Podcasting and Reading on the Internet (#ecer2009)

Live blog captured during presentation by Carita Kiili*, Leena Laurinen and Miika Marttunen from University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Podcasting and Reading on the Internet

Discussed the need to develop web-literacy skills. The researchers wanted to support students internet reading skills: to help them search more effectively, to process the text they find appropriately and to collaborate on making sense of what they find.

Reported on the analysis of episodes, i.e. thematic entities that serve particular function. They analysed how students acted in the set tasks. For example how much time did they spend on gathering the information, considering concepts, proposing solutions, presenting and evaluating arguments, ... Some groups were very focused in their approach wheras others were more fragmented. Most of the students time was spent on gathering information and proposing or evaluating arguments.

They found evidence that students were co-constructing knowledge and that metacognative co-regulaton took place. They found that argumentative task instruction, especially when working in groups rather than researching on their own, seemed to support students' text processing ability.