A classroom with a view: Teachers, multimodality, and new literacies

Albers, P., & Vasquez, V., & Harste, J. (2008). A classroom with a view: Teachers, multimodality, and new literacies. Talking Points, 19(2), 3-13.

This essay describes projects done by two of the authors (Peggy and Vivian) in their teacher education classrooms. The idea is to provide teachers with experience in creating multimodal texts, so that they will know the processes (both technical and cognitive) that occur when such texts are created. The end goal is that they work with children in their classrooms to create such texts.

The projects are interesting, including making public service announcements, creating multimodal family history projects (my favorite) based on an era or event, and making podcasts. At some point soon, these kinds of texts will be possible at the K-12 level, though at present the hardware, software, and just plain access all seem less than realistic in most public schools. Once the infrastructure is in place, though, we will be having children use these tools, so it’s not too early to get teachers thinking in that direction.