Creativity as capital in the literacy classroom: youth as multimodal designers

Many school literacy practices ignore adolescents' new digitally mediated subjectivity as it has been shaped by the new media age. Youth possess often unappreciated repertories of practice which allow them to use their imagination and creativity to combine print, visual and digital modes in combinations that can be applied to new educational, civic, media and workplace contexts. This paper reports on research in two middle years classrooms in New York City's Chinatown, where students' design skills were recognised and validated when they were encouraged to critically re‐represent curricular knowledge through multimodal design. The curriculum, rather than privileging print‐only representations, recognised the linguistic, social, economic and cultural capital that different students brought to school. The findings suggest schools should harness youths' creativity – that often manifests itself through their capital resources – as they integrate and adapt to the new digital affordances acquired through their out‐of‐school literacy practices.     

Adolescents' Agentic Work on Developing Personal Pedagogies on Social Media

While current research points out that young people are developing emerging culture of learning in informal spaces, less is known about such digital literacy practices in the Asian contexts where the notion of literacy tends to refer to school literacy. Research on young people's online participatory culture continues to suggest that social media offer affinity spaces where extensive knowledge is acquired, constructed and produced outside of schools. In this paper, we use two case studies on social media as illustrative examples to understand how adolescents shape their learning online. We aim to contribute to the ongoing dialectics on social media and learning by examining how adolescents exhibit agency online. We argue that social media such as Facebook offer high learner agency environments for adolescents to participate in self‐initiated enterprise and allow them to develop personal trajectories for learning. The case studies presented in this paper suggested that the adolescents' pursuit of their passions on online affinity spaces gave rise to intellectual friendships and the development of personal pedagogies.     

Multimedia literacy practices in beginning classrooms and at home: the differences in practices and beliefs

Multimedia literacy practices in the homes of young children are changing rapidly, but the use of them in the early years of education is moving slowly. This research was aimed to find out what teachers of 5‐year‐olds, in their first 6 months of compulsory schooling, think about the children's literacy practices at home, including the perceived use of digital media at home. We also wanted to find out what the teachers did in their classrooms that was similar or different to the students' experiences of literacy practices across several media. Parents of 76 children, and their teachers, from 10 classrooms in mid‐high and mid‐low socio‐economic areas completed surveys. The parents' survey asked about the literacy‐related experiences their children are involved in. The teachers' survey asked for their beliefs about the literacy‐related experiences the children in their classrooms engaged in, on average, including the use of digital media. The teachers were also asked about the literacy practices in their classroom and their use of media. This paper describes the teachers' beliefs and the similarities and differences in practices between home and school, including literacy practices using digital technology.     

Literacy and capital in immigrant youths' online networks across countries

Communication technologies are playing an increasingly prominent role in facilitating immigrants' social networks across countries and the transnational positioning of immigrant youth in their online language and literacy practices. Drawing from a comparative case study of the digital literacy practices of immigrant youth of Chinese descent, this paper examines the cross-border social relationships that are fostered between the youth and their peers in their natal country through the use of instant messaging and other online media. Using Pierre Bourdieu's capital and field theory, and the concept of social capital, this paper considers how literacy development in transnational contexts constitutes the production of social and cultural capital. It argues that the youths' online literacy practices need to be understood within the particular social fields in which they are situated and how they allow the youth to navigate and take up position within social fields that cross national boundaries.     

Dynamic,Playful and Productive Literacies

This paper reflects on recent projects in a variety of media forms, in both formal and informal educational settings, discussing ways of expanding our notions of literacy practices which reflect their place in the wider lived experience of digital culture. We have collected these reflections under three headings. The first of these, Dynamic Literacies, presents an overarching view of literacy as both ideological, following the ‘new literacy studies’, and dynamic, incorporating both semiotic and sociocultural versions of literacy in ways which reflect the changing nature of lived experience in the digital age. The second strand, Productive Literacies, constructs an argument around digital making practices with younger learners which views these as media crafting, critique and artistry. The third strand, Playful Literacies, explores recent projects which are located in games and game-authoring practices as a specific example of connecting pedagogy to contemporary media forms and learner agency in formal and informal settings. Taken together, the three perspectives allow for common ground to be established between multimodal production practices, whilst providing suggestions for framing literacy pedagogy in response to the pervasive use of media and technology in contemporary digital culture.     

Barriers to teachers using digital texts in literacy classrooms

In many accounts of school literacy teaching and learning, there are claims that young people's familiarity with digital texts (ICTs) could provide teachers with opportunities to plan exciting and innovative activities. It would seem, however, that despite intensive research and exemplary practices over the last 20 years, the infiltration of ICTs into literacy classrooms is not widespread. This paper reports on one study where teachers discussed, argued and thought about their uses of digital texts in their classrooms. It provides some insight into the reasons why literacy teachers do not engage with digital texts as part of their everyday literacy activities. It also shows teachers using institutional and societal discourses about the value of students' home experiences to their schooling, the production of digital texts for presentation of print‐based work and the importance of technical knowledge about computers and new technologies, to describe and in part to overcome the barriers to using new technologies in their literacy classrooms.     

The building blocks of digital media literacy: socio-material participation and the production of media knowledge

This article outlines the knowledge and skills students develop when they engage in digital media production and analysis in school settings. The metaphor of ‘digital building blocks’ is used to describe the material practices, conceptual understandings and production of knowledge that lead to the development of digital media literacy. The article argues that the two established approaches to media literacy education, critical reading and media production, do not adequately explain how students develop media knowledge. It suggests there has been too little focus on material practices and how these relate to the development of conceptual understanding in media learning. The article explores empirical evidence from a four-year investigation in a primary school in Queensland, Australia using actor–network theory to explore ‘moments of translation’ as students deploy technologies and concepts to materially participate in digital culture. A generative model of media learning is presented with four categories of building blocks that isolate the specific skills and knowledge that can be taught and learnt to promote participation in digital media contexts: digital materials, conceptual understandings, media production and media analysis. The final section of the article makes initial comments on how the model might become the basis for curriculum development in schools and argues that further empirical research needs to occur to confirm the model’s utility.     

‘Unboxing’ videos: co-construction of the child as cyberflâneur

This paper draws on data from a study of a four-year-old child, Gareth, in his first year of formal schooling in England. The aim of the study was to identify the nature of Gareth's literacy practices across home and school spaces. The focus for this paper is an analysis of one aspect of Gareth's home digital literacy practices: his repeated viewings at home of ‘unboxing’ videos on YouTube. These include videos that feature the unpacking of commercial products. It is argued that the child viewer/reader is co-constructed in these practices as cyberflâneur and that this mode of cultural transmission is a growing feature of online practices for this age group in the twenty-first century. The paper addresses issues concerning young children's online practices and their relationship to material culture before analysing the growth of interest in peer-to-peer textual production and consumption in the digital age.     

Minecraft and children’s digital making: implications for media literacy education

This article aims to contribute new knowledge about the media literacies children assemble as they play the digital game Minecraft which it describes as a children's digital making platform. The article argues media literacy's tendency to use socio-cultural and humanist accounts of media participation limit its ability to fully explain digital making practices. Socio-material and performative literacy theories are used to introduce a framework for exploring digital media literacies across four nodes: digital materials, media production, conceptual understanding and media analysis [Dezuanni, M. 2015.“The Building Blocks of Digital Media Literacy: Socio-material Participation and the Production of Media Knowledge.”Journal of Curriculum Studies 47 (3): 416–419]. The article's second half outlines how the author uses digital ethnography in his home to understand children's Minecraft digital making and the article's theoretical claims are explored using empirical data. The conclusion considers the ramifications of digital making for media literacy research and practice.     

Impressions,improvisations and compositions: reframing children's text production in social network sites

Social networking can currently be described as a mainstream youth activity, with almost half of 8–17‐year‐old children, who have access to the Internet, claiming to participate. As an activity it is of particular interest to literacy educators because it is enacted through the production and consumption of text. However, a growing body of research is finding that while young people transfer knowledge and practices across the sites that they occupy, children's text production using informal digital literacy practices and children's school‐based text production can be regarded as increasingly disparate activities. This paper draws from a current research project that is exploring three pre‐teenage children's text production in social networking sites. Here one child's Bebo profile page is presented and discussed in order that the forces that play upon her text production can be identified. Through consideration of these forces, a framework for considering children's text production in informal digital environments is suggested. This framework steps away from the existing frameworks currently found within the Primary National Strategy for Literacy and Mathematics and instead requires that children's texts are viewed in relation to structure and agency.     

Mapping discourses in teachers' talk about using digital texts in classrooms

Many accounts explaining teachers' lack of engagement with new technologies in their classrooms engage with discourses that blame their lack of time, expertise, or enthusiasm. In this paper I offer an alternative reading that provides a more agentic explanation. A rhizotextual analysis is undertaken that reveals the connections between teachers' talk and the institutional and societal discourses that ascribe value and worth to particular approaches to using new technologies and their associated digital texts in literacy classrooms. These approaches involve a focus on the technical or operational skills required to use new technologies and the over-emphasis of production work when engaging with digital texts. Taking up these discourses (im)plausibly constitutes teachers as experts and professionals, rather than the more common deficit construction of them as lacking in the skills, knowledge or even creativity required to engage in more meaningful and challenging ways with the literacy resources that young people require in the twenty-first century.     

Hybrid literacy texts and practices in technology-intensive environments

US youths’ lives are increasingly divided between the academic requirements of school and immersion in new media and culture outside school. Educators can help bridge in-school and out-of-school literacy practices by encouraging students to engage with hybrid texts that draw on multiple modes of representation. In this paper, we analyze the ‘disconnect’ between academic literacy and new media, discuss the concept of hybridity as a way to bridge it, and provide a linguistically grounded analysis of students’ hybrids texts and practices in two technology-intensive learning environments: a digital storytelling project in an after-school university-community collaborative and a one-to-one laptop program in an urban school district.     

Social capital and home literacy engagement: case studies of low-SES single mothers' access to literacy resources

Drawing on the theory of social capital, this paper explores how difference in mothers' social networks might impact on low‐SES' children's literacy development at home. A cross‐case analysis of the influence of two low‐SES single‐mothers' social networks on their children's home literacy practices suggests that difference in mother's social capital has a disparate impact on their access to literacy resources, their home literacy engagement with their children, and their interaction/connection with school teachers and contributes to their children's differential school literacy achievement. The findings suggest that for low‐SES children to achieve school success, parents must be able to access resources that support their ability to engage in literacy activities that align with those valued in the school. Therefore, there is a need for schools and teachers to provide not only services that allow more networking opportunities but also support to understand school‐literacy practices and expectations for low‐SES families, especially single‐parents who might be more socially isolated.     

Building Equitable Literate Futures: Home and school computer-mediated literacy practices and disadvantage

This article examines the complex connections between literacy practices, the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and disadvantage. It reports the findings of a year-long study which investigated the ways in which four families use ICTs to engage with formal and informal literacy learning in home and school settings. The research set out to explore what it is about computer-mediated literacy practices at home and at school in disadvantaged communities that makes a difference in school success. The findings demonstrate that the 'socialisation' of the technology--its appropriation into existing family norms, values and lifestyles--varied from family to family. Having access to ICTs at home was not sufficient for the young people and their families to overcome the so-called 'digital divide'. The article concludes that old inequalities have not disappeared, but are playing out in new ways in the context of the networked society.     

Understanding Digital Literacy Practices: What Can Be Learnt with Visual Methods?

Digital technologies are increasingly used by children and adults in their everyday lives and these practices have attracted researchers’ and practitioners’ attention. However, everyday digital literacy practices are difficult to examine. They require appropriate research methods and visual methods have potential here. Although some visual methods are actively used in the field of Literacy Studies, participant-generated digital photography and photo-elicitation remain under-employed in the research of digital literacy practices. Drawing on a qualitative study, this article argues that these methods allow in-depth insights into digital literacy practices to be gained. They offer comprehensive understanding of practices by illuminating what is involved in practices, how practices happen and why people engage in them in particular ways. However, the use of these methods is also associated with a number of challenges. The article concludes with the discussion of the implications for researchers and teacher-researchers who wish to use visual methods to examine digital literacy practices in different contexts.     

Reconceptualising critical digital literacy

While it has proved a useful concept during the past 20 years, the notion of ‘critical digital literacy’ requires rethinking in light of the fast-changing nature of young people's digital practices. This paper contrasts long-established notions of ‘critical digital literacy’ (based primarily around the critical consumption of digital forms) with the recent turn towards ‘digital design literacy’ (based around the production of digital forms). In doing so, three challenges emerge for the continued relevance of critical digital literacy: (1) the challenge of critiquing the ideological concerns with the digital without alienating the individual's personal affective response; (2) connecting collective concerns to do with social and educational inequalities to individual practices; and (3) cultivating a critical disposition in a context in which technical proficiency is prioritised. The paper then concludes by suggesting a model of ‘critical digital design’, offering a framework that might bridge the divide between critical literacy models and the more recent design-based literacy models.     

Seeing and hearing: examining production workers' literacy and numeracy practices in a context of crisis

A policy consensus has emerged in Australia that there is a workforce literacy and numeracy crisis, similar to many other Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries. The study informing this paper examined this framing of crisis by interviewing and observing production workers in three manufacturing companies. Each company was implementing new lean production methods, known as ‘competitive systems and practices', based on a visual workplace management system. In this paper, we look at what is visible and invisible in production workers' literacy and numeracy practices at Hearing Solutions, one of the companies in the study. We begin by considering the overarching policy discourse around workers' literacy and numeracy before exploring the underpinning rationale of the new expression of lean manufacturing, in particular, its implementation through the Visual Workplace Management System. Detailing an example of the literacies used in producing hearing aid shells, we discuss the under-valuing by workers and managers of the skills being used; and the hidden process of industrial relations, reward and remuneration. Using an ethnographic and social practices approach, what emerges is a better understanding of the complex range of vocational knowledge and social skills being used that go unrecognised by policy makers, lobbyists and managers, and even by the workers themselves.     

Digital writing practices: a close look at one grade three author

This paper reports on the digital writing practices of a Grade Three primary school student as he used an iPad to plan, produce and share digital texts. The case study acknowledges that writing is undergoing a period of great change in many classrooms and works to show how a student author has interpreted and produced digital texts with new technologies. In particular, the specific practices, digital materials and literacy concepts will be explicated through analyses of two digital texts created by this author. This focus acknowledges the ways texts can be planned, produced and shared using multiple modes and media. These social practices and the wider learning opportunities afforded through the flexible and recursive ways students produce text have yet to be fully explored. This paper also extends current understandings about digital writing practices through its examination of the connections between and among multiple apps as an author crafts digital text.     

Ben and his army scenes: a consideration of one child's out-of-school text production

In this paper, findings from a recent small‐scale case study exploring children's out‐of‐school text production are shared. It has been strongly argued that the standard literacy curriculum offered by schools is dislocated from the real interests and home literacy practices of children (Millard 2003). This argument is used as a starting point for considering the texts produced by Ben, a ten‐year‐old writer. Here, Ben's texts are considered for the range of factors that can be seen to influence his out‐of‐school text production. These factors are wide‐ranging and include social, material and agentive factors. To conclude, the factors that arise from the data are explored in relation to one another, and a framework for considering children's text production that brings into balance the social, material and agentive factors is proposed.     

Social,Innovative and Deep: Exploring Digital Literacies in a Year 9 English Classroom

ABSTRACT

How are teachers who identify as “digital literacy trailblazers’ exploring and experimenting with digital tools in their English classrooms? Based on a study of English teaching with digital tools, this paper draws on the case of one secondary school teacher and her year 9 class as they read Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank) and engage with three digital applications in their learning about historical context, literary language and narrative voice. The case is presented in order to discuss digital literacy practices in the context of English curriculum and pedagogy.