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The Unlocking the World community is the perfect place to ask questions, discuss ideas and exchange information with other teachers and our program consultants.
Multimodal literacy: What does it mean for classroom practice?
June 28, 2011
Multimodal literacy: What does it mean for classroom practice?
Maureen Walsh
Australian Catholic University
Changes to literacy pedagogy are gradually occurring in classrooms in response to
contemporary communication and learning contexts. These changes are diverse as
teachers and educational researchers attempt to design new pedagogy to respond
to the potential of digital technologies within existing curriculum and assessment
policies. This paper discusses evidence from recent classroom research where 16
teachers worked in teams in nine primary school classrooms to develop new ways
of embedding technology for literacy learning. Data from the nine case studies
provides evidence that teachers can combine the teaching of print-based literacy
with digital communications technology across a range of curriculum areas.
Findings from this research confirm that literacy needs to be redefined within
current curriculum contexts, particularly in light of the emergence of a national
curriculum. New descriptors of language and literacy criteria are proposed within
the framework of multimodal literacy, the literacy that is needed in contemporary
times for reading, viewing, responding to and producing multimodal and digital
texts.
Read more at
http://alea.edu.au/site-content/publications/Multimodal%20literacy%20(Walsh)%20AJLL%20Oct%202010.pdf
Digital Literacies Blog
June 10, 2011
On 20th May, 2011 there was a one day conference on Digital Literacies in the UK. One of the outcomes was that the attendees agreed that a blog, where they could further develop the rich discussions that took place on the day, was needed. To that end a blog has been set up. An overview of the day is now on the site and makes excellent reading for anyone with an interest or need to learn how to integrate literacy in the digital age.
A new app called 'Our Story' was shown. This app allows young children to produce personalised icards and stories. Another session had a presenter delivering his presentation from Bangladesh via Skype. He discussed a gameplay model for teaching and professional development that supports students in the aquisition of traditional and multimodal literacies.
There is a lot more to intrigue and motivate educators on this blog so please visit to read and consider what is presented.
Go to http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/literacy-in-a-digital-age
Assessment of English Language Learners
May 26, 2011
Last week I watched a webcast on the 'Colorin Colorado' website about how English Language Learners in the USA could and are being assessed there. Much of what was said has been said before but it is always useful to have ideas reinforced. A child's native language or the one spoken at home, as well as their culture are important in scaffolding their learning of the English langauge. The linguistic level of a child in their native tongue will also affect their learning of English and examples were given of how some school districts take this into account when placing a child into the appropriate class.
Rather than assessment only being important at the end of a learning period, especially if a standardised test is used, there must be continual evaluation and assessment of students in order to drive the further planning of lessons and teaching materials for them.
Though USA centric this webcast is worth listening to to remind us of some of the things we can do to help our studentswho don't have English as their first language at home.