belief seems to be that traditional teaching is not good enough
to prepare students for college institutions.
The
author’s purpose in conducting and creating this experiment and article was to
propose primary data to prove that online learning labs are more efficient than
modern learning practices. It seems that the author is well aware that there is
still a certain percentage of students that are meeting college readiness
criteria, however they feel there is a greater mass that are not cutting it,
therefore they have raised this experiment as a possible solution.
Leese,
Maggie. "Out Of Class--Out Of Mind? The Use Of A Virtual Learning
Environment To Encourage Student Engagement In Out Of Class
Activities." British Journal Of Educational Technology 40.1 (2009): 70-77.
ERIC. Web. 28 Sept. 2012.
In
the article of “Out of class—out of mind? The use of a virtual learning
environment to encourage student engagement in out of class activities”, the subject of this article was to adapt
modern learning and alter it to an online program called Wolverhampton
Online Learning Framework (WOLF). This program brought a diversified student
group and split them into three work groups to complete weekly assignments.
These students were to meet up weekly and had face-to-face meetings, peer
review sessions, and could e-mail a support team if help was needed. Also their
assessments were the only item focused on with the weekly workload, so not to
throw off students. Another focus was for the students to create presentations
at the end of the weeks to peer-teach the other groups what they learned to spread
the information, but in a way that their pupils could easily articulate.
However, there was a more central, and hidden, claim within this article. It
seemed that the author implicitly applied the fact that online learning was a
better teaching method rather than in the classroom, and also to remove the use
of teachers. This program was used to further improve students’ communication
and includes a support system ran by a student body from the School of
Education at the University of Wolverhampton. (Page 72; Lessie, Maggie; 2009). It was also quoted from page 73 of
this article that, “Although this project was clearly linked to an
increased use of technology, the pedagogical underpinning was much more about a
move from teacher-led delivery to student-centred learning.” This explicitly
portrays that the author is obviously trying to remove teachers and move to
online modules to advance literacy. The author also cites and notes that
students are more likely to work due to increased motivation with use of technology,
as well as students becoming more responsible for their work assignments
without any teacher nagging them about coursework (Page 73, Lessie, Maggie;
2009). The author induced the Biggs
(2003) method, which involves the 3P’s: The presage, the process, and the
product. What this does is provide an equal chance to all of the test students,
whether they have used online education modules or not. Also, the author seems
to claim that this module is superior by the results, saying, ‘students
commented more about the skills that they gained from the group work, including
doing presentations and using technology.” Even though there were a few
negative comments either based on the slow replies of the support team and
lackadaisical peers in certain groups, the author clearly makes it believable
for the WOLF, and other learning programs, to be superior. Overall, the
author’s true argument is underlying beneath the surface argument, yet it still
ties into my topic as one of the views that show technology as a learning
resource and the effects it provides. And I can back up using technology as a
positive and constructive tool with this source and also use the backfiring
comments used from the students’ negative feedback about the program.
