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1985 19952015

2005

Joel Mario ThomasMuseum of Multimodal History

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Joel M Thomas is the current executive director and founder of IE21CL, the Institute for the Emergence of 21st Century Literacies and a graduate student in the CCNY M.A. in Language and Literacy Program.

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2005

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In 2005, it seemed that the perfect set of experiences had come together for me to find my voice in a multimodal world:  being a college student at the time who was one of the first set of user on Facebook; being engaged in a co-circular program which introduced me to a new genre called digital story-telling as an early predecessor to  a pedagogical approach many now enact through the use of e-portfolios; and being exposed through travel and service-learning in the post 9/11 world to many of the social issues facing American society. These three elements were further supported by the very powerful platform that YouTube created that year and has given me a growing space to develop a social voice that I might not have otherwise had. However, as Diana George points out in her work, From Analysis to Design, "literacy means more than words, and visual literacy means more than play." Since having had a transformative learning experience in the CAT Youth Threatre as a teenager, I had come to know myself best when I wrote my story down on the page. But as I began to explore these new modes of communication, I would

struggle through rhetorical aporia as I attempted  to be both authentic and relevant.  

Finding My Voice

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