 |
| Here or not here? Photo of image on wall of Jyvaskla University. |
If we are presenting at a conference we are allocated a room. A physical space which we can locate. We are also allocated a time. Those attending hopefully find us by looking on a schedule and maybe checking a campus map. We are physically together in time and space. Co-located and present - at least in body.
If we cannot physically attend a conference, we need a shared online space and time in order to connect. A possibility to present, an opportunity to have our voice heard despite the barriers to co-location. A virtual room located in cyberspace. Mediated by technology.
On Friday at 11am (Finland) I will be joined in a virtual room by Yu-Feng Yang (Diana). She is in Taiwan. There is a serious cyclone there at the moment. It will be 4pm there when she connects to our virtual room. She will be presenting on Digital storytelling (see abstract below). I will be located in a physical room provided by the conference team, connected online to record her presentation. I will then make it available when we are done through a link on this blog. If you would like to watch her as she records you can join us on the room using this link. You will just be an observer, a silent attendee. But where will you be in time and space?
The recording available here
Designing English Digital Stories for Global
Abstract
In digitally-mediated communication contexts where diverse speakers meet and gather, multiple languages, diverse cultural codes, and multimodal resources are often employed, orchestrated, or remixed to create meaning in social practices (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000; The New London Group, 1996; Thorne, Black, & Sykes, 2009). The emergent forms of heterogeneous and multimodal communication intimate the importance of understanding learner participation and communication in transcultural digital literacy, or new literacy practices. Studying how English language learners (ELLs) interact with these multilingual, multicultural and multimodal communicative contexts in digital spaces has become crucial in the field of English language teaching and learning (Coiro, Knobel, Lankshear, & Leu, 2008; The Douglas Fir Group, 2016; Warschauer, 2010)
Valuing digitally-mediated multimodal composing as a newly developed literacy practice, this research investigates how English language learners (ELLs) serve as multimodal designers when working on one type of multimodal compositions, video-based digital storytelling, to reach global audience. Grounded in “literacy as social practice,” and the notion of “designing” (The New London Group, 1996), it explores how ELLs negotiate sociocultural, historical and ideological orientation to the video-based digital storytelling project, re-contextualize culturally and linguistically diversified resources, and dialogue with the local and the global community during the process of multimodal composing.
Study participants consist of 39 ELLs who enrolled in a course focusing on multimedia and English communication in a university in Taiwan. Both local students from Taiwan and exchange students from Europe and Southeast Asia who enrolled in this course participated in this study. Students work on their English digital stories as their course final project in groups and introduce aesthetics and culture stories of cultural spaces that are meaningful to them to the global audience. Data collections include students’ digital stories, interviews, class discussions, questionnaires, and documents. With a focus on ELLs’ designing process, the researcher employed thematic analysis to examine how ELLs approach their designing in relation to intercultural blending (Hafner, 2015).
This presentation plans to discuss one of the preliminary findings of the study and focuses on ELLs’ exploration of intercultural blending in their designing of digital stories. How students define, select, utilize, orchestrate with local and global cultural resources in their digital story to demonstrate ideas to their global audience will be reported. For example, in their video composition situated in Qi-Shan, a town that was greatly impacted by the 921 earthquake in southern Taiwan, ELLs who are from Taiwan struggled to define the role of Taiwanese (i.e., local resources) and English (i.e., global resources) in their story. Their exploration and negotiation of how to best arrange Taiwanese oral narrations, English oral narrations, and English subtitles to reach the global audience and to uncover the local cultures of family relationships remains salient. In addition, images and dialogues emphasizing a stubborn father (i.e., local resource), a gossip neighbor (i.e., local resource), and a caring daughter (i.e., local resource) are designed and orchestrated to present the image of home (i.e., global resource) for the global audience. Interestingly, exchange students from Europe present their cultural space, the Love River, as a place where love occurs. With the use of an exchange student’s health issue in his heart (i.e., local resource), the local sign of love (i.e., local resource), a beautiful lady besides the river (i.e., global resource), and the local taxi driver’s Chinese narrations of his love story (i.e., local resource), this group playfully remix local resources and global resources for their multimodal delivery.
Based on the findings of this research, the researcher hopes to bring in discussions that highlight students’ interpretation of local and global resources, and their imagination of how to best reach the global audience in relation to multimodality and designing.
References
Coiro, J., Knobel, M., Lankshear, C., & Leu, D. J. (2008). Central issues in new literacies and new literacies research. In J. Coiro, M. Knobel, C. Lankshear, & D. J. Leu (Eds.), Handbook of research on new literacies (pp. 1-21). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2000). Multiliteraices: Literacy learning and the design of social future. London: Routledge.
Hafner, C. A. (2015). Remix culture and English language teaching: The expression of learner voice in digital multimodal compositions. TESOL Quarterly, 49(3), 486-509. doi:10.1002/tesq.238
The Douglas Fir Group. (2016). A transdisciplinary framework for SLA in a multilingual world. The Modern Language Journal, 100(S1), 19-47. doi:10.1111/modl.12301
The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60-93.
Thorne, S. L., Black, R. W., & Sykes, J. M. (2009). Second language use, socialization, and learning in internet interest communities and online gaming. The Modern Language Journal, 93, 802-821. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2009.00974.x
Warschauer, M. (2010). Digital literacy studies: Progress and prospects. In M. Baynham & M. Prinsloo (Eds.), The future of literacy studies (pp. 123-140). Houndmills, Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Authors
Yu-Feng (Diana) Yang
National Sun Yat-Sen University, Taiwan
dyang@faculty.nsysu.edu.tw
Keywords
Designing
Digital Storytelling
New Literacies
Topics
Intercultural learning
New research trends in CALL: methods, theories and foci
Digital literacies
