An evaluation of the role of email in promoting science investigative skills in primary rural schools in England

Abstract

This project evaluated the effect of collaboration via emall links on the quality of 10-11 year old students' science investigative skills in six primary rural schools. After a joint planning meeting, sixty children collected, identified and shared information via email about moths in their area, in order to produce a joint booklet. All emall traffic was monitored throughout the project. Indepth structured observations and interviews were carried out at the schools. Children completed daily diaries. The children demonstrated a variety of science skills, particularly observation and recording. Their competence and confidence in using computers, handling email and in manipulating a data base developed during the project. The project identified a number of important issues relating to teacher inservice training requirements, the importance of a suitable progression of IT experiences throughout the school, development in cooperative groupwork for children, and software design.

A Qualitative Analysis of Email Interactions of Children who use Augmentative and Alternative Communication

“…Studies aimed at examining children's use of email to develop new relationships have demonstrated many similarities between ordinary letter writing and email message writing (Jarvis, Hargreaves, & Comber, 1997;Mavers, 2007;Merchant, 2003;Shpigelman, Weiss, & Reiter, 2009;van der Meij & Boersma, 2002). During any interaction, common ground is essential because it helps to organize the communication in relation to presupposed aspects the interlocutors may or may not have in common (e.g., age, gender, or interests).…”

Evaluation of Science and Technology Education at the Dawn of a New Millennium

“…The authors were equivocal about the benefits associated with the use of laptop computers in terms of improved student learning outcomes, though the evidence for improvements in the affective domain of motivation and enthusiasm for learning were strong. Jarvis et al (1997) support this view and suggest that the use of computers in science classrooms has aided the learning of skills in the use of the computer, a form of computer literacy, rather than in the area of learning specific scientific processes.…”

Semiotic resourcefulness: A young child's email exchange as design

“…The few published studies of children's use of email explore how the interactivity of digital communication provides opportunities for developing relationships, for new learning contexts, for new purposes, for new audiences and for new kinds of exchange. Some projects entail children between the ages of 7 and 11 years emailing a class in another school in order to share their learning experiences and subject knowledge (Jarvis et al, 1997;Van der Meij and Boersma, 2002) and to collaborate in the production of materials (Burnett et al, 2006;Jarvis et al, 1997). Others involve exchange with adults: email partnerships with beginning teachers and college students as a means of reviewing reading (Curtiss and Curtiss, 1995;McKeon, 1999), communication with researcher-advisors in developing narrative (Merchant, 2003), contacting a teacher-expert for help with problem-solving in mathematics (Kramarski and Liberman, 2003) and industry-based pen-pals (Harris and Kington, 2002).…”