Online leadership discourse in higher education: a digital multimodal discourse perspective

As leadership discourses in higher education are increasingly being mediated online, texts previously reserved for staff are now being made available in the public domain. As such, these texts become accessible for study, critique and evaluation. Additionally, discourses previously confined to the written domain are now increasingly multimodal. Thus, an approach is required that is capable of relating detailed, complex multimodal discourse analyses to broader sociocultural perspectives to account for the complex meaning-making practices that operate in online leadership discourses. For this purpose, a digital multimodal discourse approach is proposed and illustrated via a small-scale case study of the online leadership discourse of an Australian university. The analysis of two short video texts demonstrates how a digital multimodal discourse perspective facilitates the identification of key multimodal systems used for meaning-making in online communication, how meaning arises through combinations of semiotic choices (not individual choices), and how the results of multimodal discourse analysis using digital technology can reveal larger sociocultural patterns – in this case, divergent leadership styles and approaches as reflected in online discourse, at a time of immense change within the higher education sector

Virtual Field Trip via Digital Storytelling

Digital storytelling is a practice of combining digital content such as 3-dimensional images, text, sound, images, and video to create a short story. It is the intersection between the old art of storytelling and access to powerful technologies. This project will be a step to experiment the development and effectiveness of digital storytelling and hopefully ignite a source of motivation and encourages others to tap into their interests and skills to develop their own digital storytelling and expand ICT usage in this country. School children look forward to traditional field trips. However, such trips are costly. VFT aims to reduce if not eliminate the constraints that traditional field trips face such as money, time, energy, resources, distance and inaccessible area. To fit the time frame, the VFT is created only for small selected areas in the KL Bird Park even though the KL Bird Park is not that big because some of the areas are not suitable to take panoramic pictures. The development of the VFT is adapted from QTVR Creation Steps by Kitchens (2006). The procedure consists of defining the problem statements and goals, literature review and research, creating image content through taking photos at the site, transforming the photos to QTVR node through stitching, design and construct prototype, inserting interactivity such as hotspots, delivering the output, and last but not least, evaluation. The final output of the project is the KL Bird Park Virtual Field Trip which consists of a photo based 3D panoramic images for each scene from the site which are linked to one another and also hotspots which are placed on the panoramic images to reveal the birds' information with one click on the hotspots. The informal evaluation of the final output that was conducted shows an overwhelming response and acceptance. All of the respondents would like to see more of this type of VFT in the future

Mixed reality participants in smart meeting rooms and smart home enviroments

Human–computer interaction requires modeling of the user. A user profile typically contains preferences, interests, characteristics, and interaction behavior. However, in its multimodal interaction with a smart environment the user displays characteristics that show how the user, not necessarily consciously, verbally and nonverbally provides the smart environment with useful input and feedback. Especially in ambient intelligence environments we encounter situations where the environment supports interaction between the environment, smart objects (e.g., mobile robots, smart furniture) and human participants in the environment. Therefore it is useful for the profile to contain a physical representation of the user obtained by multi-modal capturing techniques. We discuss the modeling and simulation of interacting participants in a virtual meeting room, we discuss how remote meeting participants can take part in meeting activities and they have some observations on translating research results to smart home environments

Zoom Reading As A Multi-Dimensional Media Literacy: A Qualitative Media Study With Youth in Rural Ontario

In this dissertation, I develop and study an original approach to media education I call “Zoom Reading”. This approach offers a critique of, and supplement to, the current Ontario media literacy curriculum by suggesting that media should be given the same rich attention as literature. Drawing on my background in communications and cultural studies, I argue for an approach to media education that includes an attention to form and content, personal experience and social life. After conducting a qualitative study with students in rural Ontario to experiment with Zoom Reading, this project explores the ways that the (rural) location and age of the participating students informs their engagement with popular media. I also consider the unexpected relationships that emerge as Zoom Reading brings to life the pedagogical complexities of working with youth and media

A Pedagogy for Original Synners

Part of the Volume on Digital Young, Innovation, and the UnexpectedThis essay begins by speculating about the learning environment of the class of 2020. It takes place entirely in a virtual world, populated by simulated avatars, managed through the pedagogy of gaming. Based on this projected version of a future-now-in-formation, the authors consider the implications of the current paradigm shift that is happening at the edges of institutions of higher education. From the development of programs in multimedia literacy to the focus on the creation of hybrid learning spaces (that combine the use of virtual worlds, social networking applications, and classroom activities), the scene of learning as well as the subjects of education are changing. The figure of the Original Synner is a projection of the student-of-the-future whose foundational literacy is grounded in their ability to synthesize information from multiple information streams