Reflection on Mode-Changing

The task 1, “What’s in my bag,” first asked me to list the things I carry every day. The goal was to show why these items are important in my daily life. I redesigned the task as a short audio    story for task 7. This fits the New London Group’s idea that learning should use many modes, not just writing (New London Group, 1996). For redesigning, I followed these steps: think about the purpose, change from text to audio, add a story voice, and reflect on the meaning of the items. This matches the multiliteracies idea that we should design and redesign meaning (Leander & Boldt, 2012).

Benefits. Audio is more exciting than writing a list. When you hear my voice, you notice tone, pauses, and rhythm. These make the story more alive. Lunsford (2006) explains that modern writing is often multimodal, so it can mix sound, image, and text. By telling my bag story with sound, I try to show that my objects are not just things, they are symbols of how I live, learn, and travel.

Challenges. But audio has problems too. It is harder to go back and find exact sentences or words. In this mode, highlighting or underlining key content is not possible. Some people prefer to read quickly instead of listening. Also, recordings need some complicated tools and skills, like microphones or editing software.

In the end, changing the mode from text to audio showed me something new: literacy is about more than reading and writing on paper. It can be about using other forms, such as sound and images, to tell my stories.

References:

The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies- Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review 66(1), 60-92.

Leander, K., & Boldt, G. (2013). Rereading” a pedagogy of multiliteracies”: bodies, texts, and emergence. Journal of Literacy Research, 45(1), 22-46.

Lunsford, A. A. (2006).  Writing, technologies, and the fifth canon. Computers and composition, 23(2), 169-177.