Abstract
This chapter describes an investigation into exploring meaning making through multimodal literacy practices and technology integration for teacher education within the context of an online, secondary reading course for K-12 teachers. Through the use of a collaborative conference protocol, discourse with cross-disciplinary critical friends, and visual thinking data analysis strategies, a teacher educator examined existing multimodal literacy practices and then studied course redesign and technology integration. Results include recognizing opportunities for diverse learners to access and use prior knowledge in the construction of new knowledge, reframing the course delivery platform as a multimodal “text,” increasing opportunity for learners to construct and communicate complex understandings through multimodal texts and technology-infused assessments, and learners' curriculum making through transmediation mediated by technology.
TopBackground
In teacher education, meaningful teacher learning is essential; teachers who learn to use technology for professional learning in meaningful learning contexts and in collaboration with other professionals are more apt to provide similar agentive learning experiences for their learners (Standerford, Sabin, Anderson, Edge, Lubig, & Cameron-Standerford, 2012; National Writing Project, n.d.). If teachers are to help their K-12 learners to read and make meaning from multimodal texts, this knowledge must be a part of teacher education (Riddett-Moore & Siegesmund, 2014; Serafini, 2015).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Transaction: Transaction does not refer to a business exchange; rather, transaction conveys the ecological relationship between the knower, knowing, and what is known.
Envisionment: An envisionment is meaning that is in the process of being made; it is meaning-in-motion.
Event: In this study, event refers to a transactional experience. An event is an experience from which meaning is made. Meaning-making and event are biconditional terms. Meaning-making presupposes that a transaction has taken place. Rosenblatt (1978, 1994, 2005) has written that meaning is a transactional event.
Making Meaning: Meaning is a transactional event. People make meaning during a transaction. Readers make meaning during transactional events by drawing upon their linguistic-experiential reservoir to guide their sense-making (Rosenblatt, 1978, 1994, 2005). In the context of a classroom, meaning is not located in texts or in lessons or even in people; rather, it is made through dynamic transactions with people and various texts in various contexts.
Transformative Learning: A revision of conceptions or assumptions and includes a process by which individual learners construct knowledge through critical reflection.
Knowledge: Knowledge is more than facts or the accumulation of information; it is the understanding of the interrelated information in the context of social and disciplinary conventions.