Teaching new literacies, constructing meaning with Web 2.0 tools

The literacy landscape in the 21st century has shifted from print-based literacy practices to multicultural, multimodal, multimedia practices in a global environment that is complex and diverse. Much of this shift is largely due to communication through Internet and other computer technologies, especially Web 2.0 technologies, which according to Herring (2013) are “a fairly well-defined set of popular web-based platforms that are characterized by user-generated content and social interaction” (p.1). In other words, what Web 2.0 technologies have allowed, is increased participatory information sharing, user-centered design, and collaboration.According to Thorne (2010), Web 2.0 tools and environments “involve less a wave of technological innovation and more accurately a significant transformation in the types, quality and volume of personal expression, mediated interactivity, and ambient awareness of multiple social networks” (p. 143). Web 2.0 tools and environments also increase blending of multiple modes of meaning design that are linguistic, spatial, visual, gestural, and aural. Kress (2000) argues that “it is now impossible to make sense of texts, even their linguistic parts alone, without having a clear idea of what these other features might be contributing to the meaning of a text”(p. 337).

New literacies and the FL classroom

Despite the rising importance of multimodal communication in our world today, the verbal (i.e.: linguistic) modality continues to dominate over other modes of making meaning (i.e., spatial, visual, gestural, and aural) in the FL classroom. Attending to different modes of text design is of great importance for contemporary learners. However, it requires that we broaden our understanding of literacy beyond that of reading and writing “in page-bound, official, standard forms of the national language”, and thus limiting it to “formalized, monolingual, monocultural, and rule-governed forms of language.” Our understanding of literacy must not only include “the multiplicity of discourses,” but also account for “the context of our culturally and linguistically diverse and increasingly globalized societies,” and “the multifarious cultures that interrelate and the plurality of the texts that circulate.” It must acknowledge “the burgeoning variety of text forms associated with information and multimedia technologies,” as well as the “proliferation of communication channels and media [which] supports and extends cultural and subcultural diversity” (New London Group, 2000, p.9).

In other words, new literacies, as outlined by Leu, Zawilinski, Castek, Banerjee, Housand, Liu, and O'Neil (2007, pp. 6-7):
• are coming from reconceptualizations of literacy made possible by the Internet and other information and communication technologies;
• are a key aspect of individual and group participation in our globalized world, and so should be incorporated into school curricula today;
• are changing as quickly as new technologies emerge; education should therefore not aim to teach students specific literacies, but rather teach them how to adapt to the new literacies that will appear during their lifetime; and
• are complex in nature and require an interdisciplinary perspective to better understand them.

Web 2.0 and the multiliteracies framework

Consistent with the view of FL learning within the multiliteracies framework, reading and authoring in Web 2.0 are socially-embedded communicative acts that bring together the linguistic, cognitive, and sociocultural dimensions of literacy, dynamically interacting together as meaning is created from and through digitally mediated texts. Web 2.0 tools and environments can be productively used to bring to learners’ attention, aspects of FL language use, ways to forge and sustain social relationship, and socialization practices. In-class interpretation and authoring of digitally-mediated texts can help learners understand how meanings are created online and in the process expand their textual competence.

Web 2.0 tools and environments can also foster a strong sense of audience and community, which drives the type of feedback and reviews given by Web 2.0 community members whose primary purpose is to sustain relationships. Further, as learners participate in online communities that cross local and national borders, they can also learn from and about other cultures and become more effective communicators with members of those cultures.

For learners to develop new literacies, digital texts need to become central in the FL classroom. They provide the necessary basis for learners to develop awareness of discourse systems in Web 2.0 (e.g., shared conventions, norms of participation, and practices of people who are active participants in them) and of how to effectively use them in communication.

From a multiliteracies view, an important related concept to effective communication in Web 2.0 is that of affinity spaces, a term coined by Gee (2004, 2005) as a way to better represent the kinds of interactions that take place within Web 2.0 environments. In these spaces, people “affiliate with others to share knowledge and gain knowledge that is distributed and dispersed across many different people, places, Internet sites, and modalities” (Gee, 2004, p. 73). In other words, participation, distribution and dispersion of expertise, collaboration, and relatedness, are features that are part and parcel of the new literacies mindset and are essential to a socially situated view of learning in Web 2.0 spaces.

As you start designing lessons and assessments to help learners develop new literacies, keep in mind the concepts that have been introduced here.

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References:
– Clark, J. E. (2010). The digital imperative: Making the case for a 21st century pedagogy. Computers and Composition, 27, 23–35.

– Gee, J. (2004). Situated language and learning: A critique of traditional schooling. New York, NY: Routledge.

– Herring, S. (2012). Discourse in Web 2.0: Familiar, reconfigured, and emergent. In D. Tannen & A. M. Tester (Eds.), Discourse 2.0: Language and new media (pp. 1-25). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

– Kress, G. (2000). Multimodality: Challenges to thinking about language. TESOL Quarterly, 34, 337–340.

– Leu, D. J, Zawilinski, L., Castek, J., Banerjee, M., Housand, B., Liu, Y., & O'Neil, M. (2007). What is new about the new literacies of online reading comprehension? In A. Berger, L. Rush, & J. Eakle (Eds.), Secondary School Reading and Writing: What research reveals for classroom practices (pp.37-68). NCTE/NCRLL: Chicago, IL

– New London Group. (2000). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. In B.Cope & M. Kalantzis (Eds.), Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures (pp.9–37). Melbourne: Macmillan.

– Thorne, S. L. (2010). The ‘intercultural turn’ and language learning in the crucible of new media. In F. Helm & S. Guth (Eds.), Telecollaboration 2.0 for language and intercultural learning (pp. 139–164). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

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This module includes:
• A short webinar led by an expert on the topic
• A few core readings and a set of reflective questions to consider before and after reading
• A series of pedagogical applications
• A reflective teaching prompt which engages teachers to think back on their experience preparing and implementing a literacy-oriented, digitally-mediated lesson
• A few additional resources, which will include: 2-4 annotated references, including one that focuses on advanced instruction; links

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