The essay "A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures" was written by ten educators that met for a week in New Hampshire in 1994. During this time the educators had worked together to understand how literacy pedagogy had affected the diversity in a teaching and learning environments. Specifically, they were looking at what the purpose of learning was and how that connected to the literacy pedagogy. The essay states that the educators had diverse backgrounds, which would allow them a better understanding for their search in education when looking at culture and communication. The article stands hopeful that there would be a change or at least a conversation about change in the educational system. This discussion had began with two arguments that lead to the word "multiliteracies." These arguments, as relevant as ever, revolve around the idea of how the changing world, in reference to technology, can still be seen as understandable. While the second argument tries to incorporate communication that would allow inclusivity with so many cultures. Though their work was presented in 1995 after the educators went home to work on the article independently, it has been left open for discussion.
Cultural and linguist diversity was something that I experience now with my children, especially since they now have the option of learning another language other than English in school. In the middle of page 69 the essay goes forth and bluntly explores the idea of children integrating multiple linguistics in the classroom. Specifically looking at young children who will learn to speak more languages than just English in the US, and furthering the idea, other than inclusivity, which is just as important. Considering the essentialness to other's cultural stand point, children are likely to accept culture and language and still end up with the benefits of being multilingual while passing this acceptance onto future generations.
On page 70 the essay also delves within the idea of intersectionality of the public and how privacy is shelved when looking at new age technology. While in the early 90's this may have been seen as an impossible feat, the social media platforms of tomorrow have definitely made it easy to exploit different identities for financial gain. Specifically, platforms that have increasing exposure and large following that allow for privacy, or lack there to be easily accessible.
While on the subject of academia, I found the essay aged well. However, the fact that technology is a topic of interest in the essay, makes me wonder if there would have been a place for all the parts of media in today's day and age? Various teaching tools (Google classroom, Zoom, or Slack) and social media accounts, are always at risk for leaking information, so the idea that this would be swiftly included in the teaching pedagogy leaves me torn.
Hey Amberlynn,
ReplyDeleteThank you for allowing me to comment on your blog post! I think you bring up some very valid points, especially when talking about children learning different languages in order to immerse themselves more in different cultures. I had a similar experience growing up, in which I was placed in a classroom that used both English and Spanish to communicate their lessons. I think if the US had more courses like these available to students before high school, I think it would benefit us as a society more, as the gap between communication would probably shrink more.
You also bring up a great question in regards to the new tools we have come across at present. I think that as educators, we must teach students to use such tools with caution and to teach them how to utilize them to the best of their capabilities. However, even then I too worry that information leaks could still happen. I believe that is something that we need to combat now, especially since we are in a pandemic, and thus are being forced to rely on such tools for communication.
Anywhoo, thank you so much again for this post! I hope to see you soon ( virtually, of course :) )
Cristal Gamez
Thanks for your good thinking here, Amberlynn!
ReplyDeleteYou do smart work contextualizing the NLG's project, and the section you point to at the intersection of the public and private are directly related to your interest in the massive amount of educational technologies that k-12 schools in particular have bought into. (Interestingly, they've done this while continuing to make arguments about not being able to afford enough teachers, especially those who could implement culturally aware and multilingual pedagogical practices -- though this likely is wrapped up in local, state, and federal incentives for how money for education can be used.)
The question of privacy is important within the context of data breaches -- but it also matters in the context of surveillance. Blackboard, for example, claims to be able to give me data on how *engaged* students are in the course. But it's really just telling my how many things students have clicked on and how long they spent in different pages. Similarly, plagiarism detection software claims to be able to "catch" and "measure" things that it by no means actually does (while also assuming all students are cheaters). In addition to the issue you raise about information leaking, it's also worth considering the qualities of relationships ed tech allows us to build among teachers and students.
If these issues remain interesting to you, there will be plenty more to add to this brew as the semester continues. Thanks for your good work here!