Judi Moreillon: Home | Author | Educator | Advocate
Students Publish On the World Wide Web - Judi Moreillon, Ph.D.
Using the Internet to publish student work is one cause for celebration in cyberspace. The impact of the world-wide audience on teaching and learning is one of my research interests.
Here are some of my questions:
- How does Internet publishing affect student
motivation?
- What is the student perception of "audience"
on the Web?
- How does world-wide feedback affect student
achievement?
- How can educators facilitate student Web site
production, maintenance, and ensure that students connect with peers
in other schools who are engaging in these processes?
- How does Web publishing affect collaborative
behaviors in a school when students and teachers are sharing their work
technologically within the school, community, and world-wide?
These are links to student-designed and/or designed and maintained Web sites at the elementary and middle school levels in Tucson, Arizona.
- Corbett
Elementary School
In April, 1997, I was the teacher-librarian at Corbett Elementary when we launched our third-grade student-designed home page using Claris Home Page. We believe this was the first elementary student-designed page in Tucson. This Web site is currently maintained by Kim Grimes, Corbett's teacher-librarian. - Gale
Elementary School
When I served as the teacher-librarian at Gale Elementary School, I facilitated the work of eight fifth-grade students who designed and created the Gale site using Claris Home Page. The site was launched in April, 1998. Each year a new group of students has taken the leadership for maintaining the Web site. Fifty eight students in all have served on this committee. On behalf of Gale School, on March 14, 2001, eleven fifth-grade Gale Home Page Committee members accepted the Arizona Technology in Education Alliance Best Elementary Web Site (2001) Award. - Flowing Wells Junior High School
Maya Eagleton, University of Arizona doctoral student, worked with these students to put up the first Flowing Wells Junior High Web site using Netscape Navigator Gold. Students in the media arts class launched this site in the fall of 1997 and worked on updating it throughout the 1997-98 school year. - Emily Gray Junior High School
This Web site was launched by three Emily Gray students three years ago. Under the supervision of Mr. Kellermeyer, technology teacher, and Ms. Traviolia, librarian, students were maintaining the site using Claris Home Page. - Green
Fields Country Day School
Although this site was originally designed and launched by high school students, one seventh and one eighth grade student currently serve on the site maintenance team. Green Fields believes it was the first private school in Tucson to create a Web site.
If you have facilitated student web site publishing, please send me email, and I will add your students' site to this list. If you are interested in collaborating with K-12 educators to study the impact of Web publishing on student achievement, please include a short paragraph about your experience and specific questions of interest to you.
Beyond School Web Pages:
Judi Harris from the University of Texas, Austin has provided a great Web site listing K-12 educational telecomputing projects. The following Web sites were selected from her site because they offer space for elementary and middle school students to publish their work:
- Electronic
Elementary Magazine
This site publishes elementary school student work.
- MidLink
Magazine
This electronic magazine publishes the work of middle grade students.
- The
National Student Research Center
Students and teachers at Mandeville Middle School in Mandeville, Louisiana maintain this site with the goal of "educating children around the world to become humanitarian and ecological 21st-century citizens." Student research is published for the enlightenment of the global community.
- Poetry
for Kids
This Web site, maintained by Kenn Nesbitt, offers poetry contests and a publishing space for student poets.
- ScI-Journal
This site offers online publication of K-12 and college level student work in the field of science. Readers at this site are encouraged to write questions and comments to student researchers.
If your site isn't included on this list, please email me and let me know.
A College-Level Example:
The Southwest Children's Literature Web Site is an example of preservice teachers publishing on the Web. As their course facilitator, I had several goals for their publishing experience. First and foremost, I wanted these future teachers to experience the empowerment of Web publishing, to know first-hand what students feel when they publish on the Web, and to build a classroom community of learners in the process. Secondly, I wanted them to understand how the site could be used for instructional purposes. We used our site to review the diversity of literature experiences they developed and shared with students and the diverse genres of students' responses. Finally, I wanted them to understand that by collaborating to build this teacher-librarian-student resource, they contributed to the own professional development as well as that of their current and future teaching colleagues.
Updated: 23 May 2007