Overview

This qualitative case study explores the potential of an instant messaging software titled Microsoft Network Messenger (MSN) for academic learning and knowledge-building. Louis and Mike formed this research partnership as a result of our shared interest in investigating innovative approaches to teaching and learning. We set out to explore how students in a grade nine academic Math class make use of MSN to accomplish a group summative project for an integrated curriculum unit (Math and Geography). We were specifically interested in understanding the extend to which students would rely on MSN as a mediating tool to accomplish and make sense of their assignment. It was an assignment that involved collaboratively analyzing primary data pertaining to fishing, forest, and agricultural industries by applying linear systems.

Findings revealed MSN as a tool conducive for students to efficiently collaborate on their work. This was made possible by students' creative application of online, recreational discourse to engaging one another in their topic of study. Students transformed the functions of literacy by extending the boundaries of oral and written discourse onto their MSN screens to discuss their project. They created a profoundly efficient way of "chatting" about their work, which in turn allowed MSN to function as a complementary tool to Mike's teaching. As students accomplish a great deal of their work online, additional instructional time became available for Mike to address specific needs and contextualize students' learning. Based on this finding we make the claim that MSN is potentially a complementary tool for teaching and conducive for collaborative learning. It enables students to efficiently organize and delegate their project through extending the functions of literacy to carry out different levels of academic discussion. The implementation of this technology created the opportunity for students to become active participants in their learning by applying their background (technological) knowledge and contributing online resources toward their group work.

Statement of Research Problem

The idea for this research project was also motivated by the conditions of our changing global economy, which has brought about a rapid and continuous emergence of new technologies and reorganization of labour practices. These changes are making new demands on education as service and information have become the "product" of value and exchange (Luke, 1996). Work today demands cognitive engagement and social interaction around spoken language, traditional print text, and online communications. For example, the making of any product requires technologically knowledgeable staff (including, marketing, engineering, designing teams and among others) to collectively manage, analyze and produce a wide range of information with one another through various linguistic, pictorial, digital and analogue codes as a precondition for production. Success implies possessing extensive skills for engaging with information from different contexts and working productively with linguistic and cultural diversity in a globalized world (Luke, 2000).

Moreover, within the global technological and economic context, success is the by-product of the relentless pursuit for efficiency and productivity. Such conditions have catalyzed the evolution of new digital technologies, as well as our increasing dependency on them to conduct much of our daily affairs. The rapid updating of software and skills are transforming us into a people possessing multiple tools and strategies for accomplishing a task and acquire knowledge (Kalantizis & Cope, 2000). For example, these technologies require its users to possess knowledge in traditional language, visual language, as well as hypertext language. Furthermore, multimedia technology provides users seemingly myriad options to select and customize any information in cyberspace to their screen. One can access various resources from updated news, sports highlights, to online music and instant chats, to be aligned with his/her specific needs. Such user-selectivity transforms learners from passive receivers of information and culture to active creators of knowledge (Kalantizis, Cope, & Harvey, 2003), thus fostering a conducive environment whereby learners become autonomous and self-directed in their learning experiences.

The changing conditions described above problematize the relevance of literacy as traditionally understood (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) that generally function as decontextualized, independent skills. In the contemporary world, equipping students with traditional literacy skills remains a fundamental goal of education. However, literacy instruction must also align itself with a model of literacy that focuses on the inseparability of literacy and culture in the social context (Heath, 1983; Street, 1984). That is, literacy needs to be perceived as a set of social practices that students depend on to conduct everyday activities in the contemporary social network whereby meaningful information process and exchange serve as the basis for social relations. These relationships provide access into a wider community network and support, further creating greater opportunities for social interaction and enhancing students' literacy skills. The reciprocal relationship between literacy practice and social interaction highlights the key role literacy education plays in providing access to mediational means that would enable students to situate themselves in relation to various modes of information (Luke & Freebody, 1997).

Few studies have examined the social and technological changes that are transforming literacy practices and generating new forms of expression. The importance of finding ways to successfully support the acquisition of literacy skills corresponding to these changes is crucial given the importance these skills play in enabling students to utilize information and technology according to the expected conventions of Canada's social infrastructure and the current technologically driven knowledge economy. For this study, we focus specifically on exploring the potential of MSN (one of the most popular technologies amongst adolescents today) for yielding academic gains for secondary students living in a technology-dependent world.

Research site

Middlefield Collegiate Institute (MCI) is located in a suburban neighborhood in the Greater Toronto area. It is a semestered school with five classes per day (each lasting seventy-five minute) for its approximately 1,550 students and 90 teachers. The semi-circle design of the building, with a large skylight overhead, provides an illuminated open view of the school and contributes to its inviting atmosphere. MCI's friendly and culturally respectful environment is manifested through its culturally and linguistically diverse student body. This unique demographic of MCI is made up of mostly Southeast Asians (Indians and Tamils) and Chinese descent, who enhance the visibility of their uniqueness through innovative ideas for celebrating diversity. For example, clubs such as the Muslim Students Association, the Muslim Sister Association, and the Chinese Student Association are among the first to be established in a secondary school. In addition, various student art works such as Taj Mahal models, Murals on ancient Egyptian patterns, calligraphy of Korean and Chinese writing, wall paintings of Chinese dragons, and animation cartoons displayed around MCI also reveal students' various backgrounds.

Research partnership

This partnership was developed through a number of school-board planning meetings. These meetings involved collaborators from York Region school-board, teacher-researchers, and university-researchers. As the team discussed the overarching goals and implementation of the Multiliteracies project in schools, we began developing our shared interest in exploring the effects of integrating students' wealth of background knowledge and self-identified important technology into their schooling. This process linked us together to this exploratory project and started our own learning from students about this topic. We began by surveying Mike's three math classes to gauge students' attitudes toward digital technology, Mathematics, and linguistic and cultural backgrounds. The class of 29 students for this study was selected based on the number of students who had access to computers at home (100 percent) and their familiarity with MSN. Survey indicated students' first language included English, Tamil, French, Punjabi, Hindi, Gujerati, Cantonese, and Urdu.

The novelty of MSN use for academic learning implied that numerous logistical issues had to be discussed and carefully planned. We selected Geography as the topic for integration with Mathematics for their complementarity that enabled students to contextualize Geography information in Mathematical terms and vise versa. Mike recruited Ms. Sharon Soares-VanTassel for her expertise in Grade-nine Geography and her enthusiasm in supporting our project. We met with Sharon on two occasions to review her lesson plans and discuss the integration of these subjects. In an attempt to incorporate MSN into an existing lesson plan, Mike made minor changes to his lesson timetable and assignments. For example, an end of term report was replaced by this group project. Changes were made after consultations with the principal and Sharon to ensure that the expectations of the school and the curriculum, as well as, the needs of students were not compromised.

The topic of this integrated unit centered around Canada's management of its resources in the following industries: fishery, forestry, and agriculture. The class was divided into six groups with every two opposing groups assigned (by draw) to research for and against Canada's management of a particular industry. The responsibilities of all groups included investigating production total, quota limits, import and export, employment, and consumption of their assigned industry. In addition to the information they received in Geography class (which took place in the same semester), they were encouraged to use any other resources to articulate their standpoint. Students were required to analyze two variable data by creating scatter plots, finding correlation, drawing lines of best fit, finding equations of lines of best fit, and making predictions both graphically and algebraically. Data was then represented in appropriate graphs and presented in a final written report, as well as, in an in-class symposium. At the time of the symposium, audiences voted for the most convincing group of each industry.

Students in self-selected groups of four were responsible in delegating the workload amongst themselves and completing this assignment mainly through MSN (Only one in-class period was allocated for this assignment). They were also required to meet with Mike weekly during class to show their progress and send transcripts of their online conference to Louis who monitored the level of their participation and examined how MSN facilitated understanding. During this six-week project, Louis's role also included in-class observations, updating Mike of students' online participation, conducting semi-structured individual online interviews (through MSN), and collecting students' written documents.

This project required us to remain flexible throughout the semester to ensure that student needs were attended to. For example, weekly submissions of online group discussions proved to be an overwhelming burden for students and were subsequently changed to allow submissions on voluntarily basis. This change provided additional insight into our research by informing us of students' attitude toward MSN use for school purposes. Finally, we accepted students' request to display their work through a wide choice of mediums (e.g. powerpoint, video, music CD), thus, students filled the classroom with every available technology MCI could offer on the day of their group presentations.

Outcome

Students successfully accomplished their group projects and defended their perspective arguments. They did so with great creativity as the groups presented their work through various mediums such as skits, documentary, and puppet shows. More importantly, they demonstrated a collective understanding of their topic as seen through their calculations, graphs, and extrapolation of data, during both oral presentations and written reports.

A detailed analysis of the research data (including transcriptions of students' online discussions and interview sessions, observation notes, and their submitted reports) reveals the great efficiency in which students organized, delegated, and finalized their project on MSN. They did so by creatively extending the function of recreational talk to conduct different levels of discussions. Their MSN written speech often appeared fragmented. This type of communication consisted of various emoticons, abbreviations, onomatopoeia, homophones, and creative capitalization, which enabled them to efficiently access information and navigate through websites:

Stan says: whatz the pass again (what's the password again?)

Shaun ... says: REVIEW REVIEW

Shaun ... says: lowercase

Shaun ... says: im in (I'm in the website)

Stan says: same

MaNNu says: Ye (yes)

MaNNu says: me to (me too)

Shaun... says: wat do we go to next (what do we go to next)

Amy says: data

Amy says: tahn primary industries (then primary industries)

This short exchange of sentence fragments is subsequent to the instant nature of MSN and space limitation of the text box. For example, a commonly used phrase on MSN, "laughing out loud", requires 14 key strokes to correctly input the phrase, however, on MSN, the same phrase is generally inputted with only 3 key strokes "lol" in order to maintain the flow of conversation. Students' use of MSN exemplifies the marketing message that MSN serves the purpose of instant "buddy chat". This perception of MSN prompted their creative expression of language by extending recreational discourse for delegating and negotiating academic work. This process generated a hybridized language conducive for instructing one another and coordinating individual contributions into written and oral reports. Subsequently, exchanges like the following were not uncommon:

J.B. says: yo will v need comparsions b2ween other countries

               (yo, Will, you need comparison between other countries)

J.B. says: lke canada and da us

                (like Canada and the U.S.)

PAVAN says: ya like mainly united states

J.B. says: and the europe (European) countries

J.B. says: so whos gonna do dat

               (so who's going to do that?)

WILL says: or..

J.B. says: da comparsions

                (the comparisons)

PAVAN says: lol

                     (laughing out loud)

WILL says: comparisons of...imports exports? production totals?

J.B. says: Canada Vs US

J.B. says: how v r diff from dem

                (how you [Canada] are different from them [U.S.])

WILL says: if we can find the good stuff

WILL says: cause (because) member (remember), we're     arguing  saying we're good in agriculture, just info that supports that, remember.

J.B. says: yeah

PAVAN says: yayayaya

J.B. says: so get stuffs bout how were better dan the us

               (So get stuff about how we are better than the U.S.)

J.B. says: lol

PAVAN says: lol

In this exchange, J.B. begins by suggesting the group to incorporate data for comparison to highlight Canada's success in their management of agriculture. The discussion continued with each member offering suggestions as to countries and factors with which to compare. Students' direct and explicit instructions were interwoven with abbreviations and onomatopoeia (lol's and ha ha's) throughout to soften the seemingly demanding tones. Their linguistic creativity and awareness combined to form a superbly efficient online discourse for organizational and data search work such as file sharing, website exchange, and instructing one another how to assemble the information. However, throughout their online transcripts, very little analytical discourse was evident. Due to the exploratory nature of this research project, we decided against interfering with student's MSN use. Therefore, students made use of MSN as they saw fit for the assignment. In addition, because much of their work was accomplished outside of class, their weekly group meetings with Mike became additional in-class instructional and practice time to enhance their comprehension. As each group presented to Mike questions related to their information, Mike was able to address their specific concerns and contextualize the linear system unit with the information they gathered. Hence, our hope that students would make use of MSN for in-depth engagement of topics was rendered superfluous.

This particular approach to academic discussion coincides with students' perception towards MSN. Students conveyed their view toward MSN as a tool suitable for sharing information and organizing their project. As suggested by Shaun during an online interview,

Louis: so 4 (for) da (the) summative project, how did ur (your) group use msn?

Shaun: we used to trade info n (and) see if it was good n (and) if we could use it

Louis: do u (you) think it Was useful for this project?

Shaun: yes

Shaun: because it would have beeen (been) harder to trade info somehwere(somewhere) else/via somthin (something) else

Shaun: for example if we had to meet up at someones (someone's) house or on the phone

By encouraging students to utilize their MSN knowledge, we discovered that one of the important advantages of this technology lies in its flexibility. MSN can be adopted to extend classroom activities (e.g. group work) beyond class time and thus afforded Mike more instructional opportunities whereby more practice and one-on-one instruction occurred. Moreover, students became active participants during this process. That is, each played a significant role in shaping their project by contributing information they deemed appropriate. This information was reviewed and assessed at an efficient speed online by each group member for its applicability. When unsure, students brought the information into class and consulted with Mike about how to apply it into a Math equation. Much of the additional class time afforded by MSN allowed Mike to contextualize linear systems as he devoted the time to address each group's questions and instruct the class how each group-specific enquiry can be applied to equations, graphs, and scatter plots.

Concluding remarks

The findings reported here highlight the potential of MSN as a tool that complements academic learning. Its potential is dependent on teachers' involvement and strategic planning. By making use of MSN, teachers can impress upon students MSN's potential for integrating academic learning into an environment in which they are familiar and comfortable.

References

Heath, S. B. (1983). Ways with words: Language, life and work in communities and classrooms. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Kalantzis, M., Cope, B., & Harvey, A. (2003). Assessing multiliteracies and the new basics. Assessment in Education, 10 (1), 15-26.

Luke, A., (1996). Genres of power? Literacy education and the production of capital. In R. Hason & G. Williams (Eds.), Literacy in society (pp. 305-313). New York: Longman.

Luke, A. (2000). Critical literacy in Australia: A matter of context and standpoint. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 43, 448-461.

Luke, A., & Freebody, P. (1997). Shaping the social practices of reading. In S. Muspratt, A. Luke, & P. Freebody (Eds.), Constructing critical literacies: Teaching and learning textual practice (pp. 185-225). New Jersey: Hampton Press.

Street, B. (1984). Literacy in theory and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.