Lightning Talk
Mary Pat O’Meara
York University
Biography
May Pat O’Meara is a Master of Education student at York University. Her research focuses on Digital Literacy and Multimodal Authorship through videoplay (remixing, gaming, and all forms of digital narrative [re]production).
Abstract
Multimodal discourses bring the pervasiveness of digital technology to the forefront, seeking to expand traditional ideas of literacy practices to include and value the multimodal sites of learning within formal and informal learning spaces. A pedagogy of authorship as it relates to multimodality and digital literacy is essential to understanding the agentive quality of adolescent students’ identity development towards learning, and how, as Kress (2003) notes, readers become designers of meaning. I aim to formulate a discussion about the concept of videoplay, engagement with videographic texts such as video games and digital remixing, as multimodal authorship through a digital design of meaning. Adolescent users of digital devices engage in practices of re-appropriating the visual frame and the modal landscape of meaning through videoplay and digital literacy. Is there space for multimodal authorship in the classroom?
Multimodality ultimately expands the notion of what we consider a text, and videoplay ultimately expands the notion of what we consider an author. This gives way to the concept of New Literacies, diverging from the monomodal practices of the written language in the classroom, which have become far too narrow considering the scope of new media and technology available. This means that educators are called to understand, appreciate, and employ the multimodal practices of their students within the classroom: the web, video games and digital editing software are valuable tools for learning and meaning-making and can certainly play a role in developing critical literacy skills that are increasingly more relevant in our digitally connected lives. How, then, can we expand traditional academic values to make room for multimodal and digital formats, practices, and authorship? My presentation will share how this topic can be explored through multiple modes of meaning via an online “text” (a combination of video, text, and infographic material developed for browsers and tablets in HTML 5). The content of the paper directly defines the mode(s) of its communication.