One-to-one laptops in K-12 classrooms: voices of students

In planning educational technology initiatives, the concerns of many stakeholders are typically taken into account, including the concerns of administrators, teachers, parents, and employers. The perspective of students are recognized as valuable, but not often queried or considered. This paper explores the opinions of K-12 students about a one-to-one laptop programme implementation through content analysis of 362 blog postings made by these students expressing their thoughts on the topic at three time points in two years. Employing a bottom-up coding strategy, this paper identified seven themes that represented students’ opinion of technology use in schools: more efficient and productive learning, tools for better writing, access to information, engagement with new media, remaining relevant in a technological world, share and learn from peers, and individualized and differentiated instruction. This study suggested that, when new technology tools are used in schools, students should not only be viewed as learners but also be considered as real writers with valuable opinions. Students also should be provided the opportunity to write for an authentic purpose and audience using diverse forms of digital media.     

Building capacity in a health sciences library to support global health projects

This paper describes how a large, academic health sciences library built capacity for supporting global health at its university and discusses related outcomes. Lean budgets require prioritization and organizational strategy. A committee, with leadership responsibilities assigned to one librarian, guided strategic planning and the pursuit of collaborative, global health outreach activities. A website features case studies and videos of user stories to promote how library partnerships successfully contributed to global health projects. Collaborative partnerships were formed through outreach activities and from follow-up to reference questions. The committee and a librarian''s dedicated time established the library''s commitment to help the university carry out its ambitious global agenda.     

Language-specific phonological skills and the relationship with reading accuracy in Sylheti-English sequential bilinguals

This study investigated the influence of first language (L1) phonology on second language (L2) early reading skills in Sylheti-English bilinguals (N = 58; 48% girls; British Bangladeshi) and their monolingual-English peers (N = 43; 45% girls; 96% White British, 4% multiethnic British) in a diaspora context. Language-specific phonological awareness and nonword repetition were tested at two time points (6;2–7;8 years-old). At Time 1, the bilinguals had lower productive accuracy for phonological sequences that violated their L1 phonology (d = .56; .84), and these skills accounted for a significant amount of variance in their reading accuracy. At Time 2, the language-specific effects were no longer present. These findings highlight the importance of considering language structure in multilingual early literacy development.     

The importance of gender in the assessment of historical knowledge

Current efforts to assess higher education have highlighted the need for better evaluation of student outcomes and educational needs. Several recent studies have called for an increase in the use of tests as part of assessment activities. However, assessment research has not evaluated whether tests are an appropriate technique for measuring student outcomes, particularly when women or minority students are involved. Using data gathered from a 1992 historical knowledge exam, this study illustrates how the assessment of women's academic achievements can be distorted by using tests as measures of student outcomes. At the same time, the results indicate a need to rethink how we teach history at the university level. Consequently, this paper suggests that the use of tests as an assessment tool should be limited to questions about curricular shortcomings and not be expanded as a means to evaluate student proficiency.     

Strategies used by teachers to rate student behavior

Upon completing the Teacher Report Form (TRF; Achenbach, 1991) on a randomly selected child in their current classroom, teachers were surveyed about the approaches or strategies they used to formulate their ratings. In Phase 1, teachers identified eight rating strategies. In Phase 2, a new group of teachers indicated the extent to which they relied on the eight strategies. Rather than the two approaches hypothesized to be foremost, (“I compared the child to other children in the same classroom,” “I compared the child to other children of the same age”), teachers relied primarily on their “experience with the child in many different settings.” © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.