How Affordances of Digital Tool Use Foster Critical Literacy

Richard Beach, University of Minnesota, rbeach@umn.edu

New, revised handout on Google Docs

http://tinyurl.com/kxv4fpr

Lewison, Leland, & Harste, 2014

Critical social practices• Disrupting the commonplace

• Interrogating multiple perspectives

• Focusing on the socialpolitical (power, injustice, privilege)

• Taking action to promote social justice

Janks, et al., 2014

Janks: critical literacy1. Make connections between something that is going on in the world and their students’ lives.2. Consider what students will need to know and where they can find the information.3. Explore how the problematic is instantiated in texts and practices.4. Examine who benefits and who is disadvantaged.5. Imagine possibilities for making a positive difference. (p. 350) Janks, H. (2014). Critical literacy's ongoing importance for education. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 57(5), 349–356.

“critical engagement”Focus on emotions: anger,

frustration, confusion, concern, outrage, etc., triggering a critical stance and identification of problems or issues

Lewis, C. & Tierney, J. D. (2013). Mobilizing emotion in an urban classroom: Producing identities and transforming signs in a race-related discussion. Linguistics and Education, 23, 289-304..

Wohlwend, K. & Lewis, C. (2011). Critical literacy, critical engagement, digital technology: Convergence and embodiment in glocal spheres. In D. Lapp & D. Fisher, The handbook on teaching English and Language Arts, 3rd edition. New York: Taylor & Francis

Shift to digital literacies

Digital tools: Affordances MultimodalityInteractivityCollaborationIntertextuality/recontextualization

Identity construction

Digital tools: Affordances

Affordances not “in” tool

tool ActivityAffordances created by

teachers

Activity tool

Digital tools + Critical inquiry

AffordancesMultimodality

Interactivity

Collaboration

Intertextuality/recontextualization

Identity construction

Critical inquiry

- Adopting a critical stance to identify problems and issues

- Applying alternative perspectives

- Proposing solutions to address a problem or issue

Multimodality

Multimodality: digital images/videoPortraying problems/issues

through images and videoEvoking emotions leading to

“how-come” questions about the status-quo

Targeting groups to engage in civic engagement challenging the status-quo

Critical Engagement: Interaction with target audiences

Out the Window Project◦Youth create videos that 7 million LA bus riders view

◦Pose questions related to civic issues within their neighborhoods

Artic melting: 1982 to 2012

South Beach, Miami today

South Beach, Miami: 12 foot sea-level rise

Jefferson Memorial: Today

Jefferson Memorial: 25 foot sea level rise

Images on climate change:Posing how come questions

“Either we embrace radical change ourselves or radical changes will be visited upon our physical world…The status quo is no longer an option.” Klein, N. (2014). This changes everything: Capitalism vs. the climate. New York: Simon & Schuster

Need to reverse CO2 emissions in the next 30 years to reduce effects of climate change

Outside groups: political ads

Interactivity

Interactivity/spreadability

Interactivity: affordances: networking(Boyd, 2010)

• Persistence: interactions are recorded and archived

• Replicability: material can be easily copied and transformed

• Scalability: content readily disseminated (“spreadability” Jenkins et al., 2013)

• Searchability: people can readily locate people and information

This webinar• Post in chat box: • How does use of this and other

webinars enhance interactivity/spreadability?

• What do you gain/not gain from participation in this and other webinars?

What caused the downfall of the Mayan civilization?

Collaboration: Alternative perspectives

Shifts in Abby and Starfish’s Individual and Collaborative Stances

Aesthetic Summarizer

Thoughtful Gather

Purposeful Summarizer

Reflective Analyzer

Adding Diigo sticky-note annotations

Affordances of Diigo: Collaborative Annotation

Results: Diigo Annotations

34% questioning, 22%

integrating/connecting,

13% evaluating, 10% determining

important ideas, 9% inferring, 8% reacting to

other’s comments, 4% monitoring

Incorporation of alternativeannotation perspectives into writing I am perplexed in choosing if wind

energy is a good source or bad source. While wind energy is a good source because it’s renewable and needs nothing more but construction, it can also cause irritation and attention of some people. Wind turbines are loud, noisy, and risky. Even though, it doesn’t cause any greenhouse gases in the air, wind turbines are harmful to wildlife and space. More birds die by getting hit by wind turbines which is very dangerous to our wildlife.

Benefits: Annotations More active, critical

reading

Alternative perspectives

Alternative response practices

Intertextuality/recontextualization

Connectivism (Stephen Downes):Knowledge is a network phenomenon, to

“know” something is to be organized in a certain way, to exhibit patterns of connectivity. To “learn” is to acquire certain patterns. This is as true for a community as it is for an individual.

Readers’ connections

Reviewers’ connections on Amazon: Infinite Jest

Reviewers: Morrison connections

Wiki writingWikispaces, PBWorksSharing information

collaborativelyOrganization of categoriesCreating Wikipedia articles about

one’s school, town, etc., or revising current articles

Wiki annotations to a Munro short story (Dobsen, 2006)

VoiceThread: Multiple audiences

share responses to images

Analysis: VoiceThread Annotations

• 77%: inferences

about causal

relationships between

phenomena

• 23%: description of

phenomena in images

Recontextualizing: Critique image’s original meaning to create a new alternative meaning/parody/remix

Text

Steps in recontextualizing (Blommaert, 2005)

❖ Decontextualizing: removed from context❖ Recontextualizing:❖ place in new context❖ Entextualizing:❖ analyze as new text

Identity construction:CDA: online identities

Discourses as ways of knowing/thinking as “identity tool kits” (Gee)

Legal, scientific, political, psychological, feminist, business, etc. ◦Ideological stances

Students “double-voicing” discourses

Online role-play: blocked websites

Students adopt pro-con roles◦construct a persona◦employ rhetorical appeals ◦support their position with reasons ◦identify and refute counter-arguments◦revise or modify one’s own positions

 

Using a Ning as the platform for online role-

play:

Bubbl.us mapping to identify roles and relationships between roles

Threaded discussion allows students easily follow discussion

Emotions: anger: contradictions

We can’t get onto Nazi websites, but Mein Kampft is on display in the library. I can understand that you can’t go on websites, but we can read this book, but we can’t go to a website that might have historical facts.

Identity construction: Adopting perspectives

EmoGirl: Critique of schoolInternet policies

I think the internet usage policies are ridiculous. The policies are almost  impossible to find. I spent half an hour trying to find them and I'm a young, computer savvy person. 

Reflection: Alternative perspectives

• I think it was a valuable learning experience because we actually got to argue back and forth with other people.  If this had just been a writing assignment, it would have only been one-sided.  You can use persuasive arguments in a paper but you can’t have a back and forth conversation on it.  I really felt like it helped me get into someone else’s shoes and think like someone different from myself.

Future research??Challenge: technological boosterism:

use of tools simply to engage students.Need more focus on how affordances

foster critical inquiry even about the role of technology itself in society

New, revised handout on Google Docs

http://tinyurl.com/kxv4fpr

Credits- Screenshot of figure of teachers’ perceptions of use of digital tools for writing from study by the Pew Research Center (2012).

- Figure 1.1, model of critical inquiry, from the book, Creating Critical Classrooms, Routledge Press, 2014, used by permission from authors Mitzi Lewiston, Chris Leland, and Jerome Harste

- Figure 1.1, model of critical inquiry, from the book, Designing Socially Just Learning

Communities: Critical Literacy Education Across the Lifespan, Routledge, 2009, used by permission from authors Rebecca Rogers, Melissa Mosley, Mary Ann Kramer, and the Literacy for Social Justice Teacher Research Group

- Image of “30 years of Arctic sea ice,” by John S. Quarterman, Creative Commons copyright,

Images of sea level rises, by Nickolay Lamm, What Will Sea Level Rise Look Like in Real Life? Creative Commons copyright, https://www.storagefront.com/therentersbent/what-will-sea-level-rise-look-like-in-real-life

- Two figures to appear in Beach, R. (in press). Commentary: Imagining a future for the planet through literature, writing, images, and drama. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy,58(2):

Figure of changes in global temperatures and rise in CO2 used with permission of the Third National Climate Assessment, US Global Change Research Program.

Figure of critical inquiry and analysis of systems by R. Beach

Screenshots of intertextual connections from research projects at the Stanford Literacy Lab, Stanford University

- Screenshots of VoiceThread images and data-analysis figure from Beach, R. & O’Brien, D. (in press). Enhancing struggling students’ engagement through use of technology tool affordances of interactivity, connectivity, and collaboration. Reading & Writing Quarterly.

Credits Material from the book, Understanding and Creating Digital Texts: An Activity-Based Approach, by Richard Beach, Chris Anson, Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, and Thomas Reynolds to be published by Rowman & Littlefield, 2014:

- Screenshot of Child Obesity used with permission of Emma Eubanks, student, Perpich School for the Arts, Minnesota

- Screenshot of DNA Evidence used with permission of Emma Wood, student, Perpich School for the Arts, Minnesota

Screenshot of students' use of Diigo Sticky-Notes used as part of a research study approved by Portland State University IRB

Screenshot of wiki story-writing image from Teresa Dobson, The love of a good narrative: Textuality and digitality. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 5(2), 2006, used with permission of the Editors and Teresa Dobson. Copyright © Teresa Dobson.

Screenshot of Comic Life image from "Understand Islam" used with permission by Yasmin Ahmed

Screenshot of YouthVoices (youthvoices.net) site used with permission by Paul Allison.

Material from Using Apps for Learning across the Curriculum: A Literacy-Based Framework and Guide, Beach & O’Brien, Routledge, in press, used by permission of students:

Screenshot of students use of sticky-note annotations for Discussion

- Screenshot of student’s Mindmeister map contrasting weather and climate change