electro-textual

Have recently been working with the Conversations in ACE conference, Eastern Metro Region of "Adult Community and Further Education" (ACFE). Kerrin Pryor was presenting on her research into "New Literacies", where they are using "Squeeze Text" (or mobile SMS language) to explore literacy for young people.

Trawling the web for interesting ideas for our Literacy and Multimedia course, and came upon this lesson plan from Read Write Think (.org) (We're looking at advertising and publicity.)

Looks to be a terrific resource in general, although this lesson plan is too complicated for the learners we have at the moment.  What i like about this lesson plan is the way it includes pre-reading for the teacher who wants to gain some theoretical background, as well as clear steps for introducing the topic through discussion. 

Have found the book i’ve been looking for: Carey Jewitt’s “Technology, Literacy and Learning: a multimodal approach“.

Dr Jewitt, an Academic Fellow funded by the UK Research Council, has a complex take on literacies, involving social semiotics, ‘activity theory’, and the potential for multimodality to have a big impact on the way people learn. I’m looking forward to finding out more about how “image, sound, writing and movement on screen contributes to the construction of school knowledge and potentials for learning.”

Her focus is on schools, rather than adult education, and one impetus for the book was noticing how some children use technology differently in their home environment (compared to the school environments she was researching).

In the last year or two, we have seen a huge rise in the use of audio online, and now video. Some studies have pointed out the enormous value of the sound of the human voice. For example, in her work around “Different Voices, Different Spaces“, Delia Bradshaw has spoken of the potential for emotional connection, when the voice is involved. Many educators in the Australian Flexible Learning Framework have pointed out the usefulness of Digital Storytelling as an engagement strategy. The concept of “visual literacy” has risen sharply in the educational consciousness.
People connect with images, sound and moving pictures – so how does this multimodal approach assist literacy learning?

The incomparable Robyn Jay is presenting at the ACAL (Australian Council for Adult Literacy) Conference in South Australia, tomorrow (Friday 6th October), on the topic of "Connecting voices: new mindsets, new opportunities". She's asking people what new and emerging technologies are being used by language and literacy practitioners, so i've given a 3minute response on Odeo. (But it doesn't look like i can include it here