Digital Literacies Artifact #2: Multimodality

 

 

Course:   Research Methods in Education                

Date:         Fall 2011            Instructor:     Dr Lorayne Robertson

 

About the Artifact:

This is a short literature review that focuses on the topic of digital literacy and multimodality. In the artifact several articles are analysed and synthesized. It explores what it means to be digitally literate and assumptions about the level of digital literacy amongst students today.

 

 

Reflection

 

This artifact was one of my first literature reviews. I remember being very nervous to write it. I was intimidated by the formality and academic nature of a literature review and felt very constrained by the word limit. In the course I took previously (Principles of Learning) to this one I had consistently gone over the word limit. Mostly unnecessarily over the limit. It taught me to be more concise and purposeful in my academic writing. One thing this artifact demonstrates is how far my academic writing has come. In this artifact the articles I chose do not connect very clearly. Consequently, the point of the review is very foggy. There are many mistakes I made in this review. For example, when I should be citing a study and why. I use the title of an article, which wasn’t necessary. At other time I fail to include sourcing when it really should have been there. This course was one of the foundation courses. In writing this review I learned a lot about academic writing at the graduate level. What I did well in this review was to include pedagogy. This continues to be an area that I struggle with because I get all the names of theories mixed up.

 

Another place I see my growth is in the content. This paper is on digital literacy. I now see digital literacy as something separate from digital literacies. In this paper I do not make that distinction. An important area of learning for me in the content of this artifact was about students’ level of digital literacies. I thought it was interesting that we assume our students are digitally literate when, in fact, they may not be. Working on this assumption is just like assuming they have traditional literacy skills when they arrive in grade 9 English, where in reality most of them cannot write a proper paragraph.

 

One thing that is evident in this literature review is the influence of my prior learning. I had taken Technology in the spring of 2011 and my B.Ed was also done at UOIT. I already had been thinking about multimodalities and digital literacy. As a result, some of the same authors and concepts that I learned about with Dr. Hughes reappear here in this paper. While I was nervous to write a literature review, I tried to move forward on a topic I already had background knowledge in. I thought this was a good strategy to help me learn and be successful. I actually revised this literature review based on Dr. Robertson’s comments and it was included in my portfolio of learning for the course. However, since this portfolio is about demonstrating my growth I have included the original document here.