Egranary as a Digital Resource in Uganda: Preliminary Findings

In this paper, we address preliminary findings from a digital literacy study on the use the portable digital library, eGranary, currently being conducted in a rural Ugandan school. The eGranary system is an intranet that comprises a 750Gb harddrive with specialized browsing software, which can be attached to a PC or a local area network. It contains approximately 10 million educational documents, including Wikipedia, which can be searched like the internet (see www.egranary.org). Drawing on theories of new literacies and identities, the two research questions we are addressing in our current project are as follows: (i) how does eGranary function as a placed resource in Ugandan society? (ii) to what extent do identities shift as teachers learn from and contribute to global knowledge production? These research questions are centrally concerned with the innovative use of educational resources to promote social inclusion in poorly resourced regions of the world.\u

ICT, cultural knowledge, and teacher education in\ud Africa

In this paper, we make a case for the need to carry out more culturally\ud appropriate research on ICT and teacher education in Africa generally and in\ud Uganda more specifically. We begin by examining the promise of ICTs and digital\ud literacies, and highlight the importance ascribed to ICTs for national development\ud and educational change. While agreeing that ICTs may have transformative\ud potential in developing countries, we argue that the much-hyped potential may not\ud be realized if the major focus of promoting ICTs in a developing country like\ud Uganda is merely to provide greater access to global information, rather than\ud encouraging local knowledge production for wealth creation. We frame our\ud argument with reference to the New Literacy Studies perspective of viewing\ud literacy as a social practice situated in a specific sociocultural context

READING GENDER RELATIONS AND SEXUALITY: PRETEENS SPEAK OUT

Recent research has documented the persistence of unequal gender relations and homophobia in young people’s lives. Feminist post‐structural theories of gender and socio‐cultural theories of learning suggest educators need to understand students’ constructions of gender relations, masculine/feminine desires, and sexuality if they hope to challenge these behaviors. In this article, we examine a diverse group of 47 preteens’ constructions of gender relations, masculine/feminine desires, and sexuality, using a survey, a story from the popular comic Archie, and individual interviews. We found that although participants produced feminist and patriarchal constructions of gender relations, they constructed masculine and feminine sexuality as uniformly heterosexual. Key words: popular culture, feminism, adolescents, discourse analysis Des recherches récentes indiquent la persistance de relations inégales entre les hommes et les femmes et de l’homophobie chez les jeunes. Des théories d’apprentissage poststructuralistes féministes au sujet du genre ainsi que des théories socioculturelles donnent à penser que les pédagogues ont besoin de comprendre les constructions que se font les élèves des relations entre les sexes, des désirs masculins et féminins et de la sexualité s’ils espèrent remettre en question ces comportements. Dans cet article, les auteures analysent, à l’aide d’un sondage, d’une histoire tirée de la bande dessinée Archie et d’entrevues individuelles, un éventail diversifié de 47 constructions que se font des préadolescents des relations entre les sexes, des désirs masculins et féminins et de la sexualité. Elles ont découvert que les participants ont produit des constructions féministes et patriarcales des relations entre les sexes, mais hétérosexuelles de la sexualité masculine et féminine. Mots clés : culture populaire, féminisme, adolescents, analyse des discours

Revisiting Pearl Harbor: Resistance to Reel and Real Events in an English Language Classroom

In this article, we draw on disruptive scenes in a postsecondary classroom to examine a critical incident concerning conflicting readings of the film Pearl Harbor (2001). We raise crucial questions for pedagogical work with popular film: Who speaks for whom about the meaning of a given film? Under what conditions do students resist particular readings of a film? How should teachers respond to acts of resistance in debates on the meaning of film? The use of popular film provides insight into language as a linguistic system as well as a site of struggle over meaning, identity, and power. Key words: race, ethnicity, critical pedagogy, popular film Dans cet article, les auteures traitent de l’utilisation, dans une classe au postsecondaire, de scènes prêtant à controverse tirées du film Pearl Harbor (2001). Elles soulèvent des questions importantes pour la pédagogie à l’aide d’un film à succès : Qui parle au nom de qui au sujet de la signification d’un film donné ? Quels facteurs amènent les étudiants à résister à telle ou telle lecture d’un film ? Comment les enseignants devraient‐ils réagir aux actes de résistance dans des débats sur la signification d’un film ? Le recours à des films à succès permet de mieux comprendre le langage à la fois comme système linguistique et comme lieu de débat sur le sens, l’identité et le pouvoir. Mots clés : race, origine ethnique, pédagogie critique, film à succès

Dual Language Books Go Digital: Storybooks Canada in French Immersion Schools and Homes

In response to Canada’s growing ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity, educators in French immersion classrooms are increasingly responding with enhanced cross-linguistic initiatives, and dual language books are promising resources in the promotion of multilingualism (Zaidi, 2020; Zaidi & Dooley, 2021). This paper details a research project we completed in a 2019 classroom-based qualitative case study in a French immersion school experiencing an increasing enrollment of linguistically diverse students. The researchers sought to determine if Storybooks Canada, a free digital platform with 40 dual language books in multiple languages, could help promote literacy engagement and strengthen home-school connections. Five teacher participants identified a range of features that make the platform a useful resource for promoting literacy engagement, text comprehension, learner autonomy, meaning-making, and instructional differentiation. These included (i) the multilingual features, (ii) the ability to project stories on a large screen, (iii) the audio component, (iv) the illustrations, and (v) the different levels of text difficulty. While teachers made almost exclusive use of the French language features of the site, for classroom purposes, they supported cross-linguistic uses of the platform in the home context, with a view of strengthening home-school connections. En réponse à la diversité ethnique, culturelle et linguistique croissante présente actuellement au Canada, les éducateurs des classes d’immersion française y répondent de plus en plus en établissant des initiatives interlinguistiques améliorées. Par example, les livres bilingues sont des ressources prometteuses pour la promotion du multilinguisme (Zaidi, 2020; Zaidi et Dooley, 2021). Cet article détaille un projet de recherche réalisé en 2019 grâce à une étude de cas qualitative dans un école d’immersion française qui connait une augmentation du nombre d’élèves linguistiquement diversifiés. Les chercheurs ont cherché à déterminer si Storybooks Canada, un plateforme numérique gratuite avec 40 livres bilingues en plusiers langues, pourrait aider à promouvoir l’engagement en matière d’alpabétisation et à renforcer les liens entre la maison et lécole. Cinq ensignants participants ont identifié une gamme de caractéristiques qui font de la plateforme une ressource utile pour promouvoir l’engagement en littératie, la compréhension de texte, l’autonomie de l’apprenant, la création de sens et la différenciation pédagogique. Ceux-ci comprenaient (i) les fonctionnalités multilingues, (ii) la possibilité de projeter des hitoires sur un grand écran, (iii) la composante audio, (iv) les illustrations et (v) les différents niveaux de difficulté du texte. Bien que les enseignant aient utilisé presque exclusivement les caractéristiques en français du site, dans le cadre de la salle de classe, ils ont appuyé les utilisations interlinguistiques de la platforme dans le contexte familial, avec le but de renforcer les liens entre la maison et l’école.

Multimodality and English education in Ugandan schools

In this article, we have made the case that multimodal pedagogies that include drawing, photography and drama have significant potential for enhancing teachers’ understanding of the way English is incorporated into students’ lives and how students can improve their understanding and use of the English language. In many ways, multimodal pedagogies represent a hybridization of indigenous and contemporary forms of communication. Drawings, as Vygotsky (1 12-1 13) notes, are children’s earliest representations of experience and stimulate their narrative impulse to create stories. By complementing such drawings with written narratives, teachers might encourage younger children to experiment not only with diverse reader identities, but also a range of writer identities. With reference to photography, it is clear that the careful and rigorous process of taking pictures of meaningful places, people and events gives children a sense of ownership over their worlds. As Norton (145-146) notes, ownership of meaning-making is crucial for the development of literacy. What makes the use of photography particularly effective is the contextual use of reading, writing, listening and speaking activities. Finally, we have argued that drama provides the opportunity for students to experiment with different forms of English, and that the writing of plays and poems used for dramatic performance complement the oral and visual dimensions of performance

The English language, multilingualism, and the politics of location

Drawing on Pennycook's frameworks for understanding the global role of English, we discuss the paradoxes of English language usage in what Canagarajah terms 'periphery communities' internationally. This analysis is complemented by Canagarajah's work on a 'politics of location', which provides powerful insights into a periphery community's local and global investments in English. This notion is explored with particular reference to Norton's work in South Africa and Pakistan, which suggests that creative responses to the dominance of English, whether through codeswitching, appropriation, or subversion, defy essentialist analysis. We argue further that the notion of a politics of location can provide insights into English language usage not only in periphery communities, but also in center communities as well. In this regard, there is urgent need for the ongoing research of such scholars as Cummins, who has sought to better understand the challenges to bilingualism and multilingualism in center communities

Transnational Identity and Migrant Language Learners: The Promise of Digital Storytelling

As technology enables migrant learners to maintain multi-stranded connections with their countries of origin and settlement, they engage with the world with transnational identities that negotiate a complex network of values, ideologies, and cultures. How teachers and peers recognize that migrants come with specific histories, knowledges and competencies shapes migrant learners’ investment in learning. By building on their transnational literacies, the language learning classroom can be a Third Space which acknowledges and affirms their fluid, multidimensional identities. Digital storytelling, by allowing them to share their personal histories, their stories of migration and assimilation, and the material conditions of their lived experiences, holds great potential for enabling migrant learners to be fully invested in their transnational identities and to claim their right to speak

The African Storybook and Storybooks Canada: Digital Stories for Linguistically Diverse Children

Storybooks Canada (storybookscanada.ca) makes multilingual audiovisual stories available in multiple languages to promote language and literacy development. Building on a long tradition of freely available, open educational resources, Storybooks Canada provides online, multimodal, mobile- and teacher-friendly access to 40 African stories in 21 of the most commonly spoken languages in Canada (including English and French)—making it possible to support and encourage the multilingualism of heritage language, immigrant, and refugee students. In doing so, the project demonstrates the potential for working against the normalized North-South directionality of knowledge flows to develop a more equitable ecosystem for the mobilization of knowledge.The African Storybook and Storybooks Canada: Digital Stories for Linguistically Diverse ChildrenpublishedVersio