“The kids are terrific: It’s the job that’s tough”: The ELL teacher role in an urban context

The present study depicts an ecological portrait of the work lives of 16 ELL high school teachers in an urban context in the United States. Results suggest that their work lives take place within a complex school ecology which affects the kinds of activities they engage in and the opportunities they have to support their students. In this context they demonstrate an unusual dedication to aiding students and their families in activities related to the transition to a new country. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research explicating further the school ecology of this group of teachers.     

Critical analysis of the effects of the digital technologies on reading and learning / Análisis crítico sobre los efectos de las tecnologías digitales en la lectura y el aprendizaje

Abstract

In the digital age, the introduction of digital technologies (or information and communication technologies, ICT) in classrooms is a necessary, imperative reality. However, the educational results do not seem to match the expectations generated. For this reason, this revision seeks to make up for the scant attention paid to the possible harmful effects of the use of ICT based on research and educational practice. After providing a general overview of the impact of ICT on learning, we survey the results of studies that reveal potential negative consequences of their use inside and outside the school context. We analyse their impact on both academic performance and other more specific areas, such as reading comprehension, and we stress the negative effects on so-called ‘digital natives’. In short, what stands out is the importance of an evidence-based education practice which bears in mind the possible harmful effects of using ICT and bears in mind that its beneficial effects seem to rely on not only how much but also how they are used.     

Computer skills of initial teacher education students

Abstract

A constant challenge for teacher education lies in keeping courses up to date. This article provides a view of the current skills, attitudes, and perceptions regarding computer technology in the classroom from a preservice candidate perspective. The intent of this research is to help foster discussion about how to further develop pre-service educational technology courses that best meet the needs of a continuously evolving and changing student-teacher population in terms of computer technology skills. The primary instrument was a self-assessment survey of the skills, attitudes, and perceptions about utilizing computer technology in the classroom among firsttime students enrolled in introductory education courses at a large midwestern university in the USA in the fall semester of 1999. Surveys were administered to a total of 205 students. Questionnaires were given to preservice teachers during their initial courses rather than mailed to their homes, in an attempt to increase participation rates. Participants were categorized as being either a ‘Beginner’ or ‘Experienced User’ of computer technology, based on their responses to the skill section of the survey. The article includes an overview of the results and segments them as they pertain to three general issues: general attitudes with regards to teaching with computer technology, intended use of computers when beginning to teach, and perceived problems to be expected with computer technology when beginning to teach. Finally, an informal discussion regarding student expectations of future teacher training programs and the corresponding implications for school districts are presented from the free-response section of the questionnaire.     

The role of morphological awareness in explaining reading-writing difficulties / El papel de la conciencia morfológica en la explicación de las dificultades de aprendizaje de la lectoescritura

Abstract

This paper examines the role played by morphological awareness in explaining difficulties in reading and writing words with arbitrary spelling in a group of students who have reading-writing difficulties. Specifically, the relationship between morphological, morphosyntactic and phonological awareness and reading errors and success in arbitrary spelling is studied. This paper also describes to what extent the morphological and morphosyntactic awareness of students with reading difficulties explains errors in reading and in the correct spelling of words with arbitrary spelling. The results indicate that morphological, morphosyntactic and phonological awareness are related to learning reading and arbitrary spelling in Spanish. However, morphosyntactic awareness is more important in explaining serious reading errors and success in writing with arbitrary spelling among students with reading-writing difficulties.     

Estrategias de intervención para la reeducación de niños con dificultades en el aprendizaje de la lectura y de la escritura

Son innumerables los textos producidos en nuestro país o traducidos a otros idiomas sobre la etiología y las manifestaciones de los denominados trastornos en el aprendizaje de la lectoescritura en sus diversas variantes. Pero pocas veces se aúnan los esfuerzos de investigadores y clínicos para ofrecer herramientas de tratamiento de estos problemas. Los autores de este artículo han conjugado ambos esfuerzos y ofrecen al lector interesado un diseño para tratar educativamente los problemas lectoescritos.     

Evidence of open access of scientific publications in Google Scholar: A large-scale analysis

This article uses Google Scholar (GS) as a source of data to analyse Open Access (OA) levels across all countries and fields of research. All articles and reviews with a DOI and published in 2009 or 2014 and covered by the three main citation indexes in the Web of Science (2,269,022 documents) were selected for study. The links to freely available versions of these documents displayed in GS were collected. To differentiate between more reliable (sustainable and legal) forms of access and less reliable ones, the data extracted from GS was combined with information available in DOAJ, CrossRef, OpenDOAR, and ROAR. This allowed us to distinguish the percentage of documents in our sample that are made OA by the publisher (23.1%, including Gold, Hybrid, Delayed, and Bronze OA) from those available as Green OA (17.6%), and those available from other sources (40.6%, mainly due to ResearchGate). The data shows an overall free availability of 54.6%, with important differences at the country and subject category levels. The data extracted from GS yielded very similar results to those found by other studies that analysed similar samples of documents, but employed different methods to find evidence of OA, thus suggesting a relative consistency among methods.     

Author-level metrics in the new academic profile platforms: The online behaviour of the Bibliometrics community

The new web-based academic communication platforms do not only enable researchers to better advertise their academic outputs, making them more visible than ever before, but they also provide a wide supply of metrics to help authors better understand the impact their work is making. This study has three objectives: a) to analyse the uptake of some of the most popular platforms (Google Scholar Citations, ResearcherID, ResearchGate, Mendeley and Twitter) by a specific scientific community (bibliometrics, scientometrics, informetrics, webometrics, and altmetrics); b) to compare the metrics available from each platform; and c) to determine the meaning of all these new metrics. To do this, the data available in these platforms about a sample of 811 authors (researchers in bibliometrics for whom a public profile Google Scholar Citations was found) were extracted. A total of 31 metrics were analysed. The results show that a high number of the analysed researchers only had a profile in Google Scholar Citations (159), or only in Google Scholar Citations and ResearchGate (142). Lastly, we find two kinds of metrics of online impact. First, metrics related to connectivity (followers), and second, all metrics associated to academic impact. This second group can further be divided into usage metrics (reads, views), and citation metrics. The results suggest that Google Scholar Citations is the source that provides more comprehensive citation-related data, whereas Twitter stands out in connectivity-related metrics.