Progress reports for the 3rd point projects were due in this week. I thought I would share the articles from my work cited. This way, anyone who needs to do some similar research will have a head start. All of these articles are available online through the CU library. =)
• Chambers, Bette; Cheung, Alan C. K.; Gilford, Richard; Madden, Nancy A.; Slavin, and Robert E. “Achievement Effects of Embedded Multimedia in a Success for All Reading Program.” Journal of Educational Psychology 98.1 (2006): 232 – 237.
• Cerhallen, Maria J. A. J.; Bus, Adriana G.; de Jong, Maria T. “The Promise of Multimedia Stories for Kindergarten Children At Risk.” Journal of Educational Psychology 98.2 (2006): 410 – 419.
• Huffaker, David. “The educated blogger: Using Weblogs to promote literacy in the classroom.” First Monday 9.6 (2004): 25 pars. 21 March 2009.
• Larson, Lotta C. “Electronic Reading Workshop: Beyond Books With New Literacies and Instructional Technologies.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 52.2 (2008): 121-131.
• MacArthur, Charles A. “The Effects of New Technologies on Writing and Writing Processes.” Handbook of Writing Research. Ed. Charles A. MacArthur, Steve Graham, Jill Fizgerald. Guilford Press, 2008. 248 – 262.
• Macdonald, Janet. “Assessing online collaborative learning: process and product.” Computers & Education 40 (2003): 377–391.
• Ray, Jan. “Blogosphere: The Educational Use of Blogs (aka Edublogs).” Kappa Delta Phi Record (2006): 175 – 177.
• Williams, Jeremy B. “Exploring the use of blogs as learning space in higher education sector.” Australian Journal of Educational Technology 20.2 (2004): 232 – 247.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Chapter 6: Any Eye on the Text and an Eye on the Future: Multimodal Literacy in Three Johannesburg Families
NOTES:
Introduction:
• How a father, a grandmother, and an aunt consciously scaffold for each child what counts as good reading practices.
• Each adult uses the practice of literacy to develop the girl’s ‘navigational capacities,’ their capacities to self-regulate, to map nodes and pathways of access in relation to aspirations and possible futures.
• The different ways the adults shape and reshape the ‘stuff’ of literacy has deep effects on the children’s orientations to the future both as readers and as subjects.
Background to the Study
• Ethnographic-style study of Children’s Early Literacy Learning (CELL) in the Gauteng and Limpopo Province of South Africa in 2000-2001.
New Literacy Studies and Multimodal Semiotics
• Literacy events and literacy practices: each literacy event is a multimodal communicative event in which adults and girl children are co-participants in activities that involve multiple modes of communication including writing, speech, image, and body in performance.
Classification and Framing
• Classification describes the apparent outer limits or boundaries of a practice or context.
• Framing refers to the degree of control that subjects have over the selection and regulation of contents, and over what counts as appropriate interpretations, methods or techniques, and forms and styles of communication.
• When framing is strong, there is a strong, visible pedagogy. When framing is weak, an invisible is pedagogy operative.
• Weak framing may get in the way of a particular discourse or practice, but it may create conditions of possibility for stronger socialization or more creativity.
Case Study 1: Dineo and Her Father
• Dineo is 9 and lives with her mother, father, brother and sister.
• Exposure to both worlds: traditional African religion and Christianity; also in language practices Sesotho, Isizulu, and English. Different status in each. English is seen as ‘grooming for the world beyond.’
• Value in English is shaped by parents’ past experience as learners.
• Event: a multimodal, multi-layer combination of spoken and written language, sound, image, gesture, body, and space. It is a whole family performance: father, mother, and brother are co-participants in the development of Dineo’s literacy. It is a form of ritual. Concerned with how text sounds—inflection and intonation, pitch and volume. This demonstrates the criteria for appropriateness. Dineo asserts her visual literacy skills by pointing to the rock image and inserting the discourse of school in the home to support her parent’s understanding. Father demonstrates that the text consists of units of meaning that are integrated into a textual whole. This activity is strongly framed—there is a right way and the meaning must be received and reproduced, not transformed. Emphasizes the importance of bilingual literacy in grooming her for the future.
• All three children were being sent to a family in the country because there was no food or money. =(
Case Study 2: Puleng and her Grandmother
• Puleng is 8 and lives with her grandparents, her mother is studying at a technical college. Her parents are both employed.
• Puleng’s safety is a constant concern for her grandmother, her primary caregiver. Her grandmother doesn’t trust their neighborhood.
• Puleng takes a taxi to school. At school she learns English as a first language, Afrikaans as a second language, and Sesotho will be taught in 5th grade. Sesotho is her home language. In everyday language, she switches between Sesotho, Setswana, and English.
• Core values are multilingualism and ubuntu
• Event: storytelling and story reading at bedtime, a nightly ritual. Multimodal, encompassing written and spoken language, image, gesture and performance. Grandmother offers language and commentary about images and writing, and she makes clear connections to images by pointing. Grandmother constantly tries to focus attention on text and acts as a literacy mediator. Textual practice models the metacognitive strategies used by experience readers. Similar focus on uncovering the meaning in the text. In the text, she shifts half way through the reading to focus on morals and draws connections between text world and real world. She asks yes/no, teacher questions. In storytelling, the grandmother focuses on the moral lessons of the story. There is a right way, particularly concerning Sesotho. Models family and community values.
Case Study 3: Margot and Her Aunt
• Margot is 6 and lives in with her parents and brother in an English speaking middle class family. She loves listening to stories and is an accomplished conversationalist with peers and adults. She prefers fantasy games with her neighbor Sara over computer games.
• Event: at the kitchen table with Margot, her mother, her brother, her aunt, and Sara (4 years old). Looking at a newspaper classifieds for a house. They use the image to make confident, unshakeable judgments of a stupid or nice or okay house. Parents do not lead this activity; the children lead it. Aunt plays a pedagogical role by pointing out features of a house for sale advertisements and playfully scaffolds the interaction by arousing interest in looking for features, i.e. price. She is a resource for textual knowledge, not an authority with the last word. There is a seamless switch from reading text and image to producing it. Writing is just scribble, but the aunt asks about and discusses it, communicating the message that the girls’ writing is meaningful. The aunt develops ‘navigational capacities’ for future home owning. Another shift when imagination takes over. In this event, classification and framing are weakest; there is an invisible pedagogy operation. Huge element of pleasure and play. “Literacy is as much about playing games and inventing worlds as it is about getting information about how to function in the ‘real’ world” (143).
Concluding Remarks
• The practice of literacy is not neutral but imbued with values, aspirations and attitudes around what textual practices count, for whim, and for what ends.
• Each family member uses the practice of literacy to develop each girl’s navigational capacities in relation to possible futures.
Introduction:
• How a father, a grandmother, and an aunt consciously scaffold for each child what counts as good reading practices.
• Each adult uses the practice of literacy to develop the girl’s ‘navigational capacities,’ their capacities to self-regulate, to map nodes and pathways of access in relation to aspirations and possible futures.
• The different ways the adults shape and reshape the ‘stuff’ of literacy has deep effects on the children’s orientations to the future both as readers and as subjects.
Background to the Study
• Ethnographic-style study of Children’s Early Literacy Learning (CELL) in the Gauteng and Limpopo Province of South Africa in 2000-2001.
New Literacy Studies and Multimodal Semiotics
• Literacy events and literacy practices: each literacy event is a multimodal communicative event in which adults and girl children are co-participants in activities that involve multiple modes of communication including writing, speech, image, and body in performance.
Classification and Framing
• Classification describes the apparent outer limits or boundaries of a practice or context.
• Framing refers to the degree of control that subjects have over the selection and regulation of contents, and over what counts as appropriate interpretations, methods or techniques, and forms and styles of communication.
• When framing is strong, there is a strong, visible pedagogy. When framing is weak, an invisible is pedagogy operative.
• Weak framing may get in the way of a particular discourse or practice, but it may create conditions of possibility for stronger socialization or more creativity.
Case Study 1: Dineo and Her Father
• Dineo is 9 and lives with her mother, father, brother and sister.
• Exposure to both worlds: traditional African religion and Christianity; also in language practices Sesotho, Isizulu, and English. Different status in each. English is seen as ‘grooming for the world beyond.’
• Value in English is shaped by parents’ past experience as learners.
• Event: a multimodal, multi-layer combination of spoken and written language, sound, image, gesture, body, and space. It is a whole family performance: father, mother, and brother are co-participants in the development of Dineo’s literacy. It is a form of ritual. Concerned with how text sounds—inflection and intonation, pitch and volume. This demonstrates the criteria for appropriateness. Dineo asserts her visual literacy skills by pointing to the rock image and inserting the discourse of school in the home to support her parent’s understanding. Father demonstrates that the text consists of units of meaning that are integrated into a textual whole. This activity is strongly framed—there is a right way and the meaning must be received and reproduced, not transformed. Emphasizes the importance of bilingual literacy in grooming her for the future.
• All three children were being sent to a family in the country because there was no food or money. =(
Case Study 2: Puleng and her Grandmother
• Puleng is 8 and lives with her grandparents, her mother is studying at a technical college. Her parents are both employed.
• Puleng’s safety is a constant concern for her grandmother, her primary caregiver. Her grandmother doesn’t trust their neighborhood.
• Puleng takes a taxi to school. At school she learns English as a first language, Afrikaans as a second language, and Sesotho will be taught in 5th grade. Sesotho is her home language. In everyday language, she switches between Sesotho, Setswana, and English.
• Core values are multilingualism and ubuntu
• Event: storytelling and story reading at bedtime, a nightly ritual. Multimodal, encompassing written and spoken language, image, gesture and performance. Grandmother offers language and commentary about images and writing, and she makes clear connections to images by pointing. Grandmother constantly tries to focus attention on text and acts as a literacy mediator. Textual practice models the metacognitive strategies used by experience readers. Similar focus on uncovering the meaning in the text. In the text, she shifts half way through the reading to focus on morals and draws connections between text world and real world. She asks yes/no, teacher questions. In storytelling, the grandmother focuses on the moral lessons of the story. There is a right way, particularly concerning Sesotho. Models family and community values.
Case Study 3: Margot and Her Aunt
• Margot is 6 and lives in with her parents and brother in an English speaking middle class family. She loves listening to stories and is an accomplished conversationalist with peers and adults. She prefers fantasy games with her neighbor Sara over computer games.
• Event: at the kitchen table with Margot, her mother, her brother, her aunt, and Sara (4 years old). Looking at a newspaper classifieds for a house. They use the image to make confident, unshakeable judgments of a stupid or nice or okay house. Parents do not lead this activity; the children lead it. Aunt plays a pedagogical role by pointing out features of a house for sale advertisements and playfully scaffolds the interaction by arousing interest in looking for features, i.e. price. She is a resource for textual knowledge, not an authority with the last word. There is a seamless switch from reading text and image to producing it. Writing is just scribble, but the aunt asks about and discusses it, communicating the message that the girls’ writing is meaningful. The aunt develops ‘navigational capacities’ for future home owning. Another shift when imagination takes over. In this event, classification and framing are weakest; there is an invisible pedagogy operation. Huge element of pleasure and play. “Literacy is as much about playing games and inventing worlds as it is about getting information about how to function in the ‘real’ world” (143).
Concluding Remarks
• The practice of literacy is not neutral but imbued with values, aspirations and attitudes around what textual practices count, for whim, and for what ends.
• Each family member uses the practice of literacy to develop each girl’s navigational capacities in relation to possible futures.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Comic Book Task
I used this book in my ELL class. First I’d give the students a photo copy of the chapter with the words missing and ask them to fill it in. They could either guess the story or make up something completely new. Then they would present their stories to the class (which was a lot of fun). And finally, we’d start reading and working through the real comic. It was great because the students were involved and excited. They were practicing writing and speaking— which usually intimidated some students, but in this situation they were so excited to share they couldn’t wait to present. And we worked on reading and building vocabulary. I wish there were more text presented in this comic book form. If you go to this amazon link and look inside the book, you’ll see the speech bubbles and scene settings that I would white-out in their handouts. http://www.amazon.com/Hercules-Twelve-Labors-Graphic-Universe/dp/0822530848/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product
Also, in college we watched the manga series One Piece and Naruto— both I really enjoyed and recommend. =)
Always On– Chap 7
• “As of early January 2007, there were 2.73 billion mobile phone subscriptions. More than one-third of the earth’s population had mobile access, largely on the GSM system.” (128)
I just read an article about mobile phone use in Africa and India: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7893849.stm. This article talks about the 4 billion mobile phones in the world and using them to get health information out to people in rural areas. ("There's 4 billion mobile phones now in the world, 2.2 billion of those in the developing world," said Ms Thwaites. "Compare that to 305 million PCs and then look at hospital bed numbers: there's 11 million of them in the developing world.") Also, I have a professor here that is trying to connect these mobile phones to international weather reports to help people who can then use that information to keep food dry and avoid flash floods and prepare for other extreme weather situations. When you think of the number of people who have phones and the fact that phones are getting stronger and stronger, it really becomes and interesting area to focus national and international campaigns.
• “Culture-specific mobile phone usage sometimes springs from economic necessity.” (131) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flP-o0ydkvo. I loved this commercial because, in high school we used collect service in the same way to signal for our parents to pick us up after school without having to pay. Obviously this was before cell phones.
What are the consequences of being linguistically always on? (181) Great question!
I just read an article about mobile phone use in Africa and India: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7893849.stm. This article talks about the 4 billion mobile phones in the world and using them to get health information out to people in rural areas. ("There's 4 billion mobile phones now in the world, 2.2 billion of those in the developing world," said Ms Thwaites. "Compare that to 305 million PCs and then look at hospital bed numbers: there's 11 million of them in the developing world.") Also, I have a professor here that is trying to connect these mobile phones to international weather reports to help people who can then use that information to keep food dry and avoid flash floods and prepare for other extreme weather situations. When you think of the number of people who have phones and the fact that phones are getting stronger and stronger, it really becomes and interesting area to focus national and international campaigns.
• “Culture-specific mobile phone usage sometimes springs from economic necessity.” (131) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flP-o0ydkvo. I loved this commercial because, in high school we used collect service in the same way to signal for our parents to pick us up after school without having to pay. Obviously this was before cell phones.
What are the consequences of being linguistically always on? (181) Great question!
Always On- Chap 6:
• “… teenage bloggers have been known to portray themselves as engaging in risqué behavior, even when such is not the case—like the ‘girls who had blogged about weekends of drinking and debauchery, while in reality they were coloring with a their younger siblings or watching old movies with Grandma.’” (113)
Last year, I worked for a company called produced an educational software, one in particular that targets college students. That product had a sexual health module and the company’s researchers found that most college students overestimated the amount of sex and drinking of other students. A big push for this software was to educate students about what was really happening on their campus. I wasn’t surprised to see that this behavior (to exaggerate drinking and debauchery) begins early in the teenage years. It just highlights that while it seems that private lives have been push public, it doesn’t mean that what is portrayed is the truth.
• Brolsma’s Numa Numa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60og9gwKh1o (115). South Park recreated this video as well!
• Nature article: Britannica vs Wikipedia: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html (this article was updated in 2006, but you need to pay to see the full article. The bbc.co.uk article summarizes the 2005 article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm)(124)
Last year, I worked for a company called produced an educational software, one in particular that targets college students. That product had a sexual health module and the company’s researchers found that most college students overestimated the amount of sex and drinking of other students. A big push for this software was to educate students about what was really happening on their campus. I wasn’t surprised to see that this behavior (to exaggerate drinking and debauchery) begins early in the teenage years. It just highlights that while it seems that private lives have been push public, it doesn’t mean that what is portrayed is the truth.
• Brolsma’s Numa Numa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60og9gwKh1o (115). South Park recreated this video as well!
• Nature article: Britannica vs Wikipedia: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html (this article was updated in 2006, but you need to pay to see the full article. The bbc.co.uk article summarizes the 2005 article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm)(124)
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