Portions of this study were completed with members of the New Literacies Research

During this 12-week intervention study, 7th grade science students used weblogs and email in the classroom to gather resources and exchange ideas to complete classroom activities and end of unit projects. Students communicated ideas about science content among themselves, to teachers, as well as to other classes around the world. This study examines the extent to which Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) enhanced students ’ conceptual knowledge of human body systems. The intervention was taught jointly by the classroom teacher and a university researcher and introduced strategy instruction that was designed to help students acquire the new literacies of online reading comprehension: questioning, searching for information, critically evaluating content, synthesizing across multiple contexts, and communicating ideas to others (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro and Cammack, 2004). Data suggest strategy lessons and the use of ICTs in the classroom promoted content-focused reflections that enhanced students ’ conceptual understanding of human body systems. Research Question