Microblogging as a literacy practice for educational communities

Microblogging is an emergent adolescent and adult literacy practice that has become popularized through platforms such as Twitter, Plurk and Jaiku, in the rise of Web 2.0 – “the social web”. Yet the potentials of microblogging for literacy learning in educational contexts is currently underexplored in the research and literature. This article draws on new research with 150 adolescent and adult participants in school and university contexts, which was made possible through cross-disciplinary collaboration between specialists English and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) educators. Strategies are provided for teachers to establish their own microblogging networks, with suggested activities to enhance the literacy learning of adolescents in educational contexts.

Foreword for "Critical Literacy Practice: Applications of Critical Theory in Diverse Settings"

Given the impact of standardization and high-stakes testing on literacy education policy internationally, it is encouraging to read fresh accounts of critical literacy in practice being enacted in many different educational contexts. Critical Literacy Practice: Applications of Critical Theory in Diverse Settings delivers what its title promises, namely, serious scholarly accounts of educators working to practice critical literacy and address the complexity that it entails. Importantly, the contributors include both recognized and emerging researchers in critical literacy studies. Critical literacy needs input from culturally diverse and new scholars to address crucial and unfamiliar issues as well as perennial injustices relating to poverty, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and location...

Home literacy education of Taiwanese Australian families : a sociological analysis

This research investigates home literacy education practices of Taiwanese families in Australia. As Taiwanese immigrants represent the largest ¡°Chinese Australian¡± subgroup to have settled in the state of Queensland, teachers in this state often face the challenges of cultural differences between Australian schools and Taiwanese homes. Extensive work by previous researchers suggests that understanding the cultural and linguistic differences that influence how an immigrant child views and interacts with his/her environment is a possible way to minimise the challenges. Cultural practices start from infancy and at home. Therefore, this study is focused on young children who are around the age of four to five. It is a study that examines the form of literacy education that is enacted and valued by Taiwanese parents in Australia. Specifically, this study analyses ¡°what literacy knowledge and skill is taught at home?¡±, ¡°how is it taught?¡± and ¡°why is it taught?¡± The study is framed in Pierre Bourdieu.s theory of social practice that defines literacy from a sociological perspective. The aim is to understand the practices through which literacy is taught in the Taiwanese homes. Practices of literacy education are culturally embedded. Accordingly, the study shows the culturally specialised ways of learning and knowing that are enacted in the study homes. The study entailed four case studies that draw on: observations and recording of the interactions between the study parent and child in their literacy events; interviews and dialogues with the parents involved; and a collection of photographs of the children.s linguistic resources and artefacts. The methodological arguments and design addressed the complexity of home literacy education where Taiwanese parents raise children in their own cultural ways while adapting to a new country in an immigrant context. In other words, the methodology not only involves cultural practices, but also involves change and continuity in home literacy practices. Bernstein.s theory of pedagogic discourse was used to undertake a detailed analysis of parents. selection and organisation of content for home literacy education, and the evaluative criteria they established for the selected literacy knowledge and skill. This analysis showed how parents selected and controlled the interactions in their child.s literacy learning. Bernstein.s theory of pedagogic discourse was used also to analyse change and continuity in home literacy practice, specifically, the concepts of ¡°classification¡± and ¡°framing¡±. The design of this study aimed to gain an understanding of parents. literacy teaching in an immigrant context. The study found that parents tended to value and enact traditional practices, yet most of the parents were also searching for innovative ideas for their adult-structured learning. Home literacy education of Taiwanese families in this study was found to be complex, multi-faceted and influenced in an ongoing way by external factors. Implications for educators and recommendations for future study are provided. The findings of this study offer early childhood teachers in Australia understandings that will help them build knowledge about home literacy education of Taiwanese Australian families.

Socio-Spatial Approaches To Literacy Studies: Rethinking the Social Constitution and Politics of Space

Literacy studies have begun to examine the spatial dimension of literacy practices in a way that foregrounds space, and that considers space as constitutive to human relations and practices. This chapter provides an introduction to spatial literacy research, providing a guide to key theorists, themes, and studies that have shaped historical and new developments in spatial approaches to literacy practice and pedagogy. It begins by reconceptualising socio-spatial approaches to literacy research and defines terms. Intersections with related social theories are examined, with an emphasis on critical approaches and the politics of space. It clarifies the relationship between socio-spatial and socio-cultural paradigms, revisiting the spatial in seminal socio-cultural research. It covers new ground,including networks, flows, and deterritorialisation of literacy practice. The chapter concludes with challenges and recommendations for future language research and educational practice.

Understanding the information literacy experiences of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students

Purpose – This paper outlines research that explores the information literacy experiences of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students. The question explored in this research was: how do EFL students experience information literacy. Design/Methodology/Approach – This study used phenomenography, a relational approach to explore the information literacy experiences of EFL students. Phenomenography studies the qualitatively different ways a phenomenon is experienced in the world around us. Findings – This research revealed that EFL students experienced information literacy in four qualitatively different ways. The four categories revealed through the data were: process, quality, language and knowledge. This research found that language impacted on EFL students’ experiences of information literacy and revealed that EFL students applied various techniques and strategies when they read, understood, organised and translated information. Research limitations/implications – This research was conducted in a specific cultural and educational context, therefore the results might not reflect the experiences of EFL students in other cultural or educational contexts. Practical implications – The findings from this research offer an important contribution to information literacy practice by providing important insights about EFL students’ experiences and perceptions of information and learning that can be used to inform curriculum development in second language learning contexts. Originality/Value - There is currently a lack of research using a relational approach to investigate EFL students’ experiences of information literacy. There is also limited research that explores the impact language has on information literary and learning in English as a foreign or second language contexts.

Afterschool MediaClub: Critical literacy in a high diversity, high poverty urban setting

In this chapter we present analyses of data produced with young people in an afterschool digital literacy program for 9 – 12 year olds. The young people were students at a high diversity, high poverty outer suburban elementary school in Queensland, Australia. The club was part of the URLearning research project (2010-14). In the classroom-based component of the project we worked with teachers to develop intellectually substantive and critical digital literacy practice. MediaClub was in some ways complementary to the classroom component; it was designed to skill up interested kids as digital media experts not only for their families and communities, but also for the classroom. Given the critical literacy traditions established in Australian schools, we approached MediaClub with certain critical expectations. In this chapter we look at what ensued, highlighting unanticipated critical outcomes at a time of heightened struggle over English curriculum. Critical literacy has been part of official English curriculum in Queensland since the early 1990s. The approach has been primarily text analytic, concerned with giving students access to genres of power and tools for understanding the ideological work of language through text. Many ideas for translating this normative critical project into classroom practice have been developed for use from the earliest elementary grades onwards. However, curricular space for critical literacy is under pressure. Amongst other things, this reflects both the development of Australia’s first national curriculum and the construction of a regimen of national literacy testing. At MediaClub we found a certain resistance to learning activities which were “too much like school”. However, in a context of increased control of teachers’ and students’ work in the classroom, MediaClub evolved as a learning space that can be understood in critical terms. Our experience in this regard might be of interest to teachers and researchers in high diversity high poverty settings that are strongly controlled through increasingly prescriptive – even scripted – pedagogies.

Insights Into the Remembered Educational Experiences of Male Caribbean Immigrants to Canada: Literacy and Identity in the Canadian Classroom

Abstract Past research has addressed the issue of male underachievement in literacy as an issue of global concern. This qualitative study focused on one subgroup of males which the literature highlighted as most at risk of educational underachievement in the Canadian educational landscape: male Caribbean immigrants to Canada. The research questions that framed the study sought to gain insight into the educational experiences of this group of learners so that ways through which their literacy achievement as measured by academic performance and classroom engagement could be projected. New literacy studies view literacy as socioculturally bound in social, institutional, and cultural relationships (Gee 1996). Literacy can therefore be thought of as an extension of self that Lankshear and Knobel (2006) assert is always connected to social identities. Central to the research questions as a result of this perspective was the discovery of the ideologies of reading held by the participants and their connections to literacy practice. Supplementary questions delved into socially valued literacy practices and ways in which learners saw themselves as Black males reflected in the Canadian educational framework. In this qualitative study with an interview design, data were collected through individual semistructured interviews with the 4 participants and through a focus group session with all the participants. The findings depicted that identity, interests, and ideologies of reading all influenced the literacy practices and engagement of Caribbean males. The findings documented are valuable as they provide a fresh perspective surrounding the educational experiences of the male Caribbean learner and can present insights which can lead to enhanced academic engagement and improved student achievement for this group of learners.

Sensing place : embodiment, sensoriality, kinesis, and children behind the camera

This article is a call to literacy teachers and researchers to embrace the possibility of attending more consciously to the senses in digital media production. Literacy practices do not occur only in the mind, but involve the sensoriality, embodiment, co-presence, and movement of bodies. This paper theorises the sensorial and embodied dimension of children’s filmmaking about place in two communities in Australia. The films were created by pre-teen Indigenous and non-Indigenous children in Logan, Queensland, and by Indigenous teenagers at the Warralong campus of the Strelley Community School in remote Western Australia. The films were created through engagement in cross-curricular units that sensitised the students’ experience of local places, gathering corporeal information through their sensing bodies as they interacted with the local ecology. The analysis highlights how the sensorial and bodily nature of literacy practice through documentary filmmaking was central to the children’s formation and representation of knowledge, because knowledge and literacy practices are not only acquired through the mind, but are also reliant on embodiment, sensoriality, co-presence, and kinesics of the body in place.

E-motion diaries : blogging emotional responses to online learning in higher education

Emotions are inherently social, and are central to learning, online interaction and literacy practices (Shen, Wang, & Shen, 2009). Demonstrating the dynamic sociality of literacy practice, we used e-motion diaries or web logs to explore the emotional states of pre-service high school teachers’ experiences of online learning activities. This is because the methods of communication used by university educators in online learning and writing environments play an important role in fulfilling students’ need for social interaction and inclusion (McInnerney & Roberts, 2004). Feelings of isolation and frustration are common emotions experienced by students in many online learning environments, and are associated with the success or failure of online interactions and learning (Su, et al., 2005). The purpose of the study was to answer the research question: What are the trajectories of pre-service teachers’ emotional states during online learning experiences? This is important because emotions are central to learning, and the current trend toward Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) needs research about students’ emotional connections in online learning environments (Kop, 2011). The project was conducted with a graduate class of 64 high school science pre-service teachers in Science Education Curriculum Studies in a large Australian university, including males and females from a variety of cultural backgrounds, aged 22-55 years. Online activities involved the students watching a series of streamed live lectures for the first 5 weeks providing a varied set of learning experiences, such as viewing science demonstrations (e.g., modeling the use of discrepant events). Each week, students provided feedback on learning by writing and posting an e-motion diary or web log about their emotional response. Students answered the question: What emotions did you experience during this learning experience? The descriptive data set included 284 online posts, with students contributing multiple entries. Linguistic appraisal theory, following Martin and White (2005), was used to regroup the 22 different discrete emotions reported by students into the six main affect groups – three positive and three negative: unhappiness/happiness, insecurity/security, and dissatisfaction/satisfaction. The findings demonstrated that the pre-service teachers’ emotional responses to the streamed lectures tended towards happiness, security, and satisfaction within the typology of affect groups – un/happiness, in/security, and dis/satisfaction. Fewer students reported that the streamed lectures triggered negative feelings of frustration, powerlessness, and inadequacy, and when this occurred, it often pertained to expectations of themselves in the forthcoming field experience in classrooms. Exceptions to this pattern of responses occurred in relation to the fifth streamed lecture presented in a non-interactive slideshow format that compressed a large amount of content. Many students responded to the content of the lecture rather than providing their emotional responses to this lecture, and one student felt “completely disengaged”. The social practice of online writing as blogs enabled the students to articulate their emotions. The findings primarily contribute new understanding about students' wide range of differing emotional states, both positive and negative, experienced in response to streamed live lectures and other learning activities in higher education external coursework. The is important because the majority of previous studies have focused on particular negative emotions, such as anxiety in test taking. The research also highlights the potentials of appraisal theory for studying human emotions in online learning and writing.

O livro didático de alfabetização na era do letramento: uma análise crítica

Essa pesquisa insere-se em um contexto de muitas discussões acerca da qualidade da educação no Brasil, motivadas principalmente pelos maus resultados atingidos pelo país em exames internacionais. Os constantes debates têm dado margem, inclusive, a movimentos que, culpando os PCNs pelo fracasso generalizado na alfabetização, clamam pela volta de um ensino tradicional. De fato, apesar das imensas contribuições trazidas pelos estudos que embasam os PCNs, apenas a sua institucionalização não garantiu a ocorrência de mudanças efetivas na educação. Principalmente no campo da alfabetização, interpretações equivocadas levaram, por exemplo, ao desencadeamento de um processo de desmetodização do ensino, caracterizado pela exclusão total, nos últimos anos, das questões de ordem metodológica das pautas de discussões. Tal fenômeno, denominado por Soares (2004) de desinvenção da alfabetização, e também abordado por outros pesquisadores (cf. MORAIS, 2006; FRADE, 2003; CARVALHO, 2007), obviamente, acabou se refletindo nos novos livros didáticos, avaliados e recomendados pelo MEC. O problema é que os novos livros parecem não estar satisfazendo às necessidades dos docentes. Estudos recentes têm revelado tanto uma insatisfação desses profissionais em relação a tais materiais quanto a manutenção de práticas didáticas preconizadas pelos métodos tradicionais (Cf. BRITO et al., 2007; SILVA 2008; e MORAIS E ALBURQUERQUE, 2008). Considerando-se que: (a) hoje já se reconhece que os processos de alfabetização e letramento são complementares e indissociáveis (SOARES, 2004); (b) na realidade brasileira os livros didáticos ainda são recursos centrais no trabalho em sala de aula; (c) as obras são avaliadas a partir de rígidos critérios, alinhados às mais recentes teorias; e (d), a disponibilização gratuita desses materiais demanda um alto investimento do governo, o objetivo deste estudo foi analisar criticamente um dos livros didáticos de alfabetização do PNLD/2010 (L.E.R., Leitura, escrita e reflexão 1 ano, FTD), na tentativa de levantar pistas sobre os possíveis motivos dessa não-adesão dos docentes aos novos livros. Para tanto, foi realizada uma análise documental crítica, de abordagem qualitativa, que observou na obra os seguintes aspectos: o espaço dedicado ao ensino do sistema de escrita alfabética; a existência de articulação desse trabalho com o de letramento; a coerência entre a orientação pedagógica declarada e as atividades propostas; e a clareza e objetividade das instruções e sugestões fornecidas ao docente. As análises realizadas mostram, entre os dados mais relevantes, que o livro estudado ainda dedica um espaço muito reduzido às atividades de ensino do sistema de escrita e não apresenta uma articulação satisfatória entre essas atividades e àquelas voltadas ao letramento, corroborando dados de outros estudos, aqui já mencionados. Esses resultados podem ser indicativos de que os critérios estipulados para a avaliação desses livros precisariam ser revistos de forma que atendessem mais equilibradamente tanto aos objetivos da alfabetização e do letramento quanto às necessidades da prática docente. Para um maior aprofundamento deste estudo considero que, futuramente, seus dados podem ser complementados por análises dos próprios docentes sobre o livro estudado, ou até mesmo por pesquisas sobre seu uso efetivo em sala de aula

Les stratégies de compréhension lors de lectures à voix haute : accompagnement parental auprès d’enfants de cinq ans

Le rôle du parent est important dans le développement de la compétence en lecture de jeunes enfants et lire à son enfant est une pratique de littératie familiale fortement encouragée par la société. Cette étude a pour objectif de décrire cet accompagnement parental notamment en lien avec les stratégies de compréhension utilisées entre un parent et son enfant lors de la lecture à voix haute. Nous avons observé 10 parents lire un abécédaire, un texte narratif avec intrigue, un texte narratif sans intrigue et un texte informatif à leur enfant de cinq ans. Il s’avère que les stratégies utilisées par les parents et leurs enfants diffèrent selon le genre de texte. Les élèves ayant de faibles résultats (reconnaissance des lettres et de leurs sons, rappel du texte, compréhension du vocabulaire réceptif et de la morphosyntaxe) utilisent également moins de stratégies de compréhension lors de la lecture à voix haute que les enfants présentant de meilleurs résultats. Nous avons également vérifié l’étayage offert par les parents d’enfants présentant de bonnes et de faibles compétences en lecture. Ces deux groupes de parents se distinguent par la qualité et la fréquence de l’utilisation des stratégies de compréhension. En effet, nous remarquons que les parents qui guident leurs enfants dans l’utilisation des stratégies de compréhension sont davantage associés aux enfants démontrant une bonne compétence en lecture. Finalement, nous avons aussi vérifié les pratiques de littératie familiale (temps d’exposition et accessibilité à la lecture, modélisation par les membres de la famille, attitude des parents envers la lecture et mise en place d’activité favorisant la conscience phonologique de l’enfant). Seule la mise sur pied d’activités favorisant la conscience phonologique a pu être liée au rendement des enfants.

Uma compreensão sociológica do processo de alfabetização : comparando diferentes práticas

Este estudo analisa oito dimensões do currículo, da prática pedagógica e da avaliação, no ano letivo de 2004, em duas turmas de alfabetização de escolas públicas de Porto Alegre – uma Estadual e outra Municipal. O processo de alfabetização numa escola organizada por Séries é comparado com o realizado na escola organizada por Ciclos de Formação. Os resultados encontrados nestas duas práticas são comparados com os resultados obtidos numa prática de alfabetização investigada em 1984 (Veit, 1990), na mesma Escola Estadual. Esta investigação foi baseada na teoria do sociólogo Basil Bernstein (1996, 1998) e inspirada nas definições operacionais de uma pesquisa realizada em Lisboa por Morais et al. (1993). A comparação entre os três contextos educacionais apresentou diferenças acentuadas entre as ideologias de um e de outro sistema de ensino, sendo possível distinguir, na Escola Estadual, uma modalidade de Pedagogia Visível e, na Escola Municipal, uma Pedagogia Invisível.

O latim, uma língua morta?: uma metáfora em análise: o olhar da lingüística aplicada e suas implicações para o ensino

The focus of this research is the teaching of the Latin language. Due to the fact that its teaching has been facing a growing crisis in the last four decades, which currently persists, we ponder about external and internal causes of its decline, aiming at pointing out an alternative that enable us to find a way out of this situation. So, our research questions mainly concern how the teaching of Latin is viewed amongst the academic society, also investigating if it has kept up with the development of the scientific reflection about human language and the new approaches on language teaching. Furthermore, we analyse the contribution that the study of Latin can provide to the academic formation of language teachers and try to identify the areas of knowledge that can contribute to a reshaping of its teaching. Based on these guidelines, we have established as the goals of this research: 1) to reflect about the current situation of the teaching of Latin and the causes of its decline; 2) to determine its social representation among teachers and students of the Language Courses, as a way of defining the role it fulfills in the academic formation of teachers; 3) to accomplish an exploratory study of some handbooks that show alternative proposals on how to teach Latin, in order to detect their adequacy to current times and to the goals of the academic study of languages; 4) to offer an alternative proposal on how to teach Latin that takes into account the principles of Applied Linguistics, considering the socio-historical and cultural aspects of the language, enabling it to meet the requirements set by modern times. This research is divided into two parts. The first part presents the theoretical framework. We map the studies about Latin teaching inside and outside Brazil and argue against the concept of Latin being a dead language, presenting arguments set on changing this view. Then we describe and comment the notions of literacy, genre and culture, which helped us understand the reasons for the decline of the teaching of Latin and to point out suitable ways to overcome the crisis. The second part is dedicated to reflecting on the literacy practices in Latin teaching. We began by examining the answers to the questionnaires given to students and teachers about the view of Latin in the Language Courses; then we reflect on the teaching-learning of Latin as an academic literacy practice followed by an analysis of the didactic material used in teaching Latin. Finally, we suggest an approach of the familiar letter genre in ancient Rome as a means of teaching Latin in a contextualized way

Registros de ordens e ocorrências: uma prática de letramento no trabalho da enfermagem hospitalar

Nursing documentation is a literacy practice which is regulated by law. Among the written practices of the literacy field, nursing registration is understood as the attendance resume of the main problems and occurrences on duty. In other words it is a document and a communication instrument used by hospital orderly on duty. It s main goal is to keep a record of the information which is necessary to the continuity of the activities as well as to the assistance to the patients. Taking into consideration the complexity of this kind of literacy practice, this study which took place in a hospital context, aims at studying the nursing registration process in order to explain its implementation in the nursing field. The discussion is situated in the area of applied linguistics, and it makes a linkage between linguistics approaches and language questions which are related to the area of discourse at work. The theoretical foundations come from contemporary literacy studies such as Hamilton (2000) who proposes the following categories: participants, domain, artifacts and activities. The analysis was guided by the principles of the ethnographic methodology which proposes that the researcher spends much time in the field and uses a set of techniques in order to collect data related to the subjects speech as well as their deeds concerning the research main object. The data were collected through field observations, analysis of 100 nursing records, 04 reflective sessions and interviews as well involving 36 nurses. On one hand, the analysis reveals the importance of the nursing records in terms of documentation and communication. On the other hand, it shows informational, compositional as well as normative difficulties in terms of linguistics and legal aspects. For, we conclude that these questions need to be addressed through the process of intervention especially in events of teacher in service activities so that the professional nurses may improve their practice in relation to the elaboration of the nursing documentation on duty