How has the nature of literacy
changed as a result of digital technologies?
To begin with, the definition of literacy has changed from
the traditional reading of print based-text and writing on paper because our students
are bringing their heavily valued everyday forms of literacy to the classroom. We are in the evolving process of teachers
creating a working partnership with students to understand how the use of
digital technologies have changed the traditional definition of literacy and what it means to be literate in the 21st Century. Educators may or may
not value this concept, but to truly reach and understand our students we must
embrace their new literacies and discover the most effective ways of
implementation. Digital technologies have made it possible for our students to
create, send, interpret, and analyze messages through various modes. Our students are reading and creating
multimodal projects, and publishing to an extremely wide audience. These published projects are subject to immediate
feedback, communication, social judgement, and the degree of engagement is
determined by the student. Our students have their own values and concerns in
relation to literacies. So, is our current
classroom curriculum designed to meet the needs of our extremely diverse
learners?
What are the benefits of multimodal
reading and writing for students?
Different types of learners are able to explore their
interests, express understanding, be provided a choice, and participate in an engaging
process. Also, multimodal projects provide relevancy and establish a meaning
that is purposeful or connected with thoughts and ideas that include “real time
sharing". As
educators, we know that when students have the opportunity of choice in
well-designed assignments, their strengths will be demonstrated, and
opportunities for developing weaknesses will be present. I also
feel that multimodal projects should not just be for the “smart kids” or the ‘well-behaved
kids”. It’s very disturbing that some
educators reserve what they think are the “coolest” projects for a particular group
of kids. If we don’t provide
opportunities for all students to participate, then we are ignoring our charge
as educators to assist
our students in becoming 21st century
learners and participants.
3 What project described intrigued you
the most?
Chapter 6 of Literacies, the Arts and Multimodalities
describes the “Backpack Project”. I’m
intrigued by this project because it includes “seeing, writing and drawing”. It uses metaphorical writing of what
students literally and figuratively “carry” in their backpacks. This lesson would be authentic and provide
a relevant and engaging opportunity for students. ( I will research and
implement this lesson at some point in my teaching.)
What challenge to integrating multimodal
reading and writing into schools do you most identify with?
Quite often educators battle the concept of
decisions being made at the “top”. If we
could focus on decentralizing decision-making, then maybe we would be modeling the
realm that our students live, work and play in every day. Multimodal literacies are interactive, not
one-sided, sometimes educators are expected to follow traditional methods of
imparting knowledge. When this occurs,
we aren't really finding out and using the best methods of teaching today’s
students. Also, not all educators feel comfortable working with other teachers
in a particular setting, nor comfortable with technology and content to be
addressed. Budgets for purchasing
required resources can be very limited and not all schools have equal access to
resources.
In
conclusion, the woodprint is a perfect representation of the entanglement and multitude
of the ever changing “layers” of new literacies instruction.
This article by Graham and Benson focuses on the efforts to engage preservice teachers in multimodal literacies and to look past the traditional definition of literacy and think beyond the printed page as an acceptable form of instruction for today's students. The article describes a great activity: to analyze certain tv shows for visual, spatial, gestural, audio, linguistic and multimodal design. Looks like a future activity in my classroom!
Like you I really wish more teachers would let struggling students engage with multimodal reading and writing more and not consider it as a reward for the "smart kids". I think this occurs because of the erroneous belief that print literacy must proceed multimodal literacy and that print literacy is superior to multimodal literacy. I really hope this course will change those perceptions.
ReplyDeleteI'd really like to get one of these projects into 2201 in the fall!