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About How Stuff Works 4 Kids How Stuff Works 4 Kids is a Web site for and by K - 8 (or K-12) students. The format is similar to Marshall Brain's How Stuff Works, but all questions and answers are researched and written by elementary, middle school, or high school students. As such, this site provides authentic opportunities for students to read, research, and write about topics of interest to them and other students around the country. It also provides an up-to-date and research-based method for enhancing reading, writing, and information literacy skills. I have entitled this site How Stuff Works 4 Kids because I believe such a title would help to bring large numbers of visitors to the site, and would give kids submitting articles a feeling of authenticity about the site and its broad audience. In this way, I would be facilitating increased reading, writing and information literacy skills of K – 8 (or K-12) students across the country. During the development year, I will invite talented teachers from around the country to have their students begin researching so that when the site first appears on the Web, it will already be populated with a number of questions and answers written by kids. I will develop policies regarding submissions, rubrics for evaluating submissions, and tutorials on proper citation techniques. And finally, I will seek grants and other funding sources, as well as technical expertise, to support my site. About Dr. Alice Christie Dr. Christie has been a teacher since 1967, first in the K-12 sector and, for the last eleven years, at the university level. She has received many teaching awards and is known for her teaching excellence. Most recently, she was named as an Arizona State University President's Professor. She is one of only four professors across all ASU campuses to receive this award. During her first twenty-five years of her career, she worked with elementary and high school students who struggled with reading and writing. As a professor at Arizona State University, she has spent ten years actively researching how technology can help K – 8 (or K-12) students improve their reading, writing, and information literacy skills. She has clearly documented how using the Internet and email as well as publishing to broad audiences via the Internet help students dramatically improve their reading and writing. All of her experiences as a teacher, coupled with her last decade of research, have helped her more deeply understand how kids acquire and develop language and literacy skills. Now that the Internet is virtually ubiquitous in K-12 schools, parents and teachers have a new tool for developing kids’ language and literacy skills. By using the Internet and print resources to research and publish, kids are no longer simply information consumers; they now have the opportunity to become information producers as well. Such opportunities not only enhance literacy and information skills, they extend/expand the definition of 21st century Netizens. Dr. Christie’s widely recognized Web site (www.west.asu.edu/achristie) is acknowledged as one of the best educational portals on the Internet by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Originally designed to support her “face-to-face” instruction of undergraduate and graduate students, it soon evolved into an educational resource available for a broader audience. For example, since its creation in 1996, the Web site has received over two million visitors; in 2004 alone, over half-a-million visitors from over 70 countries visited her site. She has received numerous letters and email from teachers acknowledging the value of her site as a tool to help them integrate technology into their classrooms in meaningful and authentic ways. Having maintained and grown this site over the last ten years, she now offers a site for kids that helps K – 8 (or K - 12) students develop and increase their literacy skills. Such a project not only synthesizes all she's learned about how kids learn, it also provides an invaluable service to parents, teachers, and kids across the country. Contact Information: Home | How to Submit | How to Use Rubrics | Send a Postcard |
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