I agree with Bolter (2002) and Kress (2005) that we are witnessing a decline in textual modes of representation due to a rise of visual mode of representation. I like to think that visual media complements text instead of controls it.

Visual media can be used in school to engage students in what they’re learning. Generally, I think teachers don’t make enough use of other media. It seems like students become competent using visual media long before most teachers even consider using them in their classes. Teachers should be leading the way. I agree with Kress (2005) that educators tend to be set in their ways and see the move away from traditional writing and reading as negative. I think teachers need to be told that it is ok to embrace the visual and use it to motivate our students to write. For example, my students often write double the amount of sentences using storybird.com compared to writing in their journals. I hope that more sites like this will be created in the future to spark more interest in writing.

Kress (2005) suggests that the online user brings meaning to web pages he/she is reading because he/she can choose different paths afforded by the site. In the classroom, teachers using these sites would be planning more project-based, open ended lessons because every student would be making sense of the information in a unique way. Typical worksheets that a teacher might use for a text book lesson won’t work with this type of medium because not everyone would be reading the same information at the same time. Assessment would also have to change to suit the learning task.

Bolter. J.D. (2001). Writing Spaces. Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print. Routledge: New York.

Kress, G. (2005). Gains And Lossess: New forms of texts, knowledge and learning. Computers and Composition, 22, 5-22.