Week 7: Infomal Blog Task; Rethinking Literacy; Multimodal Texts

I created a multimodal text on PowerPoint, which was an interactive story about The Little Gingerbread Man. I enjoyed creating the multimodal text because I developed new skills. I learnt how to hyperlink the slides together so children can click on the link to read the next page of the story, so I have integrated literacy teaching through creating a multimodal text (Walsh, 2010). The experience will affect my practice positively because I can use the story as a template to create more interactive stories. The skills I gained can be transferable, to creating other texts for example, using hyperlinks to view videos online. I was confident with making my story, as I knew how I could make it interactive to ensure that there were different activities involved to engage the children.

 

The challenge I experienced was not finishing my story in the seminar, the lack of time was an issue. This can be linked to ICT lessons in schools. I experienced that most children did not have enough time in the lesson to complete their work. In addition to this, some aspects of the story I could not make fully interactive because I was lacking the skills to complete the action for example, I wanted the user to be able to click on the words to place them into the correct box in order to complete the missing passage. However, I would adapt the activity so that children can still complete the passage by numbering the boxes and the children write on their whiteboards which words match the correct box. Teachers need to make the time to create their interactive story and the relevant skills to create it.

The implications that could occur are teaching children the skills to create the text, which could be time consuming. They will need to teach them how to use the program. A lot of time will need to be spent on generating ideas with the children, to ensure their stories will involve interactivity (UKLA and QCA. 2005). Other threats are the children using pictures from inappropriate websites which exposes them to inappropriate content. They also could be breaking copyright laws by using copyright protected images. To avoid these implications from occurring the teacher could save pictures that are not protected by copyright laws in their class folder, which the children can use. This means the children are not breaking copyright laws and being exposed to inappropriate websites. Time will also be saved because the children will not have to look for the pictures.

In conclusion, teachers need to teach the relevant skills to children of creating and experiencing multimodal texts in order to have the relevant skills and understanding to engage with the text (Medwell, Moore, Wray and Griffiths, 2012). For example different skills are needed to make a movie compared to watching a movie. Children should create multimodal texts because they will gain skills to broaden their learning, and be creative to make information come to life (Creating multimodal texts, 2011).

Bibliography

Creating multimodal texts. (2011) Introduction and how to use this resource. [www] Available from: http://creatingmultimodaltexts.com/ (Accessed: 25.02.2014)

Medwell, J., Moore, G., Wray, D., and Griffiths, V. (2012) Primary English Knowledge and Understanding London: Learning Matters.

UKLA and QCA. (2005) More than words 2: Creating Stories on page and screen. [pdf] London: QCA.  Available from: http://www.suehorner.com/resources/8_More+than+words+2+$282005$29 (Accessed: 25.02.2014)

Walsh, M. (2010) ‘Multimodal literacy: What does it mean for classroom practice?’ Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 33 (3), pp211-239. [pdf] http://www.alea.edu.au/documents/item/63 (Accessed: 25.02.2014)