Multimodal play and remixing
A topic I found interesting was multimodal play. I found this interesting because it is very similar to my jobs view on education. It is the idea that we can combine literacy, play, and what children are interested in. According to Lankshear & Knobel (2013), a challenge with this pedagogy for educators is that they need to be flexible and quick thinking when it comes to their curriculum. The interests of young adults are always changing as well as the digital media that is being used. Another challenge is that it is not a typical style of curriculum for schools to increase the use of digital media in classrooms, such as phones. Thus, it can be hard for school administrators to stand behind the concept of letting adolescents use their phones and computers more during school.
I enjoyed reading the different ways educators incorporated multimodal play into classrooms of older students. I only work with preschool-4th grade students, so it is very different how the lower grades and upper grades incorporate play and technology into the school day. There were three different ways discussed in the chapter that showcased educators' pedagogy techniques. In room 208 at East Middle School, the students pretend that they are journalists. According to Lankshear & Knobel (2013), the teacher utilized, "reporters' notebooks, cameras, and press passes" for students to use in their role play as a journalist (p. 26). A teacher, Tiffany, at another school incorporated the use of blogs and social media into the curriculum. By bringing social media into her classroom, she was able to create strong bonds with her students by getting to know them on a deeper level outside of the school environment.
I think incorporating digital media into the classroom, accompanied by playing, is a great pedagogy to be using in schools. Students appreciate that their teachers care about what they're interested in and give them the space they need to experiment and try new medias. As an educator of younger children, it is great seeing a similar mode of play being used with older students. Play, in any context, is an important part of child development throughout life. As the use of technology increases, it is necessary that educators become knowledgeable in digital media being used. Digital media, school, and home is all becoming intertwined with each other.
Aside from the multimodal play pedagogy, I also learned a lot from reading about remixing. This picture from the book I found very helpful with explaining the concept. For example, the romantic authorship refers to the person who is the writer, the media they created, and then the person who reads the media. The other ideas shown in this picture show how collaboration with media can occur and how a person can pull information from other sources (Lankshear & Knobel, 2013).
Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2013). A new literacies reader: Educational perspectives. Peter Lang.
I also found the concept of multimodal play to be interesting, but I also agree with your statements about the challenges of implementing this classrooms- "Thus, it can be hard for school administrators to stand behind the concept of letting adolescents use their phones and computers more during school."
ReplyDeleteI know in the middle school attached to my elementary school there isn't too much of an issue of students using their phones inappropriately. However, I can see how it could be seen as an issue to certain administration, and parents for students to be utilizing their phones in a classroom setting-especially if the word, "play" is involved!
I found the concept of multimodal play to be beneficial when combining digital learning and human connection. The graph of multimodal play that you posted helped me understand the benefits of digital learning and remixing the different ideas together. It seems like the concept of remixing can be all over the place but when it comes together the learning can be extremally beneficial for not only the students learning but the relationship between the student and the educator as well.
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