EDUC 6809 - Weekly Reading #3 Multimodal Literacy

Multiverse by Kevin Dooley (This image has an interactive element to it -
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CC BY 2.0

1. What is the main argument presented in  this article?

Multimodal learning will create more engagement with students, create more relevance to students' literacy lives, will expand students ability to communicate with the world, and will "impact....the social, emotional, and academic lives of many children."

2. Why is it imperative that teachers and educational policy makers recognize the role multimodality plays in redefining literacy in the 21st century?

 Teachers and policy makers are responsible for becoming familiar with the entangled nature of literacy, media and technology in the 21st century and they are responsible for understanding the importance and need for knowing multiple ways of communicating.
 

3. What is the fundamental philosophical orientation of educators who engage in multimodal literacy instruction? 

Educators involved in multimodal instruction believe that "children (and adults) learn best when engaged in complex, socially constructed, personally relevant, creative composition

and interpretation of texts that incorporate a variety of meaningful communicative modes or symbol systems."

4. What is the rational for engaging children in learning through the arts promoted by educational philosophers like Maine Green and Elliot Eisner? 

Do you share this philosophical orientation? Why? Why not?

 Maxine Greene and Elliot Eisner both believe that learning through the arts promotes critical thinking and "deeper perception of the everyday world", requires recognizing complex relationships between texts, an understanding that "form and content are inextricably linked," and that writing alone is not sufficient to all expression. 

Yes, I share this view, primarily because I have often found my best thinking to happen when it relates to artwork. I believe that writing is sometimes not sufficient enough to fully express yourself. 

5. Name three benefits of multimodal reading and writing for students? Be specific and use quotes from the text to support your claims.

• Encourages complex thinking about relationships between text and images
•  "Olshansky’s (2006) conclusion is supported by the children’s own words: “pictures paint the words on paper for you so your words are much better. The words are more descriptive. Sometimes you can’t describe the pictures because they are so beautiful” (p. 531)."
• New ways of communicating with the world
• "Consider how two social networking sites, Facebook and Twitter, have changed the face of social and global communication. Young children through adults access these sites multiple times a day, writing, talking in real time, and sharing a range of texts from photos to videos, drawings to audiocasts, and so on."
  
• Recognition and legitimizing multiple ways of "showing what you know."
• "We know that when people are actively engaged with inquiry, have a desire to learn new things, and try out different digital, visual, musical, spatial, dramatic (and so on) tools and techniques, they have the potential to say and do things that we have never before imagined."

6. Give an example of how blogging supports the  four aspects of multimodal theory proposed by Kress and Jewitt. 

•  Materiality
•  blogging requires specific word choice because of its short-format, it also uses images and hyperlinks to convey meaning.
• Framing
• Blogs with images require choosing the best image to represent meaning. It is also a form that requires text be organized and categorized into meaningful sections. Blocks of text is discouraged, while bullets, lists and headings are encouraged.
• Design
• Blogs require a design aspect. Blog authors must create a website, choose a template that best represents content being displayed, adding gadgets and relevant links to the blog.
• Production 
• The blog itself and the technical skills needed to update the blog is the production.

7. What can teachers learn about their students from their image productions? Why is this important?
They can learn what interests a student, which is important because students learn better when they are engaging with texts and assignments that deal with subject matter that interests them.
 

8. According to this article, why should teachers use technology in their teaching?
Technology should be used in teaching because technology dictates the way students interact with the world. "it allows for greater participation, collaboration, and distribution of knowledge that has not been possible with our previous uses of technology." 

9. How does multimodal literacy relate to 21st century literacy?
It is easier for me to think about what 21st century literacy is not: "It is not that we use technology to reorganize old practices (look up informa- tion online, use PowerPoint as colorful overhead transparencies, or write documents using word processing), but that we develop new ways of being when working with new technologies: sharing, experimenting, innovating, and creative rule-breaking."21st Century literacy is about using new literacy and technology to interact with the world in multimodal ways. Multimodality allows people to communicate with each other in simultaneous, multi-format ways in order to convey meaning in more complex ways.

10. What project described intrigued you the most?
  Even though this wasn't described at all, the Sixth Chapter entitled “Seeing, Writing, and Drawing the Intangible: Teaching with Multiple Literacies”intrigued me. I think because I am drawn to visual images and symbols because they can be used to express intangible ideas and feelings. Feelings that are hard to describe in writing (at least for me) - I can express better in images. 

11. What challenges to integrating multimodal reading and writing into schools do you most identify with?
 Collaborating with other teachers/professionals and achieving "buy-in." I find it hard to overcome "anti-technology" bias, particularly as it relates to the language arts.

12. Why is multimodal literacy essential in preparing students for work, play and democratic participation in the 21st century?
 The 21st century requires people to be fluent in multiple forms of communication, often times concurrently. Multimodal literacy supports the development of the critical, complex, and entangled thinking skills that are required in the 21st Century world of work, play and democratic participation.