Exploring digital remediation in support of personal reflection

Increasingly our digital traces are providing new opportunities for self-reflection. In particular, social media (SM) data can be used to support self-reflection, but to what extent is this affected by the form in which SM data is presented? Here, we present three studies where we work with individuals to transform or remediate their SM data into a physical book, a photographic triptych and a film. We describe the editorial decisions that take place as part of the remediation process and show how the transformations allow users to reflect on their digital identity in new ways. We discuss our findings in terms of the application of Goffman's (1959) self-presentation theories to the SM context, showing that a fluid rather than bounded interpretation of our social media spaces may be appropriate. We argue that remediation can contribute to the understanding of digital self and consider the design implications for new SM systems designed to support self-reflection

Writing In and Around Video Games

This undergraduate course uses video games as a lens through which to explore the infinitely broader topic of digital rhetoric. Students encounter games in several different ways: as texts to analyze, raw material for video compositions, systems to create and explore. Key topics include genre conventions and constraints, audience, procedural rhetoric, interface design, and convergence culture

New Media, Multiliteracies, and the Globalized Classroom

New Media, Multiliteracies, and the Globalized Classroom contends that changing demographic diversity in American higher education and increasing globalization call for curricular and pedagogical transformation of writing courses. The writing curriculum for globalized classrooms should be responsive to the resources students bring with them to the classroom and cultivate in them the multiple literacies--both old and new--needed to successfully navigate an increasingly global workplace and a complexly interwoven world. The scaffolding of students\u27 natural meaning making capacities, and teaching of multiple literacies, such as visual, academic, critical, digital, multimodal, and intercultural, should take place simultaneously in the writing classes for new literacies are in a synergistic, reciprocal, and constantly evolving relationship with older literacies (Swenson et al. 357). The interplay of new and old literacies in literate activities in the academy and professions can lead to productive interactions and work. In fact, this study is an experiment with and investigation into how diverse students in a sophomore level writing class in a large research university in the U.S. North East responded to a curriculum and pedagogical approach framed around the idea of multiple literacies. The pilot course drew insights and resources from some closely aligned fields of new media, globalization, World Englishes, intercultural communication, literacy studies, and media studies, exploring and exploiting the potentials these intersecting fields have for improving the practice of teaching writing to a diverse body of students. It took a multiliterate approach to teaching writing in its expanded sense with assignments in multiple media and modes-- alphabetic and digital literacy narratives, rhetorical analysis of a digital artifact (music video, ad, cartoon/movie clip etc.), argument essay, remediation of argument essay into web forms for local and global audiences, collaborative documentary production, blogging, and small group presentations

That Doesn\u27t Sound Like Me: Student Perceptions of Semiotic Resources in Written-Aural Remediation Practices

This dissertation examines students\u27 composing practices when working with unfamiliar modalities, attending to students\u27 messy material and cognitive negotiations prior to their production of a polished multimodal project. Working from a conceptual vocabulary from composition studies and semiotics, I frame composing as an act of semiotic remediation, attending to students\u27 repurposing and understanding of written and aural materials in composition and their impact on their learning. Specifically, this research uses a grounded theory methodology to examine the attitudes, experiences, and composing practices of first-year writing students enrolled in a composition II course at a private, liberal arts institution in the South who were tasked with revising their writing into–and through–sound editing software to complete an audio revision project. This study examines the practices and evolving attitudes of seven students using various materials and the impact of their composing process on learning and interpersonal development. Findings from this study are used to develop a body of concepts that work together to theorize about the impact of semiotic remediation on students\u27 composing practices and their learning

Multimodal representation in virtual exchange: A social semiotic approach to critical digital literacy

For agentive and influential involvement in online communities, language learners and teachers need to develop critical digital literacy (CDL), conceptualized by Darvin (2017) as an awareness of “how meanings are represented in ways that maintain and reproduce relations of power” (p. 5) and thus privilege some and marginalize others online. Virtual exchange (VE) provides an ideal socio-cultural and socio-semiotic context for fostering CDL (Hauck, 2019) as it is an educational intervention that is—by default—digitally mediated. In this contribution, we examine the employment of semiotic practices for multimodal representation and how they “shape power relations with others” (Bezemer & Jewitt, 2009, p. 1), thereby drawing on a social semiotic approach (Bezemer & Kress, 2016) to CDL (Bilki et al., 2023). Our insights stem from a six-week VE between two higher education institutions in Turkey and the UK, which brought together 48 future English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers. The task-based exchanges yielded a rich dataset which allows us to illustrate how CDL is materially achieved through transformative processes observed in multicultural, multilingual, and multimodal interactions. Our findings speak to Kern’s (2014, 2015) appeal for a relational pedagogy and highlight the need to promote CDL in EFL teaching and teacher education to foster critical reflection on meaning-making conventions while exercising agency to establish powerful online relations with others

The Motivation to Write Profile-College: A Tool to Assess the Writing Motivation of Teacher Candidates

Writing is an important aspect of literacy regardless of the grade or discipline. State standards have defined the writing genres, crafts, and skills that are to be taught by teachers in PK-12 classrooms. However, in addition to standards, research indicates that a teacher’s own conception of writing is crucial to establishing classroom conditions necessary for young writers to grow, explore and take risks. If this is the job of PK-12 educators, then it is essential for higher education instructors to understand and explore the writing conceptions of teacher candidates. One of these critical conceptions is the motivation to write. The Motivation to Write Profile-College (MWP-C) was designed and validated to assess the writing motivation of teacher candidates. The profile can inform the important conversations necessary to ensure that teacher candidates are fully prepared to teach writing as motivated writers themselves