Critical Web Reader Process Analysis

This article discusses the design process of a web reading tool called the Critical Web Reader (CWR). The CWR is an installed software piece that enables a student to have the internet open along with a lens. The lens is a set of questions and activities that guide students through specific online reading tasks. These lenses are created to increase comprehension skills like summarizing, evaluating claims, and synthesizing. Teachers can use already created lenses or design their own based upon needs and lessons. The five phases that the CWR tools uses for activities are launching the inquiry, locating relevant sources, working with web sources, synthesizing findings, and communicating ideas. A teacher can use any combination of the phases in each activity. The article then discusses key components to the redesign CWR like user interface, ease of use, and features to add or subtract. As I start to think about being an administrator and how would I go about improving reading scores in high school, my thoughts were on how to improve reading. Since I am a technology coach, I wanted …show more content…
One of the drawbacks cited by the authors was that teachers had a difficult time with the setup and use of the tool. That would be a major drawback without proper training because teachers might not use the CWR if it were to difficult or time consuming to set up projects and classes. Students seem to pick up the tool relatively easy but that is sometimes the case with technology. I would also want to make sure that this would not become a flavor of the month type curriculum add because that never really helps schools with assessment improvement or morale. The concept is still solid but I would like to see more research on the subject before I would start installing the CWR into a