To What Extent Do Hypermedia Environments Motivate and/or Enable Students to Become More Actively Engaged in Reading, Writing, and Learning?

Students should have multiple opportunities to be involved in hands-on experiences that provide access to content, technology, and vocabulary development activities simultaneously. Whether they are working independently, in groups, or as a whole class led by their teacher, they should be very directly involved in and engaged by these activities. In addition, teachers should take advantage of the technology expertise of the students in their classrooms.

Cooperative learning groups are important components of constructivist learning environments and help facilitate the use of technology in any computer setting. It is very important to set up cooperative learning groups so that students’ time spent on task is most effective. According to the NCREL Indicators of Engaged Learning (1997), when students are working in these collaborative group settings they should make group decisions “regarding planning, implementing, and evaluating their work, making explicit use of multiple and differing points of view” (NCREL, retrieved online, 2006). Research shows that one way to do this is to set up groups using an expert-novice, peer-coaching model. An example of how to do this is outlined is the vignette below.

The NCREL Indicators of Engaged Learning (1997) state that students should be encouraged to take charge of their learning and to regulate their own learning. Students should “define learning goals and problems that are meaningful to them and understand how specific activities relate to these goals” (online). Students should also work with their teacher to set standards and goals for their learning.

When students are engaged in independent work and self-regulation on the computers, or working in pairs to develop their computer skills, it is very important to work with the students to set up a schedule to allow rotation through at specific intervals. For example, look at what Ms. Bell does in the following vignette.

NCREL (1997) supports the integration of disciplines when designing instructional units to facilitate authentic and meaningful problem solving. Within these units students are engaged in research and problem solving where there are multiple perspectives and a variety of individual and team-based solution strategies. The tasks students complete during this instructional time should be authentic, relate to students’ interests, and involve real-world situations. In technology-enhanced learning environments, students should be able to use the technology as a tool, in addition to other learning tools, to facilitate the research process.

Because of their enormous developmental diversity, adolescents require a variety of types and levels of activities designed to meet their needs. This reality presents us with both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is designing instructional activities that engage students and address developmentally appropriate needs. The opportunity lies in knowing with some certainty what those needs are and how to respond to them.

One developmentally appropriate approach to engaging adolescents and taking advantage of this opportunity is to promote vocabulary development by integrating the teaching of content and hypermedia authoring. The continuum depicted in Figure illustrates what we can accomplish by embracing this approach.

For the purposes of this figure we define “effective instruction” as that which supports and provides:

• Access to content
• Technology skill development
• Vocabulary development

In contrast, “ineffective instruction” provides none of these. We believe that instruction in most classrooms falls somewhere in between these two extremes. While many teachers do a good job of teaching their subject matter (i.e., providing access to content), they often fail to take advantage of opportunities that exist to promote vocabulary and technology skill development. We developed the Lesson Guidelines below to help teachers plan and deliver instruction in ways that move them toward the “effective instruction” point on the continuum.