Desktop publishing in a small rural primary school

Abstract

This thesis looks at the way words and pictures work together in cognitive development and the place of the computer as a tool to enhance and extend such development by assisting in creating the content of a publication, providing the means to revise and tailor information to specific audiences, generate the images, merge text and graphics, make a proof for editing and finally reproduce the completed publication for a wider audience. It describes such a research project and analyses the results achieved. There is an overview of general psychological writings and theses on imagery and perception in chapter two. Art packages and the use of camcorder and video digitiser are discussed as are strategies for computing and presenting images. The nature of the writing process, writing for publication to an unknown audience and the part played by the word processor in such a project are discussed in chapter three. The research study is described in chapter four, its organisation, the basic computer system required and the various decisions which needed to be made and the skills required and developed by the children involved are studied. In chapter five the findings of the project, the developing child writer, the observed changes in behaviour, the computer as a new medium for art are summarised. The test results are quantified and there is a look at some aspects of certain individual texts. In the concluding chapter the speaking, writing, reading relationship, pupil-initiated learning, the impact of word processing, the role of the teacher and the possible requirements of the National Curriculum are discussed and suggestions for further work are outlined.