Web-based Publishing for Students

One of the demonstrated successes of the World Wide Web over the past decade is publishing, writes Potts (2000). He continues stating, Anyone can publish without going through the costly and time consuming channels of the print medium. At the beginning of the 21st century, publishing opportunities for K-12 students are increasing exponentially.

This section of the review will describe the rapid growth of the Internet in schools and discuss the benefits of online publishing for students as seen and reported by teachers and students. Other elements of web-based publishing, such as authenticity, real books, decreasing students social isolation, tackling real problems, and connecting students to others around the world will be examined.

The Meteoric Rise of Computer Technology, the Internet, and Electronic Classroom Publishing

[Much of this chapter is based on information and/or text from Schofield, Janet Ward & Anne Locke Davidson. (2002). Bringing the Internet to School:Lessons: from an Urban District. San Francisco, CA: Jolley-Bass.]

In the late 1970s, computers for student instruction were rather uncommon in most U.S. Schools, but in the early 1980s a massive change began to occur and school rushed to acquire computer technology for their classrooms (Schofield & Davidson, 2002). To illustrate this point, between 1981 and 1987, the proportion of U.S. schools with one or more computers intended for instruction more than quintupled from 18 percent to 95 percent (U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, 1988). Also the average number of computers available in schools that had them increased tenfold between 1981 and 1985 (Teachers Feel Computer Gap, 1989). Thus computers went from being a relatively rare sight in schools during the late 1970s to appearing routinely on lists of suggested materials for schools, right alongside rulers, bulletin boards, and pencils by the mid-1980s (Frederick, 1986; Pate, 1986). This trend continued in the 1990s; by the year 2000, the average school in the United States had one computer for every five students (Cattagni & Ferris Westat, 2001). Many people in business, government, and education believe that student accessibility to computer technology is essential to educational progress, which is made clear by the fact that more money is now spent on computer technology for U.S. Schools than on books and other printed materials (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1999).

The second half of the 1990s saw the rapid arrival of the Internet in schools (Schofield & Davidson, 2002). In 1994, roughly 3 percent of the countrys classrooms had access to the Internet; by 2000, 77 percent of the classrooms were had Internet access (Cattagni & Ferris Westat, 2001). Classroom accessibility to the Internet continues to increase every year, so teachers can and should take advantage of this powerful publishing tool. According to a national survey of schools conducted by Quality Education Data, a research firm in Denver, Colorado, 84% of American public school classrooms and 97% of schools were connected to the Internet by the fall of 2001 (Chen, 2002). In the United States and around the world, governments, businesses, and communities have worked together to bring schools online because of their belief in the power of Internet use by school children (Schofield & Davidson, 2002).

The Benefits of the Internet and Online Publishing for Students

Research studies have shown that with technology student achievement increases, students can learn more in less time and undertake more ambitious school projects, and that students have more positive attitudes towards classes that use technology (Riley & Roberts, 2000). More than any other technology, Riley & Roberts (2000) contend that the Internet provides students with access to a vast array of information and resources far greater than the traditional classroom can provide. With such a powerful tool, collectives of teachers and students from all around the world, such as those participating in the I-EARN network, work and learn together to tackle and solve real world problems (Gragert, 2002).

Berenfield (1996) points out that students can use the Internet to share the products of their work with a large, geographically diverse audience outside the school, a practice many believe will increase the effort students expend on their work (Stephens & Mandeville, 2000). Also, some studies suggest that student use of e-mail application applications with others can undercut the stereotypes students have about others and broaden their horizons (Garner & Gillingham, 1996; Cummings & Sayers, 1995; Davidson & Schofield, 2002).

In detailed data that Davidson & Schofield (2002) collected on ninety-nine Internet activities, almost 18 percent of these activities emphasized students placing their work on-line that is, they engaged in Web-based publishing. This correlates strongly with The Internet and Education research by PEW that showed 17 percent of high students created a web page for a school project (Lenhart, Simon, and Gaziano, 2001).

Many scholars advocate placing learners in situations where they use or experience disciplinary knowledge in more realistic or authentic ways than they do in traditional classrooms (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Collins, Brown, & Newman, 1989; Smith, Snir, & Grosslight, 1992). Internet access allows teachers to place students in learning situations in which they experience academic disciplines in more authentic ways than they had previously (Schofield & Davidson, 2002). Writers, journalists, and poets usually do not write for only one person. Also, they gather input and feedback in response to their work from a community of editors, peers, and friends as they revise their writing. After their work is published, writers continue to experience feedback. In most language arts classrooms, students typically have a very limited audience for their writing their teacher and in some classrooms their immediate classmates (Applebee, Auden, & Lear, 1981). With the Internet, many teachers are able for the first time to connect students to a broader audience as these young writers published their pieces in school home pages, e-mail projects, list servs, and websites. In many classrooms, students who participated in such activities received responses to their work from an audience beyond the classroom. As one student noted:

It just gets out all over the city, and lots of people can look at it if they go to that Web site. Whereas if you make it a piece of paper only the people that want can get it, whereas anyone in the world can basically look at it on the Net. . . . [I]ts not just like a closed-in audience. (Schoefield & Davidson, 196)

Based on interviews for their study, Schoefield & Davidson (2002) found that the vast majority of students in all age groups enjoyed using the Internet more than participating in traditional classroom activities. Reflecting this perspective, one elementary school teacher reported to Schofield & Davidson (2002) that involvement in a newsgroup enhanced tenfold [my students] enthusiasm for writing. Furthermore, teachers often supported their assertions that students reacted positively with behavioral evidence as did a high teacher they interviewed:

In the class where they were working on Web pages they . . . Cant get in the room fast enough. . . They were killing each other trying to get to the computers. . . . When I unlocked the door in the morning the kids are in the room before I can get the key out of the door. (227)

In addition, Schofield & Davidson (2002) and others have noted at least two factors appearing to enhance students motivation were related to particular attributes of the Internet. First, the Internet offers students an extraordinarily wide range of information and communication opportunities, which makes it easier than is typically the case in school for them to connect their schoolwork with personal interests. Second, the Internet gives students the ability to communicate to with others and to produce work that others might actually use in some way (Schofield & Davidson, 2002; Weber, 2002; Riley & Roberts, 2000). An exciting example is the fact that Nattawud Daoruang, one of the student webmasters for Thai Students Online, is the youngest columnist for The Bangkok Post. Every Tuesday, he writes a column about life in Thailand, and his award-winning webpage titled Thailand Life has received more than one million visitors.

Riley & Roberts (2000) reported a instance where a New York students contributed useful resources to others.

. . . students in New York created a website to inform and allay fears about orthodontic braces. On their website, the students gathered and offered advice, information and pictures from orthodontists; interviewed an oral surgeon; wrote a personal journal of one of the group's experiences with braces; designed an original cartoon story; provided recommendations of personal hygiene products, recipes and links to related sites; translated material into Russian; and encouraged other children to write about their own experiences with braces. In these types of projects, it is the uses of technology that actively engages students in the learning process in ways that are simply not possible for classroom teachers to reproduce without technology. (60-61)

Students also used the Internet to communicate with others and to make their work available to a broad audience for use or comment (Schofield & Davidson, 2002; Weber, 2002; Stephens & Mandeville, 2000). These practices are also conducive to improving their work. Schofield & Davidson (2002) reported that first students occasionally received feedback from others that was useful to them in making their work better. Second, the knowledge that others outside the school might view their work was quite motivating to many students. As June, a high school student, told them:

Knowing that other people are going to be exposed to my work, makes me want to do it better . . . You know, work harder on it and . . . You know, check for errors and complete it and make it the best that I can. (239)

It was common for students to assert that they attended more to the quality of their work when they knew it would be placed online and read by others outside the school than they did at other times. These reports are consistent with the results of other research. For example, scholars have found that writing produced for outside peers can be better than that done for a teacher (Means et al., 1993; Cohen & Riel, 1989; Sperling, 1996). In addition, research and studies have shown that writing produced for peers on an online network is often better than that produced for local peers and teachers (Gallini & Helman, 1995; Karchmer, 2001). When their work is going to be published for a wider audience, teachers not only can more easily convince students of the need for revision, but students understand this and will act upon it (Van Scoter, 2002).

Gretchen Lee (2000) offers her explanation for reasons why students work harder on their writing for online publishing and shows the powerful effects that online publishing has on her students and their work ethics and attitudes:

The class was glued to the computer monitors. Nobody breathed untilIve got it! I can see the homepage!

I found my rap song! Come see!

My poems formatted wrong. How can I fix it?

This is soooooooo cool, sighed Alisha as she clicked through the classs work. When can we send in some more?

I hate mine. Im so embarrassed! exclaimed Aviel. I want to redo it!

This was the scene in my English classroom when we took part in an online class that published (on the Internet) my students writing on our mythology unit. Every morning the kids raced each other to the computers to see if their latest writing projects had been posted. The Web site addresses were taken home to parents and sent out to relatives. Nothing that theyd ever written for me for a grade had caused this much excitement (or consternation when they found mistakes!). They couldnt wait to write more.

Teachers have known for years that publishing student work makes a huge difference in the quality of the kids writing, but finding ways to make this possible was sometimes difficult. Yes, there were contests and vanity publishing, but by the time the work came back, months had passed, and the work was often flat. The market for student writing was saturated and difficult to crack, and many students got discouraged before seeing any results. We teachers spent endless hours typing and copying class literary magazines, but the kids werent fooled. They knew who the audience wasthe teacher and parent! And sometimes not even parentsmy homeroom floor used to be littered with copies that never even made it home.
   
The Internet is changing all this. It is causing a revolution in the classrooma revolution the likes of which hasnt been seen since Johannes Gutenberg cranked out his first page of moveable type. Teachers are helping students use the inexpensive resources of the Internet to give their students writing an authentic worldwide audience, with amazing results. Many schools have their own sites and allow students work to be published there, but for those who dont, there are ezines (online magazines) like Highwired or Inkspots, sites like Geocities and Yahoo! that are free for the signing up, and specialty sites like Chapbooks and Online Classes. Because there are so many different ways to publish, the Internet has the potential to be a major democratizing factor among school-rich and poor alike can afford to publish their students work on the Web. . . .

My students are perfect examples of what happens when the magic of Internet publishing occurs. For years I struggled to find authentic writing assignments for them. Most of them were from families who cared about grades, so at least I got the homework turned in. While some kids worked very hard, most did exactly what I told them to do (and I have the tiny penciled-in word counts to prove it!) Often kids just slobbered it downit was just for Mrs. Lee, right? None were very involved in the actual writing process. Revision and peer editing were a nightmare. Why go through all that work? No one else would read it.
   
When we started publishing on the Internet, suddenly all that stopped. No one wanted to look dumb in front of the whole world. Grammar and spelling suddenly mattered. I was asked for rules on punctuation. Which there belonged in this sentence? How do you spell congratulations? Out came the handbooks and dictionaries (at least until they found the online dictionaries!) They were excited and intimidated at the same time. The differences were plain in the way my students wrote about how they felt about being published on the Internet.
   
Alisha: When I see my writing on the Internet, its kind of amazing to know that people all over the world have access to your work. . . . You also want to make sure that people understand what youre implying. . . Overall, getting published is pretty cool!
    
Max: I do not write as well on the Internet . . . but I feel as if I am writing for a lot more than just a grade. I like to write paragraphs that will be posted on the Internet. I feel great when I see my paragraphs online. It brightens up my day!

Alex: I write differently for the Internet than for my teacher because I dont want to look dumb because of really bad grammatical errors or spelling errors. . . I also dont want to embarrass someone else because I put something on the Internet that either embarrassed or hurt them. Also a lot of times I try to use juicy words and have sentences that are effective at getting across a point.

Evan: When I write for the Internet, I try and make the writing more formal and neat. I put a lot more effort in it if it is going on the Internet. More people will see it on the Internet, instead of just the teacher or class. I feel happy when my stuff is on the Internet. It makes me feel a little more famous than I am now.

Chris: The difference I feel when I am writing for the Internet is that you know everyone is going to see itnot just the teacher. I try to use stronger words. I try to be more careful in how I say things. You know that it will be seen by everybody. I say things in different ways than I would in something that was just going to be a grade. Something tells you that this has to be good, so I try to put more thought into it.

Most of my students describe publishing on the Internet with words like proud, excited, famous, and great. Not only do they describe how they feel in positive terms, but I watch how they write. As students compose for something they understand will someday be on the Web, their level of involvement rises. Though many of my students begin the process afraid of being embarrassed by mistakes that might be published on the Web, they all come to understand what they need to do or check to make sure that doesnt happen. The authentic audience makes a huge difference in the quality of the work I receive and the attitude of the kids toward their work.

Schofield & Davidson (2002) discussed the many reasons students offered for attending more to the quality of their work when it had an audience outside the classroom. They wrote that some did it because of their desire to make a good impression about themselves, their schools, or their communities on the world outside the school. These authors cited students attending a high school populated almost entirely by African Americans, many from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, who spoke especially frequently and ardently about the impact of an external audience on the quality of their work, often commenting with words similar to those of their schoolmate Malcom:

You put a lot more pride into it, because . . . If youre going to write this for the school mainly, youre going to write it so its good enough so your teacher gives you an A. But if you realize that everybody in the worlds going to be looking at it, then you get like a sense of pride, like, Well, this is what everybody in the worlds going to perceive of me and perceive of basically my school, my parents, and people who taught me. So basically, if I do a horrible job, people are going to think that my parents didnt teach me, and people are going to think the schools I went to are trash. (240)

Schofield & Davidson (2002) discuss other reasons why students worked harder on their writing, which would be published online.

Other students indicated that they worked harder to make the materials they posted on the Internet of especially high quality for quite different reasons. One of these was the belief that because others might use materials posted on the Internet in ways that had real consequences it was important to be sure they were accurate and well done. For example, one student who developed a Web page featuring information about careers in medicine explained that he took special care in creating it because others might use it in making carer decisions, and hence it was potentially more important than tasks done just for his teacher. Yet another reason students tried especially hard to make the work they posted on the Internet of high quality was that more knowledgeable individuals might encounter it and judge it by higher standards than those that their teachers applied in schools. (240)

Real Books through Technology

Computer technology allows teachers and students to work together to publish right in their classrooms (Van Scoter, 2002; Weber, 2002; Harwayne, 2001; ). Guthrie and Richardson (1995) concentrated on elementary students and how technology motivated them to write. They reported that their findings showed how students are motivated by computer usage. Guthrie and Richardson (1995) found that student writing improved both in quality and quantity. The fact that their writing was going to be published in a real book motivated to work hard and filled them with pride. They stated that by publishing students work in a form that looked professional, students were more eager to develop their writing products than if they were only hand-writing them.

Online publishing houses print small runs of softbound books and make it possible for classrooms to publish real books. Swope (2000) describes his experience with one such company.

Imagine someone said to you, I want you to publish a book with your students. It can contain any kind of student writing you want. All you have to do is type it onto a computer. Ill design it, bind it, and ship the copies to you. When its done, it will be a real paperback book, just like a book in a bookstore, and each students will get a copy. If someone said this to you, would you do it? If you did, what kind of book would you publish? How do you think your students would react?

These are questions worth thinking about, because recent technology makes such an amazing thing possible. For the first time in history, it is easy and relatively inexpensive for a teacher to present student writing in real paperback books, not photocopied, stapled anthologies. This new resource brings to writing class the level of professionalism that we give to other school endeavors. We have bleachers and athletic fields so teams can play in front of fanslike professionals. We have auditoriums and stages so students can perform for an audiencelike professionals. Now we can also have students published in real books for readerslike professionals. The group that pioneered this process was Chapbooks.com. [Though no longer in operation, Chapbooks.com offers instructions and guidelines to teachers wishing to publish classroom books with other online publishers.]
   
I had published student writing all my teaching life: stapled anthologies of the students work that Id spent long weekend cobbling togethercut and paste and lots of correction fluid, hours at the copy machine. I was proud of those anthologies, and students always loved them, but compared to the authentic books that Michael [former president of Chapbooks.com] now could make, my old collections started looking rough, old-fashioned, as quaint as childrens writing on a slate. Why was I so eager to publish a chapbook? Mostly because I wanted my students to fall in love with books as much as I had and to experience the thrill of seeing their name in print. like a real writer. But I also wanted to preserve the writing of this group of students.
   
The kids wrote, revised, and wrote again. And when the last The Endwas penciled in, I typed their stories and put them on a single floppy disk. Then Michael did the rest and turned my students stories into charming yellow paperbacks wed titled (borrowing our governors name) George Patakis Bad Day & Other Stories. It happened fast; those new machines can chug a book out quickly! Just one week passed and I was walking into class, two heavy plastic shopping bags in tow. My students guessed what was inside and they went crazysee what books can do?jumping all around me, squealing, laughing, reaching up to get their copies now! now! now! An then, when all the books were handed out, my children read, the classroom suddenly as quiet as a church. Black-eyed Angelo gasped, I found my name! 
   
Others found Angelo, too. Copies of our book were proudly delivered to colleagues, the principal, and parents, some of whom then mailed the book to relatives in Ecuador or India or Hong Kong. Everyone was impressed, particularly the authors. They loved their book, and the next years class did, too, so much so that the classroom copy soon became a dog-eared thing of beauty, the cover torn and smudged with fingerprints.

But whatever the content, theres been a common theme that runs through all the chapbook anecdotes I have heard and that is pride: teacher pride and student pride.

Increasing Students Appreciation and Understanding of Others

The U.S. Department of Education gives a compelling argument for the reasons why students should communicate and collaborate with others outside of their classroom.

Today more than ever it is critical for the
peoples of the world to learn to understand
and respect one anothers culture, languages
and beliefs. To succeed in todays global environment, students increasingly need to complement their academic and career learning with the international skills that allow them to understand and work with people from other countries.

Students in many contemporary U.S. schools experience social isolation because their schools are populated by students all much alike in ethnicity and social class (Kozol, 1991; Orfield & Yun, 1999). Even in schools with heterogeneous student bodies, student with different backgrounds often have little contact with each other (Oakes, 1985; Davidson, 1996; Schofield, 1989, 1995). Students tend to not interact a great deal in school with those who differ from them in national origin, race, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, or physical abilities (Kozol, 1991; Davidson, 1996; Phelan, Davidson, & Yu, 1998).

Teachers strive to make classroom use of the Internet in an attempt to decrease this social isolation and to broaden students horizons by having them interact with people outside the school whose life experiences are different from their own (Cummings & Sayers, 1995; Fabos & Young, 1999; Garner & Gillingham, 1996). These outsiders might be individuals in other countries, states or regions, but they might also be local individuals with backgrounds different than those of the students (Schofield & Davidson, 2002).

Other studies report parallel findings from e-mail exchanges, with students being struck by unexpected similarities between themselves and those they encounter who inhabit different geographical or social locations (Baugh & Baugh, 1997; McCarty, 1995). Being involved in e-mail and online publishing projects with students from other countries help students understand different cultures (Yowell, 1995; Junghans, 1998; National Center for Education, 2001; Weir, 1992; Hunter, 1995; Gragert, 2002).

Glavac (2000) described his students increased awareness and understanding of other peoples and cultures through their participation in international online publishing projects.

This year the walls from my school came tumbling down. My students were involved in a personal poetry telecommunications project headed by two American teachers with schools from six U.S. Cities; an Art Ecology exchange project with twenty-eight schools in five countries (Canada, USA, Russia, Peru, and Japan), and a Day in the Life project with over 100 hundred schools in three countries. Students used the Internet to exchange e-mail with students in Siberia, Russia, Israel, and South Carolina, USA.

When a student from London, Ontario, Canada can read a poem from a student from San Antonio, Texas and shout spontaneously and exclaim that person is exactly like me or when a student writes back from San Antonio, Texas saying I didnt think anyone would write me indicates the power of the Internetthe power to connect and network. Many of my students found that students in faraway and diverse states such as California, Illinois, Maryland, Texas, and South Carolina and countries such as Russia and Israel, have a lot in common with them. Theyre a lot like us was a phrase used often by students.

This technology became even more powerful when I noticed the effect it was having on my special education at risk students. These students were overcoming their barriers and communicating with peers of their own age without being prejudiced. The technology freed my students from barriers of sexual, racial, and cultural stereotyping. They could communicate a message based on the message itself and not the way they looked, or what they wore or the way they behaved. My at risk students were reading and writing letters, something which they would have had more difficulty doing in the past without a computer and without a purpose. They could now overcome their barriers and connect with their peers based on their interests. (xiv-xv)

The Staggering Amount of Online Student Publishing

Take Glavacs class and multiply it by tens of thousands, and you will have an idea of the size, reach, and impact of just the iEARN network of schools around the world (one of the oldest and largest global telecommunications networks for schools). Or consider ePals Classroom Exchange (online since 1996), which is the worlds largest online K-12 collaborative classroom network, connecting more than 27,000 self registered classrooms with more than 1.7 million students in 130 countries around the world. Now try and picture thousands of other web-based publishing opportunities (e.g., classroom/school websites, websites that publish student writing and art, list servs, e-mail exchange sites, e-mail publications, and audio and video conferencing) displaying millions of pieces of students writing and you might be able to grasp the staggering amount, breadth, and scope of student online publishing that is occurring each and every day in classrooms throughout the world.

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