This study explored beginning and advanced pre-service teachers’ Internet use and their experience, confidence, and competence in using new literacies of the Internet. In addition, this study compared the pre-service teachers to same-aged business and engineering students. Through using an online survey, this study recruited 1350 students from the various disciplines. This study conducted comparisons between a) underclassmen across the three majors, b) seniors across the majors, and c) underclassmen and seniors within the majors. This study found that as digital natives, education, business, and engineering students used the Internet frequently. However, they were relatively unfamiliar with using new literacies of the Internet during their high school and university educational experiences. Overall, the three majors’ students were confident but they were not competent in using new literacies of the Internet including locating and evaluating information on the Internet. Comparisons between and within the majors revealed that education underclassmen were less confident and competent than engineering underclassmen peers and senior education students in evaluating information on the Internet. Education seniors were comparable to business and engineering seniors in their confidence and competence in both locating and evaluating information on the Internet. The findings imply that teacher educators need to understand the weaknesses of their pre-service teachers and provide them with appropriate opportunities and training to know how to effectively use and furthermore teach new literacies of the Internet.

This dissertation involves a holistic and interconnected examination of the validity, reliability, and fairness of the Online Research and Comprehension Assessment (ORCA). The ORCA is a large-scale assessment of New Literacies that challenges Grade 7 students to solve research problems (e.g., Does playing video games harm your eyes?) by locating, critically evaluating, and synthesizing online information in order to communicate their results in online genres such as email and wiki. My goal in this study was to understand how ORCA test score data should be used and interpreted, in what context, and for what purposes. A secondary goal was to examine the cognitive and metacognitive processes required to support research writing in online contexts. The study involved three interconnected phases. The first was a systematic, mixed methods literature review of 101 peer-reviewed texts from the last 50 years in order to articulate the construct underlying the ORCA. Finding no construct in the literature that considered the important ways in which the Internet has changed the construct of writing, I opted to conceptualize one of my own. This construct also serves as the theoretical framework for the rest of the dissertation. In the next phase of the study, I again explored the construct underlying the ORCA, but this time via a mixed methods investigation of the response processes—both cognitive and metacognitive—elicited by the ORCA. By observing both expert and novice participants’ response processes, I analyzed the extent to which the tasks and types of responses elicited by the ORCA fit the intended construct. Further, by observing response processes, I was also able to analyze construct underrepresentation and construct-irrelevant variance, which are fundamental to the ORCA’s appraisal. The results suggested that there are complex and sophisticated cognitive and metacognitive processes underlying the ORCA and online research writing more generally, many of which are unique to online contexts. Further, both quantitative and qualitative results suggest significant differences between novice and expert groups. The third phase of this research concludes with an integrated consideration of the ORCA’s validity, reliability, and fairness. Here, I analyzed data collected from the previous two phases; previous validation work done on the ORCA by my colleagues; and new forms of validation evidence collected for this study. I did so in order to build a comprehensive validity argument to demonstrate the ways in which ORCA test scores should be used and interpreted, and the consequences which follow. I used cued retrospective reporting, semi-structured interviews, Venn diagrams, surveys, and writing artefacts to investigate the response processes elicited by the ORCA and to compare and contrast those to the writing practices that participants used in their school, work, and/or personal lives. I also completed an extensive analysis of the sample of observations permitted by the ORCA juxtaposing those with the target domain. Results of this study indicate that the ORCA provides an important form of assessment data regarding 21st century literacies previously neglected on traditional assessments. Limitations of the ORCA such as construct-irrelevant variance and construct underrepresentation are also explored. The results of the study suggest how the ORCA could be re-designed to improve the validity of inferences made.

Thesis advisor: Leigh Patel / Digital literacies have become central in today's society, used in various personal and public incarnations (Coiro, Knobel, Lankshear, & Leu, 2008), occupying prominent space in social and professional worlds (boyd, 2014; Leu et al., 2011). Despite digital literacies' centrality in society, schools have a notoriously difficult time integrating these into curriculum and instruction (O'Brien & Scharber, 2008). Accordingly, I asked: How do teachers in a large, public comprehensive secondary school navigate the challenges and benefits of digital literacies within the structure of Washington High, the curriculum, and their pedagogy? Using a case study design both ethnographic and collaborative in nature, I examined teachers' beliefs and practices to investigate how digital literacies were being used in the classroom, as well as why. Data included a school-wide survey, participant interviews and observations with six teachers, and informal meetings with school staff, most notably the vice-principal. Data was analyzed through the lens of theories of literacy curricular design (New London Group, 1996) and an eye toward New Literacies (Lankshear & Knobel, 2006). Notable results include the finding that technology at Washington often plays out in fairly traditional, teacher-directed, "wine in new bottles" (Lankshear & Knobel, 2006, p. 55) sorts of ways. However, this study also concludes that why this is so moves far beyond these teachers' individual beliefs and practices. Their contexts (unreliable technology, control of uses imposed by the administration), their cultures (narratives of adolescents needing protection from themselves and others), and compulsory schooling itself (traditional conceptions of time and space, narrow definitions of success, high-stakes testing and teacher evaluations) all play dynamic and complicated parts in how digital literacies get taken up, along with teachers' own beliefs and practices. As such, I draw upon theories of complex personhood (Gordon, 1997) and complexity thinking (Davis & Sumara, 2008) in positing ways digital literacies may be utilized in relationship to schools. Implications address these practices' collaborative, creative potentials to transform schools. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

This study establishes a comprehensive methodology for analyzing children's website content, based on both linguistic and rhetorical data, by employing defensible criteria to evaluate both qualitative and quantitative data. By employing genre theory as a prism for examining form, substance, and rhetorical action within children's websites, this study applies that methodology to a purposeful sample of five children's websites. Results of the analysis document the complex multimodal and multilinear nature of the websites studied and identify a possible new genre, the pop culture carousel website.

abstract: This qualitative case study of 12, eighteen to twenty-four-year-olds from seven countries provided insight into the learning practices on an art-centered, social media platform. The study addressed two guiding questions; (a) what art related skills, knowledge, and dispositions do community members acquire using a social media platform? (b), What new literacy practices, e.g., the use of new technologies and an ethos of participation, collective intelligence, collaboration, dispersion of abundant resources, and sharing (Knobel & Lankshear, 2007), do members use in acquiring of art-related skills, concepts, knowledge, and dispositions? Data included interviews, online documents, artwork, screen capture of online content, threaded online discussions, and a questionnaire. Drawing on theory and research from both new literacies and art education, the study identified five practices related to learning in the visual arts: (a) practicing as professional artists; (b) engaging in discovery based search strategies for viewing and collecting member produced content; (c) learning by observational strategies; (d) giving constructive criticism and feedback; (e) making learning resources. The study presents suggestions for teachers interested in empowering instruction with new social media technologies. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Curriculum and Instruction 2012

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Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / F. Todd Goodson / Historically, advances in technology have impacted education, particularly in the field of literacy. Often, educators initially resist these changes. Today, this is the case with the new literacies. Although students increasingly turn to technology to communicate, school practices still largely ignore this cultural phenomenon. This qualitative study explores the roots of this resistance by examining how teachers negotiate the use of digital literacies in the classroom, particularly in respect to the rhetorical boundaries imposed upon schools by their local culture. Data were collected through 34 interviews with individuals in three demographically different schools districts. Of particular interest were the key literacy decision makers. At the district level, assistant superintendents who also served as secondary curriculum directors, technology directors and literacy coaches were interviewed. The school level focused on middle and high schools, and, in two districts, on alternative education centers. Principals, librarian, lead English teachers and new English teachers, defined as teaching for three years or less, provided information for the study at these schools. During the data analysis, grounded theory, as well as the gap and continuum theories described by Deanna Bogdan (1992a & b), guided the study. When examining what factors create the boundaries educators work within, nine initial themes emerged: infractions, distractions, dependency, immediacy, misinformation, safety, inappropriateness, funding and change. Further examination of the data revealed the central phenomenon: “The technological evolution that occurs outside the classroom must be adapted before it makes its way into pedagogical practice.” This phenomenon provides the first layer for the model. To better understand the adaptation process, the gap and continuum theories were employed, leading to a spectrum between gatekeepers and facilitators. Each of the three districts fit in distinctively different places on this spectrum. Axial coding was then used to further explore the relationship of the themes to the adaptation process. The nine themes could then be collapsed into three categories: perceptions of student behaviors, perceptions of technology, and perception of school’s role in society. This study provides educators insight into the factors that guide their decision-making processes when considering the incorporation of technology into the classroom.

The purpose of this study was to explore the process and product of African American First Graders as they participated in digital storytelling. Of interest was the role digital tools played in the creation process. Eight participants participated in 18 study sessions during which they composed, recorded, and then shared their digital texts with their peers and at home. Data sources included classroom observations, parent and teacher questionnaires, participant pre and post interviews, field notes, video and audio tapes of sessions, and story screenshot captures and print outs. Study questions focused on the nature of the texts the student produced, the role of the digital in the creation process, and the meanings and purposes the participants had for the texts they produced. This study’s findings challenge teachers to offer students authentic experiences with writing so that children can construct their own ideas and interests, their own writing personalities. Digital texts were a particularly engaging medium for these young children and allowed them to produce texts that reflected their identities as well as their attitudes toward using digital tools. The nature of the texts varied depending on the child, his or her attitude toward using the digital tools, and likely their previous experiences with composition. One unique type of text was identified as a hybrid text that seemed to capitalize on both the ability of the child storyteller and the affordances of the digital. Due to the study’s emphasis on sharing these texts with peers and at home, the first graders were introduced to a sophisticated view of audience. This transactional role of the audience made them aware of audience as a living, breathing entity that gains ownership of the texts’ meanings once they are shared. / text

Youth experiences with digital technologies demonstrate untapped potential for informing school-based learning responsive to adolescent identity and socialization practices (Ito et al., 2008). This study presents the formation of a collaborative model for appropriating youth and digital practices for developing new literacies with high school students in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands (New London Group, 1996). The research incorporates diversity in technology access and participation of predominately Latino students in English classrooms as a resource to engage literacy development across multiple discursive domains and challenge deficit discourses for Latino youth.The participatory approach combines interventionist research, in the cultural historical tradition of expansive learning (Engeström, 1987) with ethnographic methods for informing curricular practice (González, Moll,&Amanti, 2005; Lee, 2007) and new literacies pedagogy stressing collaborative, critical, and multimodal semiosis infused with Freirian praxis (Coiro et al., 2008; Freire, 1999; Lemke, 2003). Research involved co-developing, co-teaching and daily participant observation within the multiple online and offline spaces of a high school writing course, a weekly after school club begun with students from the class and several additional classrooms. A variety of data illustrates tensions and synergies of migrating practices across systems of activity represented by teacher, researcher and student standpoints. The research maps how socio-spatial relationships among academic and youth discourses, modalities, and participants' classroom positions were reconfigured through the use of digital tools joined with pedagogies responsive to adolescents' social and digital practices.An afterschool group's wiki participation extended students' oral and visual literacies into written expression and gave other participants a model of collaborative practice to guide classroom interaction. Engaging familiar and new tools for inquiries based on youth interests and complementary analytical concepts emphasized the primacy of the social and pedagogical aspects of technology. Students' agency in theorizing identity and developing representational spaces (Lefebvre, 1991) emerged as a key mediator for expanding their literacies across personal and academic contexts. In the collaborative process, participants forged new, hybrid genres, audiences and identities for distributing and developing their literacy practices across false dichotomies of home/school and online/offline spaces, and for reconfiguring normative school literacy regimes.