Learning by Doing in the Context of Modern Information and Media Literacy of Students in “Library and Information Management” in ULSIT Using the Digital Collection “Bulgarian Revival”

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the effectiveness of learning by doing as a practical tool for managing the training of students in "Library Management" at the ULSIT, Sofia, Bulgaria, by using the creation of project 'Data Base “Bulgarian Revival Towns” (CD), financed by Bulgarian Ministry of Education, Youth and Science (1/D002/144/13.10.2011) headed by Prof. DSc Ivanka Yankova, which aims to create new information resource for the towns which will serve the needs of scientific researches. By participating in generating the an array in the database through searching, selection and digitization of documents from these period, at the same time students get an opportunity to expand their skills to work effectively in a team, finding the interdisciplinary, a causal connection between the studied items, objects and subjects and foremost – practical experience in the field of digitization, information behavior, strategies for information search, etc. This method achieves good results for the accumulation of sustainable knowledge and it generates motivation to work in the field of library and information professions.

Digital storytelling: promoting writing literacy skills at an A2 level

El propósito de este proyecto de graduación es dar a conocer cómo la influencia de la tecnología hoy en día puede llegar a ser una herramienta útil a la hora de aprender una lengua extranjera, como lo es en éste caso el Inglés. Mediante la herramienta llamada Storybird los estudiantes tienen la capacidad de crear, imaginar y escribir historias que les ayuda a mejorar su destreza enfocado a la escritura. Para esto se analiza tres estudios de caso, los mismos que utilizan como herramienta principal Storybird. Dichos estudios son realizados en diferentes lugares del mundo, y a la vez dirigidos a estudiantes con diferente tipo de destrezas. El propósito de estos estudios es mejorar su escritura por medio de narraciones digitales, conocidos en el ámbito extranjero como Digital Storytelling, dando asíuna alternativa diferente de enseñanza para los estudiantes. Por último, se desarrolla una Guía de Aprendizaje dirigido a docentes, con el propósito de facilitar y brindar nuevos instrumentos de aprendizaje, con el uso de Storybird, para estudiantes que desempeñan un nivel A2 dentro del Marco de Referencia Europeo para las Lenguas.

From literacy to multiliteracies : diverse learners and pedagogical practice

In this paper, we provide specific examples of the educational promises and problems that arise as multiliteracies pedagogical initiatives encounter conventional institutional beliefs and practices in mainstream schooling. This paper documents and characterizes the ways in which two specific digital learning initiatives were played out in two distinctive traditional schooling contexts, as experienced by two different student groups: one comprising an elite mainstream and the other an excluded minority. By learning from the instructive complications that arose out of attempts by innovative and well-meaning educators to provide students with more relevant learning experiences than currently exist in mainstream schooling, this paper contributes fresh perspectives and more nuanced understandings of how diverse learners and their teachers negotiate the opportunities and challenges of the New London Group's vision of a multiliteracies approach to literacy and learning. We conclude by arguing that, where multiliteracies are understood as “garnish” to the “pedagogical roast” of traditional code-based and print-based academic literacies, they will continue to work on the sidelines of mainstream schooling and be seen only as either useful extensions or helpful interventions for high-performing and at-risk students respectively.

Digital storytelling, podcasts, blogs and vlogs : exploring a range of new media texts and forms in English

Curriculum initiatives in Australia emphasise the use of technologies and new media in classrooms. Some English teachers might fear this deployment of technologies because we are not all ‘digital natives’ like our students. If we embrace new media forms such as podcasts, blogs, vodcasts, and digital stories, a whole new world of possibilities open up for literary response and recreative texts, with new audiences and publication spaces. This article encourages English teachers to embrace these new digital forms and how shows we can go about it.

Young Australians reading in a digital world

The realities of new technological and social conditions since the 1990s demand a new approach to literacy teaching. Looking onward from the original statement of aims of the multiliteracies movement in 1996, this volume brings together top-quality scholarship and research that has embraced the notion and features new contributions by many of the originators of this approach to literacy. Drawing on large research projects and empirical evidence, the authors explore practical and educational issues that relate to multiliteracies, such as assessment, pedagogy and curriculum. The viewpoint taken is that multiliteracies is a complementary socio-cultural approach to the new literacies that includes pedagogy and learning. The differences are addressed from a multiliteracies perspective – one that does not discount or undermine the new literacies, but shows new ways in which they are complementary. Computers and the Internet are transforming the way we work and communicate and the very notion of literacy itself. This volume offers frontline information and a vital update for those wishing to understand the evolution of multiliteracies and the current state of literacy theory in relation to it.

Literacy education in the context of globalisation

This review chapter provides an overview of English language literacy education in the contexts of cultural and economic globalisation. Drawing case study examples of India and China, the authors outline three complementary models: the development paradigm, the hegemony paradigm and the new literacies paradigm. The analysis focuses on effects of the spread of English on vernacular languages and the non-synchronous issues raised by digital production cultures. Noting the difficulties of education systems in contending with new literacies - it argues for the reframing of transnational relations, global material conditions and new communications technologies as the objects of critical literacy education.

Copyright, digital media literacies and preservice teacher education

This article considers copyright knowledge and skills as a new literacy that can be developed through the application of digital media literacy pedagogies. Digital media literacy is emerging from more established forms of media literacy that have existed in schools for several decades and have continued to change as the social and cultural practices around media technologies have changed. Changing requirements of copyright law present specific new challenges for media literacy education because the digitisation of media materials provides individuals with opportunities to appropriate and circulate culture in ways that were previously impossible. This article discusses a project in which a group of preservice media literacy educators were introduced to knowledge and skills required for the productive and informed use of different copyrights frameworks. The students’ written reflections and video production responses to a series of workshops about copyright are discussed, as are the opportunities and challenges provided by copyright education in preservice teacher education.

Shrek meets Vygotsky : rethinking adolescents' multimodal literacy practices in schools

Recent research has emphasized the multimodal and digital nature of adolescent literacy practices. These practices cross multiple social spaces, particularly settings outside of schools. This article re-examines current research to yield three caveats that counter assumptions about the pervasiveness, relevance, and spontaneity of youths’ multimodal practices in the digital communications environment: 1. It is incorrect to assume that today’s adolescents are all “digital natives”; 2. Engaging adolescents in multimodal textual practices must involve more than conforming the curriculum to their interests and practices, extending students’ repertoire of skills and genres; and 3. While some new multimodal practices are taken up by adolescents with minimal instruction in informal contexts, greater emphasis should be placed on expert scaffolding of these literacies in school settings.

What learners "know" through digital media production : learning by design

The power to influence others in ever-expanding social networks in the new knowledge economy is tied to capabilities with digital media production that require increased technological knowledge. This article draws on research in elementary classrooms to examine the repertoires of cross-disciplinary knowledge that literacy learners need to produce innovative digital media via the “social web”. The article builds on Learning by Design and the Knowledge Processes to describe “how” learning occurs, while presenting a model to theorise “what” students know – the Knowledge Assets – when learners produce digital and multimodal texts.

“Now I know their secrets” : Kineikonic texts in the literacy classroom

Kineikonic texts – sites of the moving image – are increasingly prevalent with the rise of digital television, Web 2.0 tools, broadband Internet, and sophisticated mobile technologies. Digital practices are changing the shape of the literacy curriculum, calling for new metalanguages to describe digital and multimodal texts. This paper combines multiliteracies and functional approaches to map conventional and new textual features of a popular kineikonic text – the claymation movie. Enlivened with data from an ethnically diverse, Year 6 classroom, the author outlines filmic conventions to enable teachers and students to analyse and design movies

Textbooks and early childhood literacy

An historical and contemporary analysis of the political economy of textbooks, and affiliated new digital and print commodities, in early childhood and primary schooling.

Copyrights and creative commons licensing : pedagogical innovation in a higher education media literacy classroom

This article examines the role of copyrights in contemporary media literacies. It argues that, provided they are ethical, young people’s engagement with text should occur in environments that are as free from restriction as possible. Discussion of open culture ecologies and the emergent education commons is followed by a theorisation of both literacy and copyrights education as forms of epistemology: that is, as effects of knowledge producing discourses and practices. Because Creative Commons licenses respect and are based on existing copyright laws, a brief overview of traditional copyrights for educators is first provided. We then describe the voluntary Creative Commons copyright licensing framework (“some rights reserved”) as an alternative to conventional “all rights reserved” models. This is followed by an account of a series of workshop activities on copyrights and Creative Commons conducted by the authors in the media literacy classes of a preservice teacher education program in Queensland, Australia. It provides one example of a practical program on critical copyrights approaches, which may be adapted and used by other school and higher education institutions.

"I’m making it different to the book” : transmediation in young children’s print and digital texts

Young children shift meanings across multiple modes long before they have mastered formal writing skills. In a digital age, children are socialised into a wide range of new digital media conventions in the home, at school, and in community-based settings. This article draws on longitudinal classroom research with a culturally diverse cohort of eight-year old children, to advance new understandings about children’s engagement in transmediation in the context of digital media creation. The author illuminates three key principles of transmediation using multimodal snapshots of storyboard images, digital movie frames, and online comics. Insights about transmediation are developed through dialogue with the children about their thought processes and intentions for their multimedia creations.