Rethinking the contributions of young people with learning disabilities to iPad storymaking: a new model of distributed authorship

Digital technologies such as iPads are now ubiquitous in classrooms and family homes, enabling new possibilities for all learners but particularly for those with disabilities. Existing literature explores how children with learning disabilities create and benefit from personalised digital stories but does not unpack theoretical understandings of their ‘authorship’. This paper addresses this gap by proposing an original model of ‘distributed authorship’ with three axes of distribution—interpersonal, technological and temporal—to account for the authorial contributions of young people with learning disabilities. Five families were given an iPad with Pictello storymaking app and instructed to use it with their young person in any way which was engaging for them. Data generation over 12 weeks included weekly diaries, home videos, semi-structured interviews and story collection. Findings indicated that whilst ability to directly engage with the app varied, all the young people could be said to exert authorial influence on the stories distributed across three axes: support from others, support from the technology itself and incorporation of prior embodied agency. The study has theoretical implications for our understanding of ‘authorship’ as well as implications for pedagogy and practice by reconceptualising severely disabled children as literate learners and co-authors.     

Towards leadingful leadership literacies for higher education management

This paper locates ‘leadingful leadership literacies’ as a lens for considering changing contexts for leadership and work in higher education management. It makes a contribution to higher education leadership studies by offering an empirical account of expanded notions of leadership. These extend the field beyond those unwilling to critique managerialist knowledge claims. I will argue that not only managerialist practices per se are of concern as we face discontinuous change in the sector – changes which move well beyond rationalist truth claims – but that these remain largely unchallenged and have moved into spaces that should be (re)claimed by leadership.     

Challenging Conceptions of Literacy and Identity in an Urban School

Through a focused discussion on literature and the reading of texts, this essay explores the cultures and histories students bring into the classroom. I investigate how students approach school and home literacies. At the heart of this research is (some) Muslim male students’ perception of reading and literacy, their sense of what English is and what schooling has to offer them. It aims to understand the complex relationship between curriculum knowledge and out-of-school knowledge.     

‘We don't believe media anymore’: Mapping critical literacies in an adult immigrant language classroom

This article maps critical literacies conceptually and empirically in the context of adult immigrant language classrooms. It begins by describing Deleuze and Guattari's cartographic approach. Then it traces critical literacies situated conceptually within a Freirean paradigm before mapping them differently through the Deleuzian-informed Multiple Literacies Theory (MLT). MLT frames critical literacies as reading intensively, that is, disruptively. This alternative conceptualization is then mobilized empirically in relation to the problems and politics produced in the qualitative study of one language classroom. In this classroom, reading a newspaper article provoked a series of transformative events or becomings, a concept created by Deleuze and Guattari and which is central to MLT. A research cartography is presented as a series of vignettes weaving data and concepts. This empirical mapping of media literacies and reading intensively offers insights into the politics of becoming in adult immigrant language classrooms and opens conceptual lines of flight between critical literacies and reading intensively.     

eBooks and Literacy in K–12 Schools

In this article the authors present a review of literature from multiple disciplines pertaining to using eBooks in the classroom in order to understand the underlying literacy and technology related issues and challenges. eBooks brought about changes in how students learn to read, and in how they read to learn. They require students to learn new literacies and to use new technologies, which has had a profound impact on reading pedagogy in K–12 classrooms. Dedicated eBook readers, smartphones, and tablet computers have led to changes in a signature pedagogy—reading literacy instruction. Research is needed on how to best teach the new literacies to help learners adapt to the challenges of new media and technologies.     

Trust and Mobile Media Use in Schools

Abstract

This article shares findings from a year-long study about social practices of high school youth with mobile devices during school time. In particular, this study found that students see their school time as fluidly social and academic. Educators and policy-makers need to carefully consider these social practices when preparing 21st century youth for engaging with technology in responsible and meaningful ways beyond their time in school.     

Incorporating,Utilizing, and Manipulating New Literacies in the Classroom

Abstract

As teachers negotiate the integration of new literacies in the classroom, one of their greatest resources may, in fact, be their students. In this essay, the use of dialogue between educators and a student is highlighted in order to demonstrate how classrooms are evolving in the area of new literacies. In regard to the integration of new literacies, three key ideas are discussed, which include incorporating, utilizing, and manipulating new literacies.     

Creating Positive Spaces of Learning: DJers and MCers Identity Work with New Literacies

Abstract

The disengagement of working-class boys from education continues to be a major issue in the United Kingdom; however, there has been little educational research in working-class boys’ identity work surrounding learning practices where boys actively engage. This article attempts to address how identities are influenced by new literacies, specifically DJ-ing and MC-ing. Through these new literacies, our participants invert the “bad boy,” anti-school, masculine identity in favor of teaching one another and enjoying a challenge     

Building the mobile hub: mobile literacies and the construction of a complex academic text

This paper contributes a definition of mobile literacy. This is worthwhile because although mobile, internet‐enabled devices are increasingly prevalent in many people's lives, mobile literacy appears to be under‐theorised and lacking definition. After giving an overview of the scale and nature of mobile device use, the paper develops the definition through building on an existing body of work which seeks to define literacies, digital literacies and mobile learning. The definition takes account of the mobility of technology, of learners, and of learning. A systematic multimodal analysis of a complex undergraduate text, in the form of a conference‐style poster, is then undertaken in order to exemplify the definition offered. The analysis attends to both the semiotic resources exploited by the text's author and the wider context the text is created within. Interview data complements that constructed through analysis of the text itself. Combining these two data sources reveals the ideational, interpersonal and textual/organisational meanings communicated by the text, and how mobility is a contextual factor which is fundamental to the literacy practices employed by the author to convey these meanings.     

‘Neurodivergent literacies’: exploring autistic adults' ‘ruling passions’ and embracing neurodiversity through classroom literacies

The concept of neurodiversity has fuelled a social justice movement advocating for the rights of those whose lives diverge from a socially-constructed default. However, deficit understandings of disability persist in educational settings and neurodivergent people continue to face disadvantage and discrimination in organisations constructed on normative understandings of the world. Although New Literacy Studies is concerned with ideas of power, dominance and worth, there is a notable lack of work that connects NLS with issues of neurodiversity. In this paper, I introduce the term ‘neurodivergent literacies’ to propose a field of study that links the ideological model of literacy with the neurodiversity paradigm. From this starting point, I outline a project that examined literacies around what are often referred to as the ‘special interests’ of autistic people. Presenting data from interviews with 13 neurodivergent adults, related to school experiences and the literacies they engage with around their self-defined ‘ruling passions’, I make recommendations for literacies practitioners, arguing that schools need to do more to take account of difference and disability. By describing how ‘neurodivergent literacies’ can help teachers harness their own critical literacy skills to challenge deficit models of difference in the classroom, this paper illuminates how an understanding of neurodiversity is essential for anyone teaching and researching literacies with a commitment to social justice.