In today's digitally interconnected world, one's ability to collaboratively create with others and compose multimodal texts is essential. Yet, high-stakes standardized assessments that value individualistic print centric conceptions influence instruction, leading schools to often undervalue the multimodal and collaborative composing processes and…

Children are experiencing life at a time of rapid technological development. They increasingly utilize new technologies, navigate, and create multimodal forms of communication. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) evolve, reshaping the nature of literacy. Meanwhile, state, federal, and professional organizations are rewriting the…

This design-based research study explored how collaborative writing activities can be used in support of ELLs' writing development in the context of a culturally and linguistically diverse first-grade classroom. Using qualitative methods, I examined two focal ELL students' participation across four iterations of collaborative writing activities,…

This narrative inquiry collective case study investigated the experiences of six sixth grade American Indian males of the Lumbee tribe who struggle with reading. Bounded within an asynchronous closed wiki site, students from three sixth grade classes participated in online threaded discussions and created, posted, and viewed multimedia projects…

Understanding the merits and demerits of new technology and how it may or may not work within traditional pedagogical methods is important. This study, therefore, examined the effects of traditional versus digital peer-editing to understand how digital peer-editing affects student writing achievement in a rural public middle school environment. It…

The need for twenty-first century learning skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and the use of technology are paramount to success in today's classroom. The purpose of this study was to explore what happened when children engaged in collaborative and critical discussions of themes related to social skills and social…

The purpose of this qualitative exploratory case study was to determine the pedagogical value of Wiki technology-enhanced instruction for middle grade students. The sample consisted of three Wiki projects representative of work from 6th, 7th, and 8th grade middle school students. The examination of the data collected from the three samples of Wiki…

In an era of reductionist approaches to teaching and assessment, this dissertation returns to the fundamental question: "What is the value of writing, particularly poetry writing, in our society today?" The poet's central task, to abstract reality through symbols, requires profound cognitive and emotional work (Vendler, 2004; Steele,…