Multimodal Blog

After reading both chapters one and two of A New Literacies Reader edited by Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel, I found chapter one, that discussed the concept of multimodal play to be what intrigued me the most. The concept of using multiple modes (print, visual, and sound) for students to learn and show their work is fascinating to me, especially when technology is involved. In this chapter, Lankshear and Knobel give examples of teachers that use digital multimodal learning to get their students eager to learn and display their knowledge through different modes. One example of multimodal learning being put into use was from Mr. Cardenas Journalism classroom, in East Side Middle School. Mr. Cardenas class was not a normal classroom. His classroom was filled with thirty-five eMac computers that the students can use during the class (Lankshear et al., 2013, p. 26). The class is an elective at the school and Mr. Cardenas doesn't really teach much and mostly facilitates the class. He does this by letting his students be journalists and go around the school and report on the news of the school. Students are allowed to research topics of their own interest and display their research through different modes. They are also required to schedule interviews when they discover what topic they wanted to research. Not only were students allowed to post their stories in the schools online newspaper. But they were also allowed to create their own podcasts or videos on certain topics (Lankshear et al., 2013, p. 27). This allowed students to be able to read, listen, or watch the content that was being produced. This class is wildly successful, and is different then your usual english class that would have strict deadlines and standardized resources that were provided by the school. Students go through so many english classes that have those strict guidelines. So, having a class like Mr. Cardena’s that provides multimodal learning and allows students to research topics of interest is a breath of fresh air. Another example of multimodal learning being put into use was Tiffany’s high school class that was in Brooklyn, New York. Tiffany realized that teaching through social networking spaces has been successful for keeping students engaged and motivated to do their work (Lankshear et al., 2013, p. 28). Tiffany adds more when reflecting on her teaching pedagogy and why it’s successful by saying “Over the course of the year, I’ve found that interacting with students through social media has been one of the key factors in knowing them more deeply and also building trusting relationships.” (Lankshear et al., 2013, p. 28). So not only is she engaging her students into the class, but she is creating relationships along the way, which motivates them to work. Tiffany classroom has a laptop cart filled with laptops for the students, where they use them for the majority of the class. Not only is Tiffany letting students do schoolwork through multiple social media platforms, but Tiffany is having the students express their knowledge through blogs(Lankshear et al., 2013, p. 29). Students were allowed to research topics that they were interested in, and post on their blog about that topic. One thing that I found interesting about Tiffany’s pedagogy, was that students that were struggling in the standardized classes that was talked about previously, were thriving in Tiffany's class. This was because students were learning and allowed to display their knowledge through multiple platforms and modes. When putting Green's three dimensional model of literacy into consideration. I would definitely put the topic of multimodal learning as more of a critical concept. Especially after talking about the examples that were provided in the readings, we can tell that Mr. Cardenas and Tiffany’s classes allow students to be critical. Students in both classes were allowed to research what they were interested in and be critical of those topics through different platforms and modes. I thoroughly enjoyed the readings and found chapter one that discussed multimodal learning to be especially interesting. One last thought that I had about the chapter that I thought was crucial, was how the teachers mentioned were able to build relationships with their students through their pedagogy. You can see that the students in Mr. Cardenas' classroom admired their him because of the support and flexibility he gave his students. In Tiffany’s class, she talked about how the use of the blog allowed her to get to know her students more, and that the use of commenting on students' blogs showed the students that she cared. When I student taught during my undergrad, my cooperating teacher told me that his class was so successful because he really wanted to know more about his students. He would tell me “If you want a student to learn from you, then you need to have their respect first.”. What my cooperative teacher said to me really impacted me, and showed me the importance of building relationships with students so that they can be successful. Reference: Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2013). A new literacies reader: Educational perspectives. Peter Lang.