Lankshear and Knobel (2013) note that
“portable technologies and increased wireless connectivity enable greater
variation in what is composed, where and when composing happens, and reasons
for composing” (p.25). Students, and
adolescents in particular, are engaged, more than ever with their portable and “smart”
devices. In addition, they have a
multitude of means of engagement at their fingertips, as they navigate through
their daily endeavors. They use their
portable devices to socialize, communicate, research, do homework, be
entertained, and organize their lives.
Information consumption and learning is taking place “on the fly” and
via a variety of channels. Why not
incorporate these multimodalities in the classroom?
Lankshear
and Knobel (2013) state that bringing multimodal means of literacy “can be
generative of meaningful literacy practices and teaching and learning
relationships” (p.25). A high school English
teacher from Brooklyn, N.Y. has reconfigured her traditional pedagogical
methods to engage and support the needs of her students. By introducing the use of blogs in the
classroom, this teacher was able to not only get the opportunity to know her
students better, but to also be a better advisor to them. As she read and assessed their blog entries,
she could then follow up with them digitally and in person, along with being
able to relate to them and support them in their literacy development (Lankshear
and Knobel, 2013).
Taking
into consideration Bill Green’s model of literacy (2013), the operational
dimension of blogging allows for reading and writing in a different context,
while being able to show competence and comprehension of a particular subject matter. From the cultural dimension, blogging is a
social practice and portrays the bloggers ability to make and grasp meanings
appropriately. Finally, from the
critical dimension, blogging allows for an open dialogue that allows students
to interact with and renovate literacy, not just achieve it (Green
and Beavis, 2013).
I
have been keenly interested in the concept of blogging for quite some
time. I read and follow blogs; last
semester, I created a blog site and dappled in blogging; this semester,
blogging is a weekly venture; it only seems logical in this progression to
incorporate it into my classroom.
References
Green,
B. & Beavis, C. (2013). Literacy in 3D: An integrated perspective in theory
and practice. Australian
Journal of Language and Literacy, 36(3).
Lankshear, C. and
Knobel, M. (2013). A New Literacies
Reader: Educational Perspectives. New
York, NY:
Journal of Language and Literacy, 36(3).