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    on a full moon

    literacy experiences & skills for young children

    a literacy teaching tool

    A thesis document

    submitted in p artial fulfillment

    of the requirements for the degree of

    Master of Fine Arts in Design and Technology

    Parsons School of DesignApril 2002

    by

    Loretta Wolozin

    Faculty

    Anezka Sebek

    Advisor

    John Sharp

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    2002

    Loretta Joelle Wolozin

    ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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    Dedication

    to

    Dakota

    (Piccolo)

    &

    All young learners

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    Dedication

    List of Figures

    Table of Contents

    Chapter 1 Argument

    .1

    1.1 literacy for lifelong development

    1.2 literacy teaching tool

    1.3 methodology debate

    1.4 persistent problem: balanced approach

    1.5 my background

    1.6 thesis statement

    Chapter 2 Learners 7

    2.1 focus on young literacy learners

    2.2 assumptions about learners

    2.2.1 young learners are in transition

    2.2.2 learners build on their prior knowledge and experience

    2.2.3 young learners use all of their senses to explore, manipulate, and

    observe the results of their own actions

    2.2.4 young learners construct knowledge of their world by observing

    and participating with other children and adults

    2.2.5 all young learners are at an emergent literacy stage

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    2.2.6 learners often find the transition from language to code difficult

    Chapter 3 Knowledge Design I.15

    3.1 knowledge design I: theory and structure

    3.1.1 knowledge versus information

    3.1.2 why it's critical

    3.2 design questions

    3.3 knowledge design challenges

    3.4 knowledge design structure

    3.4. 1 structure map

    3..4.2 principles

    p1: story-skills structure

    p2 story structure

    p3: skills-modalities structure

    p4: skills-activities structure

    p4 navigation structure

    Chapter 4 Knowledge Design II ..23

    4.1 knowledge design II: implementation

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    4.2 vision: prototype and trajectory

    4.2.1 children

    4.2.2 teachers

    4.2.3 classroom

    4.24 curriculum

    4.2.5 pedagogy

    4.26 assessment

    4.27 interface

    4.28 animation

    4.29 programming

    4.30 sound design

    Chapter 5 Evaluation and Conclusion.41

    5.1 reflection

    5.2 next steps

    5.3 site-based testing

    5.4 children

    Appendices

    A1 samples: K-1 classroom collection analyses

    A2 story synopsis

    A3 character dialog

    Bibliography

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    Chapter 1 Argument

    1.1 literacy for lifelong development

    1.2 literacy teaching tool

    1.3 methodology debate

    1.4 persistent problem: achieving balance

    1.5 my background

    1.6 thesis statement

    ___________

    1.1 Literacy for lifelong development

    Literacy is the umbrella for all communication: author to

    reader, writer to reader, writer or artist to self and much

    more. Literacy is the touchstone of learning and

    development. Expression validates, challenges, gives body to

    mutable thoughts. Drawing, writing, designing, speaking,

    role-play, reading are all forms of literacy. Taking in

    information about the world, processing it, using it,

    deriving pleasure from it are acts of literacy in all

    modalities. Helen Keller read the lips of her teacher with

    her fingertips. Reading for survival and reading as powerful

    support for all other communication literacies is

    fundamental. I care about giving voice to the child in all

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    of us. With literacy, continuous growth and change

    throughout the lifespan is possible.

    1.2 Literacy Teaching Tool

    My project, On a full moon : literacy experiences & skills

    for young children, is a literacy teaching tool for young

    children and their teachers. Intended for classroom use,

    its primary audience will thus be 4-6 year old children in

    PreK-Kindergarten through lst-grade classrooms and the

    educators who work with them.

    1.3 Methodology debate: rationale for tool

    The debate in education about the best approach to teach

    reading is the impetus for my thesis project . An

    understanding of this debate and its context is critical for

    understanding my motivation and my rationale for the

    pedagogical construct I invented. I describe my construct

    in Chapter 3: Design I.

    First, here is a brief description of the context. My

    project lives in the complex world of reading methodology.

    While that may sound fancy, it is hardly a world for

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    specialists only. The communities of interest and power

    include:

    school personnel : teachers, reading specialists,

    administrators, special educators

    the research community

    parents and family

    politicians & policy makers at all levels (federal,

    state, district, school, community, industry and other

    organizations)

    K-12 education associations; (key reading associations:

    International Reading Association (IRA), National Council

    Teachers of English (NCTE), American Library Association

    (ALA), College Reading Association (CRA); key curriculum

    associations: Assocation for Survervision & Curriculum

    Development (ASCD), and many others

    4 Publishers (K-12 reading programs; teacher education

    texts; trade; test/assessment publishers)

    The reading debate became hot in the early 1980 's . I have

    documented conditions that gave rise to the methodology

    debate in my MFADT research paper "How children learn to

    read: perspective on methodology & the reading wars."

    Briefly, educators lined up behind two approaches and two

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    strong leaders in the reading field: (1) Jeanne Chall

    (Harvard) proponent of phonics and (2) Kenneth Goodman

    (University of Arizona) creator of whole language. The

    argument:

    The phonemics-skills approach (popularly known as

    "phonics"). This approach places emphasis on explicit and

    systematic instruction of alphabetic sounds and symbols,

    supporting children's ability to sound out unfamiliar words

    when reading.

    A skills approach is typically broader than phonics

    alone, and includes such strategies as

    words recognized immediately on sight

    context clues

    phonics - sounding out

    structural analysis

    dictionaries

    (Burns, 2002)

    The whole language approach -- places emphasis on

    children's own language (speaking, mark-making, singing).

    Educators who advocate this approach will immerse children

    in story, rhymes, writing, and language activities to build

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    their concepts about print, word knowledge, and

    understanding of the meaning or message of narrative and

    expository text, focussing on

    children's knowledge of how the world works

    the possible meanings of the text

    the sentence structure

    the importance of the order of ideas, words, letters

    the size of words or letters

    features of sound, shape, and layout

    2 prior knowledge from past "story" experience

    (Clay, 1994)

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    figure 1.1.

    Reading became a national policy issue in the late 1980's on

    publication of "Becoming a nation of readers" (Anderson,

    1985). The methodology debate became a partisan theme.

    This illustration, heading an incisive report in The

    Atlantic Monthly is a telling graphic (and poor johnny can't

    read, has a red nose, very little hair, and teacup ears!).

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    figure 1.2

    In 1998, a report comissioned and issued by the National

    Research Council mediated an incomplete truce. The 390 page

    report, Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children,

    recommended children learn to read through explicit phonics,

    but it also urged daily exposure to literature and attention

    to reading comprehension. The report advocated balance.

    During the Clinton administration, The Reading Excellence

    Act , started under the elder Bush. was signed. It

    mandated:

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    Teach every child to read by the end of third

    grade.

    Provide children in early childhood with the

    readiness skills and support they need to learn to

    read once they enter school.

    Expand the number of high quality family literacy

    programs.

    Provide early intervention to children who are at

    risk of being identified for special education

    inappropriately.

    Base instruction, including tutoring, on

    scientifically-based reading research (Source:

    Federal Reading Excellent Act)

    1.4 Persistent problem : achieving balance

    What might be self-evident was documented by reports named

    above and research. Noteworthy support for balance was

    reinforced by the highly-respected, commissioned, meta-

    analysis of research by Marilyn Adams of Bolt, Baranek and

    Newman (a think tank in the Boston area) (Adams, 1991. But

    many factors prevent teachers' from taking a truly balanced

    approach. These include

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    politics of reading & current standardized assessment

    mandates

    interpretations of balance

    assumptions underlying commercial programs

    constraints of print materials to teach story and skills

    dynamically

    habituated practice

    belief systems: philosophies about learning and learners

    1.5 My background

    As education editor at Houghton Mifflin for many years, I

    became aware and troubled by the debate and ensuing

    politicization of literacy. My background includes a

    California Teacher's Credential to teach high school

    English. Love of story -- reading and writing -- have been

    an anchor, throughout a tough childhood and many single-

    parent years. In the early 1990's, I studied design and

    drawing at the Boston Architectural Center (BAC) and

    discovered new literacies. My model for lifelong learning

    was my mother, who went back to achool in her fifties. In

    After earning a B.A. in anthroplogy and an M.L.S (in Library

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    Science), she founded a library for Native- Americans in

    San Jose (CA. When federal money ran out, she became an ESL

    teacher to immigrant adults in the Mountain View Schools

    Continuing Education program. Working out my own

    development, by coming to Parsons to learn a new language so

    that I could support children's literacy learning, seems

    like a perfectly natural thing for me to be doing.

    1.6 Thesis statement

    This project is a pedagogical construct, unifiying story and

    skills approaches to teaching reading , for use by children

    and their teachers in pre-kindergarten through lst-grade

    classrooms.

    Chapter 2 Learners

    2.1 the focus : young literacy learners

    2.2 assumptions about learners

    2.2.1 young learners are in transition

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    2.2.2 learners build on their prior knowledge and

    experience

    2.2.3 young learners use all of their senses to explore

    2.2.4 young learners construct knowledge of their world

    by observing and participating with other children and

    adults

    2.2.5 all young learners are at an emergent literacy

    stage

    2.2.6 learners often find the transition from language

    to abstract code difficult

    ____________

    2.1 The focus : young literacy learners

    The focus of On a full moon: literacy experiences & skills

    is foremost on learning needs of young children.

    Regardless of what else swirls in the pedagogical air that

    teachers, children and their parents breathe, my

    overarching aim for my project is guided by young

    children's development. This has meant -- and will

    continue to mean -- building on what I know about young

    children's thinking, psychosocial, and physical needs.

    Some key questions include:

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    What engages children?

    What worries children?

    What helps children explore their world?

    2.2. Assumptions about learners

    The assumptions below are not meant to be all-inclusive.

    Rather, they represent core assumptions of special

    importance for development of my thesis project. These are

    my distillation from multiple research sources on "active

    learning" perspectives. Active learning is an umbrella for

    cognitive approaches sharing basic assumptions about how

    learning happens and deepens (Grabe, 2000). To give you a

    quick idea of why the umbrella is useful, here are some of

    the labels for its variant cognitive positions :

    constructivist, social constructivist, constructionist,

    meaningful learning, discovery learning, receptive learning,

    generative learning, anchored learning, situated learning -

    - and there are more!

    assumption 01

    2.2.1 young learners are in transition Through

    the Language, Literature and Emergent Literacy

    course that I took at Bank Street during the

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    summer 2001 , I learned that children's transition

    from their natural language to code was but one

    big change amongst many. An even larger

    transition for children of this age is going

    from a home environment to school. Children in

    pre-k-kindergarten classrooms are just beginning

    to experiment with who they are in the larger

    world.

    ".Young children experience multiple transitions

    each day as they move from home to the early

    childhood setting and also as they move from one

    activity to another throughou tthe day. It has

    been estimated that transitions can take up 30% of

    the total time that children spend in an early

    childhood setting" (Hull, quoting Berk, 2001).

    Thus, as the teacher builds a literacy program for

    the classroom, the focus must be on

    developmentally-appropriate, best practices.

    Guidelines from the National Association Education

    of Young Children (NAEYC) are followed by most

    public and accredited private early childhood

    classrooms (Bredekamp, 1997 ). Mindful of the

    four-six year old child's developmental

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    transitions, I have brought the theme of routine,

    placeness, ownership, autonomy, social awareness

    to the writing of my first story in my project:

    Piccolo's Lilypad. (Discussed further in Chapter

    4).

    assumption 02

    2.2.2 learners build on their prior knowledge and

    experience This assumption forms a bridge from

    assumption 01 about transition. When teachers hone

    in on what the child is bringing to the new

    learning experience, they maximize the

    opportunities to facilitate learning. Teachers are

    working with this assumption when they engage

    children in dialog about a story prior to reading

    it. Here is a typical such dialog:

    hypothetical teacher -directed exploration of children's prior knowledge

    "Piccolo's Lillypad.hmmmdoes anyone know what a lilypad

    is?

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    "Ohyou've seen one? Can you tell us where you saw it?"

    "Wateryesthe lilypad was in the watermaybe it was a

    pond."

    This this story is called "Piccolo's Lilypad" I wonder who

    is Piccolo? Does anyone have any ideas

    Cognitive science today emphasizes the concept

    "understanding" -- which puts the onus on the study of

    how we come to know. According to the findings of the

    recent, highly-respected NRC study on the science of

    learning :

    ".Humans are viewed as goal-directed agents who

    actively seek information. They come to formal

    education with a range of prior knowledge,

    skills, beliefs, and concepts that significantly

    influence what they notice about the environment

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    and how they organize and interpret

    it".(Bransford et al, 1999).

    assumption 03

    young learners use all of their senses to explore,

    manipulate, and observe the results of their own

    actions . Developmental psychologists sometimes

    refer to "the whole child" when describing the

    transactions of cognitive, psychosocial, and

    physical development. Seminal theorists as Piaget,

    Vygotsky, Dewey, and Bruner describe young

    learners as actively testing hypotheses - as

    experimenters in their discoveries of the world

    around them. My rationale for making modalities -

    - "listen and do", "write and draw" and "record" -

    - the primary routes to the activities and lessons

    in on a full moon is (a) to support the young

    child's avid use of his or her senses in learning

    and (b) in response to research on reading and

    writing transactions (Rosenblatt 1938/1983 ) as

    powerful movers in children's literacy learning.

    assumption 04

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    young learners construct knowledge of their world

    by observing and participating with other children

    and adults. This is a key tenet of both Piaget

    and Vygotsky -- with Vygotsky coming down more

    heavily on the importance of social mediation. In

    my project, I will design activities that

    encourage cooperative learning amongst young

    children as this is an important strategy for

    moving children into realms of knowledge

    construction.

    assumption 05

    all young learners are at an emergent literacy

    stage Understanding the difference between how

    language develops and how reading competency

    develops is important for understanding the

    concept of emergent literacy. Language develops

    naturally -- as in intrinsic process -- for all

    children in all cultures everywhere in the world

    All babies babble -- the first form of talking.

    (Chomsky, 1965). Whereas language unfolds

    naturally from within the child, reading is "a

    matter of opportunities to learn about a very

    This, of course, leads to the common knowledge

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    that the classroom should be a print-rich

    environment, with lots of signs, symbols and books

    that will help children become familiar with the

    code and conventions of print and literacy.

    Some children come to school at ages 4 or 5

    knowing a little about reading and writing and

    some come with virtually no experience at all.

    Those who know very little may have had 'little

    opportunity or encouragement.' Perhaps

    the young child who has little formal knowledge of

    reading and writing found those symbols to be

    confusing in their own right and/or withdrew from

    some preliminary confusing instruction attempted

    by a parent, teacher, or big bird. Whatever the

    reason, children enter school with vastly

    different prior experiences and knowledge.

    Children are all ready to learn something, but

    are starting from different places (Clay, 1994).

    As a wise kindergarten in Bordentown, New Jersey

    said to me recently:

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    "children don't need to be readied; I need to be

    ready to teach them given their prior experience"

    (Liz Brotherton, Kindergarten Teacher).

    assumption 05

    learners often find the transition from language

    to abstract code difficult . As mentioned earlier

    in this document, young children are going

    through many life-change transitions. (As non-

    developmentalists, we rarely acknowledge the life-

    crisis of the 5-year old!). Imagine, however,

    that you are the child in the scenario below.

    Sense the decoding task from the child's

    perspective:

    You are 5 years-old -- a big person with a backpack ,

    stuffed with a special pencil pouch, notebooks ( and your

    favorite beanie baby). You just started "big school" --

    brother's school. You love to talk, invent and listen to

    stories. You even know how to say your ABCs. One day,

    you're sitting on the story rug in reading circle,

    listening to a funny story about Babar the Elephant.

    ___

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    Miss Vicky says: "LJ what's that word?" You look

    desperately at the picture, and proudly say "elephant"

    ___

    Miss Vicky: "well that is a picture of an elephant, but

    that's not the wordwhat is the first letter , what does it

    start with?"

    ___

    You put your hand on your head, screw up your face into a

    wrinkly pucker, and you think, and you think :

    ___

    "uh, uh mmstart withit starts with a long stick with two

    stomachs"

    The alphabet is code: mysterious symbols. In the English

    language, that code takes on many guises when combined into

    patterns called words. To the very young child (2-5) at

    emergent literacy stages, the code is hieroglyphic:

    arbitrary, marks with no greater significance than

    scribbles.

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    Reading is a complex process of making meaning of print

    symbols. "Nine aspects of the reading process -- sensory,

    perceptual, sequential, experiential, thinking, learning,

    association, affective, constructive -- combine to produce

    reading with understanding of intentional or implied meaning

    of text or image (Burns,Roe,Smith, 2002). To read is to

    understand. Decoding sounds and symbols in parts or whole

    (words) does not a reader make. But the route to meaning

    requires skills.

    In sum, although there are many other factors related to

    learners, learning, and learning to read. I believe the

    core list in this chapter provides a framework for tenets

    that undergird my project. My intent with its structure

    (construct), story, activities, navigation choices is to

    create a pedagogically sound program that will engage

    children and support teachers in their literacy instruction

    in classrooms.

    Chapter 3 Knowledge Design I

    3.1 knowledge design theory

    3.1.1 knowledge versus information

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    3.1.2 why it's critical

    3.2 design questions

    3.3 knowledge design challenges

    3.4 knowledge design structure

    3.4.1 the map

    3.4.1.1 principles

    p1 story-skills structure

    p2 story structure

    p3 skills-modalities structure

    p4 skills-sctivities structure

    p5 navigation structure

    _________________

    3.1 Knowledge design theory

    My thinking about project work has been heavily influenced

    by the theories and projects of David Perkins (Harvard) and

    Rich Lehrer (University of Wisconsin, Madison); both are

    cognitive theorists and researchers. David Perkins seminal

    work is Knowledge as Design, Rich Lehrer's early technology

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    projects on hypermedia and history were my first

    introduction to cases of the theory (Lehrer, 1987).

    3.1.1 Knowledge as design versus information

    Everyone has information - lots of it - or has multiple

    ways of getting it, especially in today's information

    media age. Information can be as basic

    as knowledge of what day of the week it is or as

    specialized as a the elements on a chemistry chart.

    But to view knowledge as design rather than isolated

    pieces of information would mean to consider it as

    "structures adapted to a purpose(Perkins, 1986). In

    the architecture or product design world, for example,

    we can easily see what it meant. A screwdriver is an

    example of a design adapted to an easily-understood

    purposeful use as a tool (Perkins, 1986).

    To consider an intellectual or cognitive construct as a

    design is a bit more abstract . But there are some

    obvious cases that help make the point about design.

    These would include representations of mental models

    such as Einstein's theory of relativity or maps of any

    kind, including those we construct in this MFADT

    program to represent the structure -- hierarchy and

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    relationships -- of the ideas that make up our design

    technology projects. A useful logic of knowledge as

    design is offered by the originator of its theory,

    David Perkins:

    knowledge is usable

    use denotes purpose

    purpose denotes design

    3.1.2 Why is knowledge as design critical ?

    To adopt a knowledge as design perspective is to take

    an active approach to thought and adaptation of the

    multiple bits and pieces of information at our

    disposal. Knowledge as design connotes by its very

    definition a cognitive-constructivist approach that

    assumes learning happens and deepens when users

    generate knowledge. Viewing knowledge

    ".as information purveys a passive view of

    knowledge, one that highlights knowledge in

    storage rather than knowledge as an implement

    of action" (Perkins, 1986).

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    3.2 Knowledge design questions

    I organized my thinking and work for my literacy project by

    a knowledge as design perspective, asking four design

    questions as proposed by Perkins:

    1 What is its purpose (or purposes)?

    2 What is its structure ?

    3 What are model cases of it?

    4 What are arguments that explain and evaluate it?

    My purpose, as explained in Chapters 1 and 2, is to maximize

    young children's literacy learning by inventing a

    pedagogical construct for marrying diverse approaches to

    teaching reading. Identifying and representing the context

    (the first two stages of problem solving models) does not

    automatically present a solution. In fact, there are few

    teachers, researchers, or specialists who would argue with

    the idea of a cohesive methodology. Many practitioners

    strive to achieve this end only with varying degrees of

    success because of constraints briefly discussed in Chapter

    1. I saw the need for a viable structure or framework for

    helping teachers achieve greater balance in their classroom

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    reading methodology. A sound, workable structure is the

    focus of the remaining portion of this chapter.

    3.3 Knowledge design challenges

    Using a theory of knowledge design meant I must account for

    the "knowns" in all key domains related to children,

    teachers, classroom, and curriculum. This is indeed a

    complex matter. My education background gave me an

    overview. My research in the past year has included

    reviewing the most recent Reading Reasearch Handbook (Kamil,

    2000). I got much insight and content from many sources,

    including the Bank Street College of Education course I took

    (summer, 2001) on emergent literacy, and the observations I

    have done in the past several years in classrooms. These

    experiences , however, represent only a beginning. My

    consultation with experts , specifically, Bill Stokes of

    Lesley College (Cambridge, MA) , about the pedagogy -- its

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    scope, balance, accuracy -- has just begun. In short, the

    knowledge design challenge is just that!

    3.4 On a full moon is composed of multiple, interrelated

    structures. These structures represent a purposely-

    knit set of relationships -- taken together : a set of

    principles. I will discuss the structures and

    correlate-principles as design.

    3.4.1 map and principles

    This map provides a schematic of the architecture for

    my project.

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    figure 3.1

    p1 story-skills structure

    The program 's interface has complementary sides:

    (1) story and (2) skills. My intent is to

    reinforce the association between the story and the

    skills, which, by design, will also emerge from the

    story. Theories of relevance and meaning, such as

    those of Dewey (project-based learning) or Bruner

    (discovery learning), have been extended by the

    cognitive researcher, John Bransford, with his

    research on "anchored learning." An anchor,

    briefly, is the departure and return point for

    structuring (scaffolding) a learning experience .

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    Bransford founded the Vanderbilt Cognition,

    Technology, Learning Center, where he and colleagues

    created anchored learning technology applications

    such as Jasper Woodbury (a mathematics problem

    solving DVD) and Ribbit and the Magic Hats -- a

    multimedia program that had a major impact on my

    work (Bransford et al, 1987) . Thus, my story,

    Piccolo's Lilypad is the anchor for literacy lessons

    on the skills side of the interface.

    p2 story structure

    Structure of a story is a defining characteristic of

    the concept of narrative. Learning about the

    convention of story structure is an important

    literature skill. Thus, in my project, children will

    stay within the story interface minimally

    throughout one scene. At the end of each scene,

    children can make a choice: continue to the next

    scene or move to the skills interface for literacy

    lessons. From the skills interface, a return to

    story is always available. My key point here is

    that each scene in itself retains its integrity as a

    way to reinforce the concept of a narrative.

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    p3 skills-modalities structure

    figure 3.2

    The functions that drive the skills side are:

    "listen and do", "write and draw", and "record".

    ( Note: I have decided to combine "write and

    draw" shown separately above (Farnan, 1999). )

    The modalities -- auditory, tactile, expressive --

    are especially important for young learners, who

    are "concrete-operational" (Piagetian key concept)

    in their ways of knowing. The transition from

    natural language to abstract code can be

    facilitated by using strategies

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    that involve the child's storytelling. The

    child's storytelling can take place through

    language, drawing, writing (mark making), play

    acting. A great strategy I have observed many

    times is that of the teacher writing the child's

    version of the story as dictated by the child.

    The teacher then uses the child's own words to

    deliver instruction. That instruction could be on

    any skill from initial /end consonants, sight word

    knowledge, etc. These modalities or functions in

    my project provide parallels to those in analog

    materials and extends them.

    p4 skills-activities structure

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    figure

    3.3

    The graphic above shows each modality (bee, snake,

    cricket ). Butterfly's function (draw) will be

    combined with write. The butterfly icon will be

    deleted. Three activity types are now defined for

    "listen and do" -- the bee's function. These are:

    (1) how many beats? (2) sound board (3) what

    comes next? (a story structure activity). I have

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    completed structures, graphics, animation, sound

    and programming for "how many beats?".

    p5 navigation structure

    The primary navigation enables users' choice of

    story or skills experience:

    moon: on the story side - - as the story scene

    progresses, the moon changes from a crescent to

    a full moon; when the moon is full on the

    story side, it is clickable; children can shift

    to activities or continue with the story; on

    the skills side -- the moon is always full;

    children can freely move back to the story

    leaf : the leaves on the branch of the tree

    denote the scenes in the story; when scene one

    begins, the scene one leaf has fallen; when

    scene one ends, the scene two leaf falls;

    children can choose to continue story by

    choosing leaf two ( for scene two) or go to

    the skills side by clicking the full moon .

    They can also choose the scene one leaf, to

    repeat scene one. From the story side, scene

    one, here are beginning and ending frames

    showing moon & leaf changes. The full moon is

    the major navigation cue for the program,

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    indicating a change between the story and

    skills interface is possible. The scene leaves

    are inter-interface navigation cues. Only at

    the end of whole scenes can children shift to

    activities. major navigation cues.

    figure 3.4

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    Chapter 4 Knowledge Design II

    4.1 vision

    4.2 prototype and trajectory

    4.2.1 children

    4.2.2 teachers

    4.2.3 curriculum

    4.24 pedagogy

    4.2.5 classroom

    4.2.6 assessment

    4.2.7 interface

    4.28 animation

    4.29 programming

    4..30 sound design

    4.3 multimedia advantage

    ____________

    4.1 Vision

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    My vision for on a full moon is that it be an integral part

    of the everyday learning resources of prek-lst grade

    classrooms. To achieve this end, my program must meet

    requirements regarding learners and design. I have provided

    brief background on these topics in Chapters 2 and 3. In

    this chapter, I will show

    4.2 Prototype and trajectory

    4.2.1 Children . As described in Chapter 2, a

    developmentally-appropriate environment is critical in

    early childhood education. In fact, many early

    childhood experts say that the true curriculum of

    education for the 4-year old is development:

    cognitive, psychosocial and physical.

    (Branscombe,2000). This becomes apparent when you

    realize how integrated these domains are in so many of

    the tasks that young children engage in. For example,

    learning to tie a shoe is a cognitive, physcial, and

    social-cooperative task. Consider the difference in

    the upper elementary grades, where content domains like

    math or science create separate (albeit artificial)

    learning worlds.

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    >prototype. Here are examples from my protototype that

    demonstrates my focus on who children are at age 4-6:

    Character Design & Story : Piccolo - hand-drawn with

    ink and water-color wash, Piccolo emerged from a shaky-

    hand and reams of newsprint drawings. He's small-

    boned, with overly-long frog legs , but graceful. He

    has balletic and theatrical ways and a major

    difference from other frogs: he does not have a croak

    voice; only

    a musical piccolo-like high voice. He is shy but

    longs to be part of the frog life on the pond.

    Piccolo is sad. His differences have put him on

    the periphery, watching daily from his special

    lilypad.

    This story is now in its second version. I

    created it originally as part of my Bank Street

    early literacy course last summer. Feedback I

    received from my instructor, Dick Feldman, was

    enormously helpful in shaping its revision.

    Themes I have woven into the narrative are of

    routine, ownership, placeness and security -- all

    primary in the young child's world.

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    Cyclops. Cyclops is a blustery-mythical creature

    unlike any native on the pond. He has one-eye

    and one-horn and magical power to transport

    himself and others to mystical far-away lands.

    Cyclops,

    too, shares Piccolo's sense of "weirdness" in

    relationship to other creatures, but has learned

    to use his one-eye to achieve his inner vision.

    Through his adventures with Piccolo, he helps

    Piccolo understand a little more about himself.

    He also gives him encouragement and resources to

    call on whentrying to make friends and join the

    others on the pond. Cyclops (ultimately)

    represents a hybrid parental-teacher figure, all

    important for young children in their transition

    from home. Many teachers of young children affect

    the role of caregiver, which is an appropriate

    role for 4-5-year old children in classrooms.

    (Hull, 2001).

    >trajectory : more stories. I envision creating

    more stories and also including public domain

    rhymes, folktale, and easily-permissioned quality,

    children's stories. These will form a data base

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    of stories for unit and lesson plans for the

    teaching of literacy through the activities on

    the skills side. The animation for this story is

    at its very early stage, having been my first. I

    anticipate making the animation smoother and more

    natural, by using movable parts of my characters

    instead of only a few whole motion-capture

    drawings.

    4.2.2 Teachers. Teachers are the pivotal

    decision-makers regarding children's learning.

    All of the mandates and assessments cannot remove

    the autonomy and power teachers have in their

    intimate, daily relationships with children.

    Therefore, giving them flexible, and modular tools

    to work with is important. It needs to be easy to

    grab a story, a minilesson, or record an activity.

    Lots of easily-chunked, small lessons that can be

    tailored to individual needs are a requirement.

    >prototype: "how many beats" is a phonemic

    awareness segmenting and blending skills-activity.

    With the skills activity : "how many beats"

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    teachers can guide children from easy one-syllable

    to more difficult two-to-three syllable words.

    >trajectory: In real classrooms, teachers take

    the story words and use them as the basis for

    literacy skills activities: writing, responding,

    predicting. The lessons I am planning, will build

    inan integrative way, flowing from story words and

    themes. My goalis to create a repertoire of

    easily-accessed lessons for flexible adaptation,

    given individual childrens' needs.

    Teachers' administrative function. An important

    part of my vision, is the teachers' presets for

    both story and skills. For example, on the story

    side, teachers will be able to set

    story with print words only on the screen

    story with audio dialog and sound

    story with sound and print

    story with pantomime and music only

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    These preferences will reflect both the lesson

    plans for whole group instruction and individual

    child-use and learning need.

    On the skills side, teachers will be able to

    select parts of activities such as the word-sets

    they want children to work with for, say, the

    activity "how many beats?"

    4.2.3 curriculum. Buckets and bins, shelves and

    closets are required in the early childhood

    classroom because they hold the curriculum!

    Blocks, unifix cubes, multiple notebooks --

    journals, word books, drawing books, writing books

    -- upright in boxes, puzzles, bins of children's

    stories organized by unit themes (ponds, the

    senses, animal homes, ) represent the teacher's

    classroom collection. The curriculum is

    delivered in small bites and easily-integrates

    (1) disciplines (math, science, literacy, ) (2)

    modality: writing, speaking, acting, drawing, etc.

    >prototype The skills area purposefully

    provides for the multiple senses: auditory

    ("listen and do"); cognitive/tactile ("write and

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    draw"); expressive language and song ("record.").

    The curriculum is purposefully modular . While

    there will be meaningful groupings by type of

    activity and difficulty, there will not be an

    imposition of sequence. Unlike mathematics,

    there are many sequences and many, many paths that

    children take to achieve literacy profieciency.

    Teachers need to choose what's right for the child

    at the right time!

    >trajectory Knitting together the loose weave of

    skills for initial

    knowledge to deeper understanding of both word and

    story meaning is hugely-ambitious. As

    mentioned previously, I will be consulting Bill

    Stokes at Lesley College, who is the head of the

    Hood Literacy Project there and an expert in the

    domains of child development, special education,

    literacy, and English as a second language. Here

    is

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    a partial taxonomy, I created for activity-types

    across modalities, extending from scene 1 of the

    story.

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    Figure 4.1

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    4.2.4 Pedagogy. Pedagogy refers to methodology:

    instructional strategies and tactics. The

    pedagogy in on a full moon is intentionally

    "active." That is, strategy comes from a

    cognitive perspective, facilitating the child's

    engaged and active construction of his or her own

    knowledge. This is based on the theories of

    Piaget, Vygotsky, Bruner and much contemporary

    many contemporary researchers already cited such

    as Rich Leher, John Bransford, and David Perkins.

    >prototype. "how many beats" is an example of

    cognitively-oriented strategy. Children must

    intentionally choose the word, drag and drop it,

    think, and initiate the beating action. The

    child decides when they are done by clicking the

    bee. Individual difference in children makes it

    necessary for the child to so indicate.

    Otherwise, you have the nasty consequences of

    adult experts or software developers deciding

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    about the proper time on task. (For true in-

    attention to task, I am planning a time-out voice

    a bit like the Carmen San Diego radio guy who

    calls "are you there?"). To further reinforce

    the importance of the bee-click when done, I

    continue to be reminded of the time when Dakota

    was only 4 and using the Reader Rabbit software,

    which is intrepidly behavioral. The decoding

    chick emerging from an egg (a segmenting-blending

    activity) decides when it's time-out and tells the

    answer. Dakota was very annoyed because he

    hadn't yet answered the question. With a

    frustrated look, Dakota said "what's wrong with

    that guy: does he think I'm STUPID?"

    >trajectory . The activity types for "listen and

    do" are

    how many beats? (phonemic awareness: syllable

    segmenting and blending )

    sound board (word families, beginning-end

    consonants, etc)

    what comes next? (story structure)

    I have general plans for activity types for the

    other 2 modalities: ("write and draw" and

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    "record"). I have decided to combine "write and

    draw" based on an observation I did recently in a

    kindergarten at The Lambertville Elementary

    School (NJ) and research on the transactions of

    mark making (Farnan, 1999).

    4.2.5 Classroom. The scale and center-oriented

    arrangement of early childhood classrooms makes

    the desktop computer clearly an appendage -- most

    often stuck in a corner, unused and even abused

    with stuff on top of it or stuck to its screen

    (Kindergarten at Peter Muschal School,

    Bordentown!). Here is a typical early childhood

    classroom , reading center setting.

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    figure 4.2

    >trajectory. My vision is that the physcial

    interface for on a full moon will be a

    touchscreen embedded in an adaptation of

    KinderTable, invented by Soojin Choi (MFADT,

    2001).

    I am currently collaborating with Soojin and

    Sharon Sherman, Chairperson, Elementary

    Education, College of New Jersey on site-

    based classroom research with KinderTable in

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    several New Jersey public schools. Here is

    my report on some of our early findings:

    PRELIMINARY FINDINGS

    Below are questions guiding some preliminary

    findings of our emergent classroom research

    of KinderBoard on KinderTable (Choi, 2001).

    These are examples, touching on the larger

    issue (or picture of) how KinderBoard on

    KinderTable could be used in classrooms. How

    is the table interface and touchscreen

    appropriate for the classroom learning

    environment is the overarching question.

    does KinderTable support collaborative work

    amongst children?

    KinderTable seems to support a maximum triad

    of children for on-task collaborative work.

    Interestingly, it also invites on-lookers,

    sometimes children spread-eagle across the

    table to see what's going on. We have

    observed that teachers need to thoughtfully

    pair children (per commonly-known research on

    cooperative learning.) For the most part,

    children are cooperative with one another - a

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    value of the classrooms in general. The range

    of reasons for some children overextending at

    the table include:

    END EXCERPT

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    4.2.6 Assessment. Assessment is a big policy

    deal even in early childhood classrooms.

    Standardized measures of isolated sound-symbol and

    word knowledge are being mandated in almost every

    state. During my observation in the fall, 2001, I

    saw a wonderful PreK-K teacher in a progressive,

    public school administer a decontextualized,

    phonics assessment from the McGraw Hill Literacy

    Assessment System to a 4-year-old boy. Noticing

    my dismayed look when she sat the child down, she

    said to me:

    'I was supposed to do this in September. I waited

    until December. I make it like a game. Yes, I

    know, it doesn't match my instruction. But I have

    to do it. ' (anon).

    >trajectory. I plan to create a formative assessment

    component for my program. Formative assessment

    collects information throughout the learning process

    and is most useful for instructional planning and

    decision making (Salvia-Ysseldyke, 2001) . My goal is

    to get permission from Marie Clay to adapt some of her

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    seminal observation surveys and to develop a print

    component for teachers to use while working with

    children with On a full moon . (Clay, 1993).

    4.2.7 Interface.

    The graphical interface also represents a

    pedagogical principle. I have decided to use the

    natural environment of the story, including

    setting the activities in pond-plant-life, to

    reinforce the organicism that I am trying to

    achieve with the entire construct. Thus, for

    "listen and do" the activities are embedded in the

    wild roses. In the "listen and do" activity "how

    many beats?" the child clicks the middle flower

    and word-petals are strewn around the environment.

    A drum also emerges simultaneously (in a child's

    world and in a multimedia world

    these fantastic occurences make perfect sense!).

    I have done the drawing by hand for the program.

    I started to draw as an adult, studying at first

    with a printmaker on Martha's Vineyard some 10

    years ago. For 2 years at that time, I studied

    design and drawing at night at the BAC spent many

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    a lunch hour drawing sculptures at the Boston MFA

    and becoming intensely "drawn" to this novel (for

    me) way of thinking and expressing myself. As my

    professional job became more and more demanding,

    and I couldn't figure out what to do with my new

    found zeal, I stopped drawing. This December

    end, in a panic, I realized that I wanted and

    needed my program to have the verisimilitude of

    story that I love, that children love, that all of

    us love. With the help of an artist, I received

    some coaching (a pencil pouch, a drawing pad) and

    some models to work with over the Christmas break.

    Piccolo and his world were born.

    My intent for the use of hand drawing is to

    maintain an authenticity and feeling of the spirit

    of children's books. In my case, I believe there

    to be a naivete in my drawings that children seem

    to respond to. My longer-range vision is to work

    with an artist-animator who can both draw and

    animate other stories to be included in this

    project. Story is the anchor for learning in On

    a full moon.

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    Technical note: the pond is a scanned piece of high-rag

    water color paper; then broken apart with the trace

    bitmap function. Once broken, the rag wedges (now blown

    up) became a lacework. I placed a dark grey background

    under the lacework and shaped it into an ellipse to form

    the pond.

    The tree, in this story, is the anchor graphic for both

    the story interface and the skills interface. For

    other stories, in the future, I would expect a

    dual interface to grow from the story setting just as

    it has for Piccolo's Lilypad. Below is a screen dump

    from the skills-side interface. Chapter 3 includes

    examples from the story-side interface.

    figure 4.2

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    4.2.8 Animation

    To prepare for my simple animation of Piccolo's

    Lilypad, I studied character design using Faith

    Hubley and others as inspiration. I drew and drew

    - a character pose a minute for 30 minutes each

    day during the Christmas break. The characters

    and the setting started to emerge. I was having

    fun.

    figure 4.3

    I decided to draw my main characters in several

    whole motion-sequences.

    In retrospect, I believe I should have done the

    parts-motion approach as I think the animation

    lacks variety. This was my first animation, and

    I am eager to take on animation seriously as I

    realize (a) how great a tool it is for telling

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    stories (b) I enjoyed every grueling minute of

    putting it together.

    4.2.9 Programming

    The programming is with Flash 5 functions

    (animation) and action-scripting. A primary

    challenge for me is to use Flash more efficiently

    to reduce memory. Although I instantiated objects

    for commonly-used graphics, I believe I can

    improve in this area withexperience, especially

    with animation. The drawings were purposefully

    done in black ink to keep color at a minimum.

    Interfaces (story and skills) are black and white.

    BUT, I did get carried away drawing my tree with

    lots of ink on a stick, and memory-hogging color

    was introduced in the flora of the skills side.

    I want to look at all factors before making any

    decisions about how to reduce file size.

    Related to the pedagogy and programming, I need

    to think way-ahead about what makes sense from the

    teaching and learning perspective. For example,

    it is critical to program the bee as an

    intentional click when the child is done with the

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    beats activity: To give the child feedback (right

    or wrong) for the beats activity, it's necessary

    to know that the child is done! To assume a fixed

    amount of wait time -- which many commercial

    software programs do -- countermands sound

    instructional practice. Thinking through as many

    variables as possible is important, but I realize

    that the true test will be with children and

    teachers. I expect adjustments will need to be

    made.

    4.30 Sound design.

    I spent a lot of time thinking through and

    experimenting with alternative treatments for the

    story animation, transitions, support for major

    functions like the insects (modalities) on the

    skills side. Although the sound for the

    prototype is a scratch disk, I believe I have a

    model. For the story side, I chose Glenn Gould

    doing Mozart (like no one else does) frenetically,

    which works well

    for Piccolo's race around the pond. For the

    skills side fade up and accents, I chose some

    Thelonius Monk sounds. My plan is to

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    commision a composer and ultimately own original

    music for

    the program.

    The character dialog was recorded with a Sony DAT.

    All sound editing was done with Pro Tools.

    4.3 Multimedia advantage

    I believe that multimedia provides advantages for my

    construct. These distinctive advantages include

    transition from story mode and skills teaching mode is

    relatively seamless: providing balanced materials based

    on story requires time and work for teachers.

    Typically, the teacher reads a story on the reading

    corner rug and follows that up with a table-top activity.

    Teachers dedicated to a literature-language approach will

    create those lessons and materials. But increasingly,

    especially with the isolated skills-teaching mandates,

    teachers concommitantly resort to isolated, de-

    contextualized worksheets. My program makes it possible

    for teachers to move back and forth between story and

    skills and choose from a palette of skills that includes

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    phonemics and/or story-meaning activities. (There will

    be many other literacy experiences provided as well).

    flexibility regarding children's individual needs,

    curriculum fit, or learning style: multimedia offers

    tools such as record; senory experiences with sound,

    perceptual motor with clicking and/or touchscreen

    manipulation, recording and tactile experiences with

    drawing and writing tools.

    animation , sound, and playing with computer-objects

    engages children

    Children love to push buttons, manipulate objects, sing

    and hear their own voices. In my opinion, multimedia was

    made for children.

    provides a dynamic framework for children's and

    teacher's choices within a pedagogically sound

    structure. Choice is a high-priority concept in early

    education. All daily curriculum includes some form of

    "choice time" (variously called: learning center,

    stations, work place (Branscombe, 2000). Teachers,

    also, need to be able to choose within a repertoire of

    strategies for children's individual learning needs.

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    multimedia feature for future development would include

    print, portfolio function for aggregating work within

    the program, and a robust data base for sorting skills,

    stories, words, and resources for teacher education.

    Chapter 5 Evaluation and Conclusion

    5.3 reflection

    5.4 next steps5.4 site-based testing

    5.5 children

    ________

    5.1 Reflection

    evolving doorThe amount of time dedicated to concept

    formulation, research, classroom observation, knowledge

    design and implementation for On a full moon has been less

    than one year. An indicator of how much its concept has

    evolved might be its name changes. First it was Red

    light/green light. Then it was Once upon a little bird; and

    now it's on a full moon. Good thing, too. I'll bet those

    birds would have been tough negotiators. What didn't change

    was that it's all about trying to facilitate balanced

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    literacy instruction through easily navigable sides: story

    and skills. It's all about navigation?

    light begins to dawn my thesis advisor talks, and I really

    start to hear and/or see the implications of some

    fundamental experience design concepts. In our most recent

    session, we talked about user expectation, decision

    points, visual syntax , controller vs representer, cuing

    in both aural and visual ways on the same object, pace and

    pass through, weighting emphasis even moreso with an added

    cue on the moon -- the obvious big guy in the program;

    gathering up all instructions so they don't spill over

    objects (when they're not supposed to); behavior

    vocabulary; whether or not the sequencing system of the

    "beats" activity is intuitive or notit's so interesting and

    so hard to operationalize these ideas when immersed in both

    "newness" and process; but I do realize it's a recursive

    process. I think my advisor understands emergent literacy.

    Will children like it? Liam wrinkled his brow in a worried

    frown during the story. That's a good sign.

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    Will teachers use it? I envision the need for an easy-to-

    use data base -- and teacher support: more than just print;

    probably workshops. If the kids use it,

    they'll show the teachers.

    Will the blend of activities and tool functionality be

    widely-embraced? Teachers will need to use the program to

    generate curriculum -- not just rely on content provided.

    I need a lot more learning: animation and programming.

    Drawing, too.

    5.5 Next Steps

    Development: Prototype Scene 1

    Graphical charts

    For all parts below -- place-holders while scene 1 is under

    development.

    Skills:

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    Activities for the mode, " Listen and Do": "sound board" and

    "what comes next?" are under development.

    Story

    Scene 2

    Flesh out narrative

    Write character dialog

    Draw characters - parts

    Record with Dakota

    Select /create sound design

    Digitize and edit

    Animate

    Guide to the Program

    Navigation guides

    5.6 Site-based testing

    Site-based testing of the prototype will be of the utmost

    importance.

    Child-testing

    I will concurrently with the above, test the main page,

    titlescreen page, story-scene1, and skills interface with

    "how many beats?". This will take place June-August.

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    5.7 Children

    "Young children are at-risk if they start relying on a

    narrow range of strategies , inventing from memory, pecking

    at isolated bits of information paying little attention to

    visual details , looking so hard for words he/she knows,

    guessing words from first letters, forgetting what the

    message is about (Clay, 1993)."

    This is a fearful spectre -- especially in today's

    politicized education climate. Children are the reason for

    on a full moon.

    __________

    Appendix A3

    Character Dialog

    Appendix A1

    Classroom Collection (Bank Street Literacy Course)

    Classroom Collection Children's Book Analysis

    Appendix A2

    Story Synopsis

    __________

    Appendix A3

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    Character Dialog

    Bibliography

    Adams, M. (1991). Beginning to read. Cambridge, MA: MIT

    Press

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