Scientific vocabulary use and indicators of proficient readers and writers in the Remote Networked School initiativeStéphane Allaire & Vincent Gagnon, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, Québec, Canada Discourse being an important part of the knowledge creation process, pupils not only have the opportunity to progressively get acquainted with the knowledge building principles. When working on Knowledge Forum, they have to use and refine their reading and writing skills (Scardamalia, 2003), including specific vocabulary as they work in collaboration to understand authentic problems from sciences and social studies domains. The actual study builds on previous research work in the context of the Remote Networked School (RNS) Quebec initiative about basic vocabulary measurements. In this poster, we explore relations between scientific vocabulary use and presence of indicators of proficient readers and writers in rurals schools that are using a collaborative asynchronous platform (Knowledge Forum). Participants were students from primary level of one school district that are part of the RNS initiative. Data were gathered using the Analytic Toolkit (Burtis, 2001) and a lexical analysis applet throughout two full school years (2007-2008 and 2008-2009). Data also included proficient reader and writer indicator measurements. We anticipate that we will be able to elude some tendencies regarding asynchronous reader/writer profiles. |
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