Week 7

Alternatively, you can watch a video of this mode-bending task below. Just sit back, push play, and let me guide you through the activity :)

Benefits:

I attempted to make the task as multi-modal as possible being that "of the modes of meaning, the Multimodal is the most significant" (NLG, 1996, p.80) and "afford[s] greater access to knowledge" (Dobson & Willinsky, 2009, p.1). The original task’s primary semiotic mode was linguistic, and the primary semiotic modes in my task redesign are visual and audio. I also chose to add interactivity, more visuals, audio, and a brief video in an attempt to make the task more accessible for all, "distinguish[ing it] from its print predecessors because it is interactive, nonlinear, multimedia, and fluid rather than fixed" (Dobson & Willinsky, 2009, p.6).

By providing choice for viewers/ readers of my task, I am able to accommodate their various needs and learning styles; they can now choose to read it, view it, or listen to it- flexibly, at their own pace, in whichever order they choose. As an educator this is important for me to keep in mind due to the fact that students come with varying amounts of background knowledge, and although "readers with low knowledge of the content area benefit from reading texts with a high coherence order, those with high knowledge may learn a great deal more from a text with low coherence order" (Dobson & Willinsky, 2009, p.7); making choice essential to meet the needs of all my students.

The greatest benefit of this task was it reaffirmed for me the "mission of education... [whose] fundamental purpose is to ensure all students benefit from learning in ways that allow them to participate fully in public, community, and economic life" (NLG, 1996, p.60); essentially preparing them for the real world.

Challenges:

The biggest challenge I faced was due to the fact that I underestimated the amount of time and effort that would be required to change the semiotic mode of the first task. The instruction given to "avoid simply recording [ourselves] describing the image", was hard because automatically I was thinking of adding audio as my alternative semiotic mode of choice, and was initially stuck on how to redesign the task.

Being a student myself before the rise of digital literacy, and being primarily accustomed to using and most familiar with the linguistic semiotic mode to make meaning, made this task all the more challenging. However today, due to our "increasing reliance on digital modes of communication and the linguistic shifts that such reliance promotes, [which] might eventually result in "print culture sans print"" (Dobson & Willinsky, 2009, p.11), has me pushing myself to utilize (and embrace) different semiotic modes to communicate and represent information and content.

Redesign Process:

I found the redesign process to be a reminder for me as an educator that "engaging in meaning-making and communication in the digital age... entails becoming well-versed in different semiotic modes, visual, textual, and verbal" (Dobson & Willinsky, 2009, p.15), and thus I should always be deliberately including each of them in my instruction.

I often create and use Hyperdocs or choice boards with students in my classroom- as a way to allow them voice and choice when consuming course content or completing activities, and allows me to "pursue a "metamedia literacy" with students... plac[ing] the emphasis on access to information, rather than the imposition of learning" (Dobson & Willinsky, 2009, p.19).

In the end, using multi-literacies and multi-modal forms of representation help "ensure that differences of culture, language, and gender are not barriers to educational success" (NLG, 1996, p.61), which I maintain is one of my ultimate goals as a teacher.

Being that "the new multimedia and hypermedia channels can... provide members of subcultures with the opportunity to find their own voices" (NLG, 1996, p.70-71), we as educators ned to "rethink what we are teaching" (NLG, 1996, p.61), as "schools... play a critical role in determining students' life opportunities" (NLG, 1996, p.71).