Planning on being at AERA this weekend in Philadelphia?  I am co-presenting on a paper entitled,  A Predictive Profile of Youths’ Web 2.0 Outside-School Activities with my adviser, Dr. Joan Hughes, and colleague, Sara Jolly Jones. This has been a work in progress and started as a course assignment for me.  It has undergone a great deal of change as we found more and more variables that impacted whether middle-school age children were likely to be or not be Web 2.0 “users.”  Join us Saturday, April 5 at 2:45-4:15 PM, Convention Center, Terrace Level, Terrace IV to learn more!

Abstract:  This quantitative study used multiple regression to identify predictors of middle school students’ Web 2.0 activities out of school, a composite variable constructed from 15 technology activities. Three middle schools participated in the study and 6th and 7th grade students completed an online survey. Independent predictor variables included school, gender, ethnicity, grade level, computer limits at home, assigned computer-based homework at school, total gadgets at home, Web 2.0 activities in school, traditional technology activities in school and three interaction variables. Results reveal a model explaining 25% of the variance, with statistically significant predictors including: school, ethnicity, grade, total gadgets, and the interaction of school and in-school Web 2.0 activities. Knowing what students do outside of school, and how in-school and out-of-school variables may impact such activity may assist educators in planning for technology in instruction and learning that both leverage what students are already doing or may wish they were doing, making learning motivating and connected to real life.