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Transforming what they read: helping eleven‐year‐olds engage with Internet information
Author(s) -
Pritchard Alan,
Cartwright Victoria
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
literacy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.649
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1741-4369
pISSN - 1741-4350
DOI - 10.1111/j.0034-0472.2004.03801005.x
Subject(s) - the internet , context (archaeology) , psychology , constructivist teaching methods , pedagogy , mathematics education , teaching method , world wide web , computer science , paleontology , biology
This article explores an issue of great current concern: how do we help primary aged children to engage with, and to benefit from, information from the Internet? The notion of ‘engagement’ is considered in the context of constructivist learning theory. A short case study based on a small‐scale research project in a primary school classroom in England is presented in order to illustrate the difficulties that arise when children undertake information handling work involving access to vast amounts of information. The end products from two groups of children are found to be far from what might have been expected from children of their ability, background and experience. Engagement with the ideas contained in non‐fiction texts is isolated as a crucial factor. Approaches, including the EXIT model, are presented and considered as ways in which engagement might be encouraged.