Translinguality, transmodality, and difference : exploring dispositions and change in language and learning.

This collaborative piece explores the potential synergy arising from the confluence of two growing areas of research, teaching, and practice in composition (broadly defined): multi- (or trans-)modality, and trans- (or multi-) linguality

Making modality: transmodal composing in a digital media studio.

The multiple media that exist for communication have historically been theorized as possessing different available means for persuasion and meaning-making. The exigence of these means has been the object of theoretical debate that ranges from cultural studies, language studies, semiology, and philosophies of the mind. This dissertation contributes to such debates by sharing the results of an ethnographically informed study of multimedia composing in a digital media studio. Drawing from Cultural Historical Activity Theory and theories of enactive perception, I analyze the organizational and infrastructural design of a media studio as well as the activity of composer/designers working in said studio. Throughout this analysis I find that implicit in the organization and infrastructure of the media studio is an ethos of conceptualizing communication technology as a legitimizing force. Such an ethos is troubled by my analysis of composer/designers working in the studio, whose activities do not seek outside legitimization but instead contribute to the media milieu. Following these analyses, I conclude that media’s means for persuasion and meaning-making emerge from local practices of communication and design. Finally, I provide a framework for studying the emergence of such means

Articulating Digital Archival Practice Within Writing Program Administration: A Theoretical Framework

Throughout Writing Program Administration scholarship there has been a clear call for archivization and archival work. This dissertation project takes an interdisciplinary approach to digital archival practices for Writing Program Administrators to consider and employ in their home institutions. While I recognize that WPAs are not typically identified as “archivists,” I situate the digital archive within the digital humanities as an interdisciplinary, collaborative project and offer suggestions that lead to recommendations for making an institutional archive. I review archival practice in order to justify the digital archive as an appropriate vehicle for WPAs’ work. Further, I argue that the digital archive must be useable and, therefore, consider other commonly used composition studies archives for their usability. Overall, my dissertation seeks to define digital archival practice for WPAs in order to inspire other educators to take up this meaningful, historical work

A Case Study of New Media Literacies in an English Language Learning Program

This case study was conducted in a four-week winter program of an English language center affiliated to a university that is situated in a city in Ontario. Underpinned by theories on new media literacies, actor-network theory, and curriculum, the thesis examines human and nonhuman actors that enabled and constrained students’ new media literacies practices in the English language learning program. Despite the fact that there are emergent studies on new media literacies, there is scarce literature on human and nonhuman actors that influence students’ new media literacies practices. In this study, sources of data included curricular documents, students’ artifacts, classroom observations of 12 student participants and two instructors, and semi-structured interviews with six student participants. Findings show that students’ new media literacies practices of transmedia navigation, appropriation, judgment, and distributed cognition were enabled in the program whereas the practices of networking, participatory culture, and collective intelligence were constrained to a certain degree. The study also identified human and nonhuman actors that shaped students’ new media literacies practices, such as program design, materiality of classrooms, and individual differences of student participants. This study provides curricular and pedagogical suggestions to English language learning programs in order to enable and expand students’ new media literacies practices and bolster their language learning

A Case Study of the Digital Library of Georgia and Inter-Organizational Collaboration

The Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) serves as a model of inter-organizational and cross-departmental collaboration. This paper will highlight resources involved, problems faced with collaborating, and different types of projects created with respect to collaboration. Holding no actual physical assets or artifacts of their own, the DLG is able to use assets belonging to the University of System of Georgia, the Public Library System of Georgia, and smaller historical societies, in order to provide information to middle and high school students, researchers, and life-long learners, as well as to help and assist smaller institutions (and larger departments of the University of Georgia) digitize and provide sustainable resources

Negotiated, contested and political: the disruptive Third Spaces of youth media production

Traditionally media production with young people has been characterised by an aspiration to ‘give voice’ or ‘empower youth’, but this core value is under threat. Recently, the rationale for undertaking youth media production has shifted to focus instead on enabling young people to acquire digital skills to serve the needs of rapidly changing creative industries to be entrepreneurs in a gig economy. In this paper, we share qualitative data from a young people’s media production project run in libraries in a city in the United Kingdom where participants were invited to create videogames/stories. We adopt Potter and McDougall’s notion of Third Spaces as negotiated, contested and political to enable us to identify the ways in which pedagogical choices of setting, software and style of facilitation combined to support young people’s critical and creative engagement with digital media and society. We reframe notions of third spaces, seeing less a bridge between linguistic and cultural domains and instead of arguing that Third Spaces are productively disruptive. We conclude by proposing a new set of pedagogical principles for critical reflection in the development and funding of digital media production with young people

Self-directed multimodal learning in higher education

This book aims to provide an overview of theoretical and practical considerations in terms of self-directed multimodal learning within the university context. Multimodal learning is approached in terms of the levels of multimodality and specifically blended learning and the mixing of modes of delivery (contact and distance education). As such, this publication will provide a unique snapshot of multimodal practices within higher education through a self-directed learning epistemological lens. The book covers issues such as what self-directed multimodal learning entails, mapping of specific publications regarding blended learning, blended learning in mathematics, geography, natural science and computer literacy, comparative experiences in distance education as well as situated and culturally appropriate learning in multimodal contexts. This book provides a unique focus on multimodality in terms of learning and delivery within the context of self-directed learning. Therefore, the publication would not only advance the scholarship of blended and open distance learning in South Africa, but also the contribute to enriching the discourse regarding self-direction. From this book readers will get an impression of the latest trends in literature in terms of multimodal self-directed learning in South Africa as well as unique empirical work being done in this regard