Week 1: January 12–19, 2009

Theme: What is/are Multiliteracies?

This week gathers the participants into a distributed learning network that overlaps with other similar networks. Several  essential frameworks underpinning multiliteracies will be discussed, and these frameworks will be applied to models of how this course might function (more as a seminar in which knowledge is built through connecting and sharing, as opposed to a course in which the learning paths have been prescribed). Many tools which participants can use to foster connections with one another will be introduced. The materials and tools can be sampled and trialed as needed; there is no need to do everything suggested here. Participants are encouraged to keep blogs or wikis to record their progress through the course; discoveries and ways of sharing knowledge with one another will also be touched on.

Objectives

By the end of this week you will have:

• introduced yourself to the group
• completed the diagnostic survey
• gotten familiar with the features of our Yahoo Group http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/multilit/ and this wiki
• configured your network tools:
  • Yahoo group 
  • Consider what other networks you will be joining and start conversing within them.
• read and commented on Seminal Reading and Seminal Viewing ( See Content below)
• started a blog or wiki journal to track progress in this course 
  • Tag entries blogs and wikis or any artifact created for this course: evo2009mlit.

Please remeber that on Saturday at  04 00 GMT we have our first guest speaker Kim Cofino

Readings

• Seminal reading: The New London Group (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review 6, 1. pp.60-92.  Retrieved in 2009 from: http://wwwstatic.kern.org/filer/blogWrite44ManilaWebsite/paul/articles/A_Pedagogy_of_Multiliteracies_Designing_Social_Futures.htm

  A paginated copy, cited as

  A pedagogy of multiliteracies:  Designing social futures

  Cazden, Courtney; Cope, Bill; Fairclough, Norman; Gee, Jim; et al

  Harvard Educational Review; Spring 1996; 66, 1;  Research Library Core 

  is available here: http://mullins-teaching-notebook.wikispaces.com/file/view/newlondon+pedagogy+of+multiliteracies.pdf

   

• Seminal viewing

  • Michael Wesch, A Portal to Media Literacy, a talk on "Web 2.0 and Learning Environments" Presented at the University of Manitoba June 17th 2008 on Web: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4yApagnr0s
    • http://www.netvibes.com/wesch
    • MORE by Michael Wesch: http://hosted.mediasite.com/hosted5/Viewer/?peid=edd5f8a1a0ad4e2fbacee11257dd2950
    • Cristina Costa's Diigo annotation of Wesch's blog posting on this topic: http://www.diigo.com/annotated/d255cb8fcd760a1ce625cf909481ab5e
    • How did Vance find this video? (an example of JIT, just in time, learning via a robust and connectivist distributed learning network, posting from Nov 29, 2008)

• What's this course about?

  • Key models and structures
    • Stephen Downes: Distributed Learning Networks (and the importance of modeling in teaching): Downes, Stephen. (2007). Personal Learning the Web 2.0 Way. Keynote presentation at WiAOC 2007, Slide Audio Part 1: Audio Part 2:
    • George Siemens: Connectivism and Connective Knowledge; Stephen Downes on connectivism (21 min): 

    • SCoPE: Managing Multimembership in Social Networks: Oct 27-Nov 9, 2008:
    • The Nancy White slideshare graphic from slideshare

      

      (presented with permission from Nancy White)

• Paradigm shift

  • Kim Cofino
    • Making the Shift Happen: Always Learning (Feb 24, 2008):

      http://mscofino.edublogs.org/2008/02/24/making-the-shift-happen/

    • The more recent course she has proposed for SUNY: http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dd93ftgv_113gx4s68gh
  • Vance's baker's dozen in: http://advanceducation.blogspot.com/2008/03/ive-been-asked-to-propose-task-force-to.html
    1. RSS and push/pull technologies and feed readers
    2. Aggregation: tagging, Del.icio.us, and folksonomic classification systems as opposed to taxonomic ones
    3. Podcasts: harvesting them primarily, but also producing them, as vital resources in ongoing professional development
    4. Paradigm shift: multiliteracies and new learning heuristics
    5. Blogging and microblogging
    6. Digital storytelling
    7. Social networking
    8. Distributive learning networks: communities and connectivism
    9. Web 2.0
    10. Informal / just-in-time learning
    11. Synchronous communications: instant messaging, online presentation venues incorporating interactive whiteboard, voice, and video
    12. Asynchronous collaborations tools: blogs, wikis, Voicethread, Slideshare and similar, Google docs and similar, Google notebook

Synchronous discussion

• Kim Cofino and Vance Stevens will address the group this week.

  See http://goodbyegutenberg.pbwiki.com/EventsSchedule for latest venues and details

Tools 

Scott Leslie's nice collection of PLE diagrams: http://edtechpost.wikispaces.com/PLE+Diagrams

• YahooGroups: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/multilit/
• Ning - http://multiliteracies.ning.com/
• Blog sites
  • Blogger and similar
    • e.g.: http://havingalookatmultiliteracies.blogspot.com/
  • Tumblr
  • Posterous
• Wiki sites:
  • e.g.: http://havingalookatmultiliteracies.pbwiki.com/
• Microblogging
  • Twitter (video)
  • Pownce
  • Plurk
• Second Life: http://www.vancestevens.com/secondlife_edu.htm
• Facebook 
• Friendfeed
• Skype and SkypeChat 

Posted by Anna Jane from Australia, Dec 2007, as found here:

http://havingalookatmultiliteracies.blogspot.com/2007/12/multiliteracy-in-another-media.html

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Additional Readings and Directions for Exploration

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Participants, please write in your ideas at the HAVINGaLOOKatMultiLiteracies Wiki here:

http://havingalookatmultiliteracies.pbwiki.com/Week1

The Moderators suggest the following for additional insights and information ...

From MUVEnation: The tree of tools, in Herramientas Web 2.0, Dafne Gonzalez: 

http://dafneusb.motime.com/post/736177/Muvenation%3A+The+tree+of+tools