Task 7: Mode-bending

The task for this week was to engage in mode bending by redesigning the “What’s in my Bag” task from Week 1 using the principles of the New London Group (1996). I struggled with the re-designing of this task in two ways. First, for task 1 I had tried to make my picture interactive by adding clickable hotspots for the names and brief descriptions of the items in my bag.  Simply adding sound to the click and interact hotspots would not feel like a true re-design. Second, I personally do not enjoy doing narrations and avoid recording myself when I can, so a podcast was crossed off my list as well.

I settled on transforming my original work by reframing it as a sensory soundboard to explore the sounds of my everyday bag.  In this newly redesigned literacy space, I can communicate the same information to the audience using audio files, lending a new perspective to what the bag can say about me to others.

[sound effects from www.zapsplat.com]

Whereas the visual would highlight differences in the types of items, the familiarity of the sounds of commonly used objects could allow listeners to find a common ground with my me and my items.

The New London Group (1996) express how changes in the workplace have created a new language of work and how a “pedagogy of multiliteracies…focuses on modes of representation much broader than language alone” (p. 64). The semiotic mode enriches the viewing experience, with the soundscape of objects articulating a new meaning in the context of a pandemic – the increased usage of some objects maybe easier to identify to the audience of today.

I used audio that I felt encapsulated the objects by their sound effects as they would be used. Where the sound of a standalone object is not distinct, the sound describes what the object could be used for. Still, some objects maybe difficult to deduce by the context of their sound so the next slide provides answers.

Reference

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