Audio File – Describing what’s in my “memory boxes”
For this task, I chose to redesign it, by changing it more to a “reaction-style” audio recording. I thought that by going through an old shoebox of personal belongings, I would be able to elicit some genuine reactions, which could help others gain insights into my life from a different perspective.
Cope and Kalantzis (2009) write, “In a pedagogy of multiliteracies, all forms of representation, including language, should be regarded as dynamic processes of transformation rather than processes of reproduction” (p. 125). In light of reading this, I made the decisions to change both the semiotic and sensory modes of the task. Firstly, it is no longer about what is in my bag, but rather what is in an old box that I’ve stored special things in. However, to change it up even more, I narrated the experience instead of taking a new photo. The change-up from visual and written to mostly oral also in and of itself represents a large shift.
I felt like a reaction-style recording was very fitting for this assignment, as reaction videos are highly popular on YouTube, and “live” audio sort of pays an homage to the livestreaming culture of today. The New London Group (1996) writes, “people are simultaneously members of multiple lifeworlds, so their identities have multiple layers that are in complex relation to each other” (p. 71). I think that this task in tandem with Task 1 really highlight the meaning behind this message. In Task 1, others were able to get a glimpse of my “professional” life, and make some guesses about things that I might enjoy. In this task, some of my other hobbies are now revealed, and you get a closer look at some of my more personal belongings.
In this narrative style, I describe things that are related to my hobbies – I may use jargon or terms that are not easily understood. In this case, only others with knowledge about those hobbies might understand what I am saying. Each time this assignment is done, different “literacies” and abilities are at play and engaged. As I went through other students’ webspaces, I personally found audio really fun to listen to, and I preferred it over scouring over photos of their bag’s contents. I wonder how many others shared the same opinion.
References
Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2009). Multiliteracies: New literacies, new learning. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 4(3), 164-195.
The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. (Links to an external site.) Harvard Educational Review 66(1), 60-92.