new literacies, inquiries, and technology
TRANSCRIPT
New literacies, inquiries, and technology: The Rest of the Story
John K. Lee, North Carolina State University Carl A. Young, North Carolina State
University
American Educational Research Association ConferenceSan Diego, California
April, 2009
New forms of literacy in teaching and learning
What forms of “reading” do technologies enable?
What forms of communication are enabled by technology?
Understandi
ng
SharingInform
ation
learning
living
working
playing
Project involved 16 seniors in an undergraduate language arts and social studies teaching methods course conducting personal content-based and new literacies-oriented investigations using a specific approach to inquiry and then considering the technological and pedagogical implications of the knowledge they developed
New Literacies
TPACK
Inquiry
New Literacies
• Involves modes of communication and the cognitive, cultural, and social
contexts in which communication occurs (New London Group, 1996)
• Conditions and contexts for new literacies enable “post-typographic forms of
textual practice” (Lankshear & Michele Knobel, 2003, p. 17)
• Subject to almost continuous change (Leu, 2000)
• “Skills, strategies, and dispositions necessary to successfully use and adapt to
the rapidly changing information and communication technologies and contexts
that continuously emerge in our world and influence all areas of our personal
and professional lives” (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, & Cammack, 2004, p. 1570).
TPACK
• Transactional interplay of technological, pedagogical and content
knowledge
• Involves traditional (specific, stable, and transparent) and digital
(protean, unstable, and opaque) technologies (Koehler &
Mishra, 2008)
• TPACK as wicked problems (Rittal & Webber, 1973) - incomplete,
contradictory, and changing conditions (Mishra & Koehler, 2006)
Inquiry• Way of learning that uses real-world resources to investigate authentic
problems
• Emerges from experiences that are shaped by human curiosity and reflection (Dewey, 1910)
• Bruce and Davidson (1996) literacy-based inquiry model centered on student interests including reflection, dialogue, writing, experimentation, observation, drawing, music, etc.
• Others pointing out benefits of inquiry-based learning - Applebee (1981), Dewey (1938), Hillocks (1986), Harvey (1998), & Lindfors (1999), Macrorie (1980, 1986, 1988), Short & Harste (1996)
How do pre-service teachers negotiate humanities content, inquiry pedagogies and podcast technologies as they develop specific forms of teacher knowledge?
Participant activities
• Conducted an inquiry on a topic relevant for middle grades
language arts or social studies using an open-ended inquiry
method
• Considered the pedagogical and technological implications
of their inquiries given their knowledge about new literacies
• Reflected on the processes they engaged in their inquiry and
their instructional planning
Method
DATA
• Participants’ work
• Observations
• Reflections by
participants
ANALYSIS
• Erickson’s (1986) analytical
induction method
• Empirical assertions with evidence
from the data
• Examples of how participants
developed specialized knowledge
• Illustrations of transactional
thinking
Method• Constant comparative style of Glaser and Strauss (1967)
• Focus on transactional interaction among participants’
• Emergent topics were compared and collapsed into nine coding categories
• Data were re-read and coded, emergence of additional topics or new ideas
• Nine codes were supplemented with one additional code in the second reading.
• Findings were collapsed into three assertions about participants’ pedagogical thinking related to their inquiries
Limitations
• Research activities influence perceptions (judgments about the value of podcast and the inquiry approach used)
• An inherent part of qualitative research focus on transfer of findings
• “Fittingness” or a “degree of congruence between receiving and giving contexts” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985 p.124)
• Rich descriptions and participant quotes to enable the transfer of findings
Assertion 1 – Participants engaged in a small-scale new literacy form of text reformulation
• New forms of knowledge representation (audio and video)
• Participants wrote in multiple forms including inquiry, written
text, audio podcast, irony, and biography
• Engaged in a new literacy example of text reformulation
(Camps & Milian, 1999)
• Specifically, reformulating printed text into a dynamic podcast
presentation
DanaStruggled to compose an inquiry question
“What were the politics and controversies around this historical event?”
Research notes and short memos
Narrative essay – simple chronological telling of the events
From report to Rest of the Story text - focused on Max Yasgur
Sequencing of irony and the suspension around the identity
From Rest of the Story text to audio podcast form - required that Dana experiment with text cadence and sentence structure
Initial text formulation
Second text formulation
Third text formulation
First major text reformulation
Fourth text formulation
Second reformulated text
Assertion 2 – Pedagogical adaptation served as an overriding context for all thinking about instruction in participants’ work
Assertion 3 – The podcasting form was transparent, but the technical procedures required to produce and publish a podcast
were overly cumbersome
• The recording process– Selecting an audio recording process– Using specific audio recording software
(Audacity, etc)– Using an external microphone– Managing the audio quality – Editing the recording
• The audio file– Sharing, emailing, or transporting audio
files– Converting audio file types– Uploading the audio file to a file server– Managing the file size
• Creating the podcast– Setting up an iTunes account– Uploading to iTunes– Naming files and proving meta information
for locating audio podcast files
Maxine • Text reformulation - written story
as performance• Initial reading and recordings
using Audacity, over 100 minutes • File conversion, 60 minutes • Uploading file to iTunes, 2 hours• What skills translated to other
teaching and learning tasks? • Maxine did not see herself
teaching students these technical steps - felt empowered to work with facilitate students to help them create audio podcasts.
Discussion and Conclusion
• Text reformulation evident in this research (writing and oral communication) consistent with the New London Group’s (1996) notion of a multiple communications channels
• Shift from producers to distributors
• Focus on reworking texts in multiple technologically enabled contexts
