Multiliteracy and Education
I agree that we need to broaden our definition of literacy. There were two points in the readings that I think really emphasised this point. First was, in Dobson and Willinsky and when they quote a Scientific America article written by Lanham in 1995, which talks about how the meaning of the word ‘literacy’ has expanded beyond its traditional meaning of reading and writing and now encompasses understanding information from a variety of sources. I think it is very interesting that this was noted in 1995 when the internet was just getting started. It is even more applicable now. People get information from a range of print, audio, and video sources, and even within each category you must be able to understand different styles. For example, reading tweets is a different skill than reading a newspaper articles and different again than reading a blog or a scientific article. Secondly, Mabrito and Medley quote Gee’s 2007 work and discuss how classes try to narrow knowledge so that it becomes individual knowledge stored in a person’s brain and do not encourage students to make use of networked information. I think this is a very important statements and shows how we view education. School is a place to gain facts not a place to learn how to collect and synthesize information and produce products. I think these two are related because if we broaden our definition of literacy it will have wide ranging effects for how we relate to the education system and what types of skills we expect our students to be learning.
The New London Group defines the purpose of education to be “ensur[ing] that all students benefit from learning in ways that allow them to participate fully in public, community, and economic life” (New London Group, 1996). I think this is a pretty good general definition because it is broad but encompasses the idea that students should be developing skills that will benefit them throughout their lives. I also really like that the New London Group is asking questions about how to make learning appropriate for different cultures and other minority groups. A lot of the traditional literacy education is focused on teaching the standard form of a language, but it would be nice to transition to a system where all the cultures in a classroom could enhance the learning by bringing a different perspective to the topic. I think a theory of multiliteracies would help this because it downplays the importance of traditional forms of literacy. Reading and writing become one of many ways that information can be communicated, instead of the only way that contains authority. In many cultures, a different mode is used for communicating important facts, such as storytelling. If we value all of the different means of communication then students of different cultures will likely feel more connected to their history, instead of trying to reconcile their past with the educational present.
All this being said, I think it will be quite difficult to initiate this type of wide spread change, especially as it involves a paradigm shift in the way we view learning and education. The internet will be helpful because there are so many different types of easily accessible information and communication styles.
As a fairly unrelated aside, whenever I think about the tension between “old” and “new” language/literacy etc. I think of Stephan Fry’s well expressed thoughts on the evolution of language. He has quite a bit of work devoted to this subject but this YouTube clip has a pretty good and quick summation of it.
References:
Dobson T. & Willinsky J. (2009). Digital Literacy. Retrieved from http://pkp.sfu.ca/files/Digital%20Literacy.pdf
Mabrito, M. & Medley, R. (n.d.) “Why Professor Johnny can’t read: Understanding the net generation’s text”. Innovate. Retrieved from https://connect.ubc.ca/bbcswebdav/pid-2750952-dt-content-rid-12134616_1/courses/CL.UBC.ETEC.540.66A.2015S1-2.50694/pdfs/Why%20Professor%20Johnny%20Can%27t%20Read-%20%20Understanding%20the%20Net%20Generation%27s%20Texts.pdf
The New London Group. (1996). A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures. Harvard Educational Review 66(1), pp. 60-92. Retrieved from http://wwwstatic.kern.org/filer/blogWrite44ManilaWebsite/paul/articles/A_Pedagogy_of_Multiliteracies_Designing_Social_Futures.htm
The idea of literacy emerging as multiliteracies is an important transformation. Digital media has transformed literacy to an interactive, nonlinear, and fluid form of multimedia (Dobson & Willinsky, 2009). Digital media allows readers to link and navigate information that can lead to deeper understanding and improve comprehension of any topic they are investigating. Digital media is made up of many forms and for many different purposes. This supports your argument that we need to broaden our definition of literacy.
The New London Group (1996) argues “that literacy pedagogy now must account for the burgeoning variety of text forms associated with information and multimedia technologies.” As educators we must embrace the changing realm of literacy to create meaningful learning for our students. We need to create learning opportunities that simulate real life learning that include collaboration, commitment and creative involvement using the school as a site for mass media access and learning (New London Group, 1996). Student access to mass media information would equip them in their pursuit of greater understanding, providing them with research and reading strategies for navigating among resources and for dealing with issues of source reliability, intellectual property and access rights.
As educators we are responsible for providing learning opportunities that will prepare our students for their futures, whether in the eyes of the public, their private or of their work lives. This involves continually rethinking and reshaping how we teach literacy skills.
Dobson T. & Willinsky J. (2009). Digital Literacy. http://pkp.sfu.ca/files/Digital%20Literacy.pdf
The New London Group. (1996). A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures. Harvard Educational Review 66(1), pp. 60-92. Retrieved from http://wwwstatic.kern.org/filer/blogWrite44ManilaWebsite/paul/articles/A_Pedagogy_of_Multiliteracies_Designing_Social_Futures.htm
Thanks Catherine! I have been thinking a lot about multi-literacies and what it means as I work on my third blog post as well. I love how we all approach subjects in different ways. I hadn’t thought about the cultural implications to multiliteracies yet and you bring up some great points. Not only are we dealing with a larger amount of literacy skills required but as Canada evolves into more and more of a multicultural country, more and more cultures become present in our classrooms.
Not only national cultures, but digital cultures as well. Some children will come from families where their parents tweet, post, maybe even run a blog, and are on their phones all the time. Others will come from families where the limitations for these things are heavily defined and limited, or perhaps even non-existent. We have to prepare our students to be well-rounded digital citizens with a good understanding of the multiple areas they are required to be literate.
It makes me excited! Just think of all the possibilities within your classroom – not every child needs to explore each type of literacy to learn from it – they can learn through each other’s realizations. Have you begun to think about how you may change how you teach language arts and literacy? I teach both Math and English and I can’t wait to use what I’m learning in my masters and apply it in the upcoming year.
After finishing my readings and my blog post – I thought i’d share this quote I found in the New London Groups article on the pedagogy of multiliteracies.
“Different forms of meaning-making in relation to the cultures, the subcultures, or the layers of an individual’s identity that these forms serve. At the same time, Designing restores human agency and cultural dynamism to the process of meaning-making. (New London Group, p 88)
It is interesting how the Internet itself is becoming a culture and to make our students literate in multiple ways, we need to understand their individual cultures and foster development in those areas!
The traditional literacy function can be defined as
Traditional Literacy = f(read, write) a time dependent function
Traditional literacy function is page bound, restricted, structured(New London Group, 1996) and time dependent function whose boundaries or boundary conditions are well defined.Whereas
f(multiliteracies) = f(read,write) + f(T) + change constant, is time independent, constantly varying ubiquitous function that has been altering and flexing the boundaries of traditional functions. Also it has ability to easily permeate (thanks to cyberspace)through almost all types of boundaries (even religions). Since writing systems were separately created, adopted and adapted by surrounded area, according to history(Explore: writing, n.d.) similarly technology mediated learning (reading, writing) is mostly adopted by various regions and cultures and sometimes adapted by their needs (particularly linguistics).
With reference to New London Group, you have mentioned “about how to make learning appropriate for different cultures and other minority groups”, my answer to this is technology itself cannot teach about cultures but it can bring all cultures on either one screen present in a class or multiple screens. For example, digital storytelling is being used for educational purpose (teaching & learning how to effectively use new media plus learning new skills while exercising traditional storytelling art). Multiliteracies is more about multiple effective teaching & learning practices associated with emerging technologies.
References:
The New London Group. (1996). A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures. Harvard Educational Review 66(1), pp. 60-92. Retrieved from
Explore:Writing. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.britishmuseum.org: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/themes/writing/what_is_writing.aspx
The traditional literacy function can be defined as
Traditional Literacy = f(read, write) a time dependent function
Traditional literacy function is page bound, restricted, structured(New London Group, 1996) and time dependent function whose boundaries or boundary conditions are well defined.Whereas
f(multiliteracies) = f(read,write) + f(T) + change constant, is time independent, constantly varying ubiquitous function that has been altering and flexing the boundaries of traditional functions. Also it has ability to easily permeate (thanks to cyberspace)through almost all types of boundaries (even religions). Since writing systems were separately created, adopted and adapted by surrounded area, according to history(Explore: writing, n.d.) similarly technology mediated learning (reading, writing) is mostly adopted by various regions and cultures and sometimes adapted by their needs (particularly linguistics).
With reference to New London Group, you have mentioned “about how to make learning appropriate for different cultures and other minority groups”, my answer to this is technology itself cannot teach about cultures but it can bring all cultures on either one screen present in a class or multiple screens. For example, digital storytelling is being used for educational purpose (teaching & learning how to effectively use new media plus learning new skills while exercising traditional storytelling art). Multiliteracies is more about multiple effective teaching & learning practices associated with emerging technologies.
References:
The New London Group. (1996). A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures. Harvard Educational Review 66(1), pp. 60-92. Retrieved from
Explore:Writing. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.britishmuseum.org: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/themes/writing/what_is_writing.aspx