E-learning 3: Multimodal conceptual project planning

You’ve guessed it!!….I’ve yet to concretise what I plan to do for my DST. I have some ideas but I guess this e-learning task kind of forces me to sit and place the plan on paper. I didn’t know what story I wanted to tell, but after reading Ohler’s book, several things stood out for me. According to him, stories help us make sense out of the chaos of life and they provide a powerful framework and set of practical processes for resolving issues, educating ourselves and pursuing our goals. Thus I’ve decided to share my story as I try to figure and make sense of my future plans.

Planning it down conceptually wasn’t easy for me. Initially, I even thought of using the storyboarding template suggested by Ohler. In the end, I decided to just go ahead and get it all down on paper first or rather on this blog first and to work on the technical aspects of it later.

General Storyline – to share my experience as a research staff, what is involved in the work, to change general perceptions about research work being dull or boring, to show how different it is from teaching, to convince teachers that it can be a possible avenue or route for a professional development opportunity, how it has affected me professionally

Title – I’ve yet to figure this out but I was thinking along the lines of - a whole new world, a different life, a different world, a new beginning, etc. (Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated here)

Genre – it’s a narrative, part recount (?) of what I’ve been doing in the past, teaching vs. what I’m doing now

Target audience – fellow educators, other teachers in MOE schools

Purpose – to provide a different perspective, to inform and be aware of possibility for a career change or another avenue for attachment as part of professional development

Modalities – Still images, music, written text, movement and transitions. I’m still considering if I will use spoken words to tell the story as I’m not confident of narrating it well *.

As I was trying to piece my ideas together, I used Labov’s (1997) model of natural narrative to look at it at a more macro level.

Abstract : I’ll start off with a title page with written text of the title on it. Followed by a short summarizing statement that this story I’m sharing is about what I’m doing now and how it has impacted my life. I think this should be narrated. (but see * point above)

Orientation: To help my audience identify place and activity, I would be showing still images of where my office is, images of typical research work. The images would serve as icons (Pierce, 1992).

Complicating action and Resolution: Share the information that I used to teach in school before becoming a research staff, still images of school, teacher, teaching here. Compare it with research work, show images of that to create a contrast. The research work is not permanent. I would have to go back to schools, back to teaching. For this part, I’m thinking about showing an image that could index non-permanence, temporariness, I’ve yet to find that! (Suggestions?) I also plan to include and maybe to suggest the urgency in issue of time, maybe a still image of clock ticking as an index.

Evaluation: That the opportunity to engage in research work has widened my horizons, offer me an alternative career path to consider, the friendship I’ve made along the way. Still images to be used here will be an image to portray research work (icon) that fades off to show a still image of the horizon (as index) and another image that could index friendship.

Coda: The ending will be how I’ve grown by going through this experience. It is an opportunity which affected my professional development. I will use a still image that could symbolize this concept. (I’m still searching for this.)

Music – I’m still searching – Help!!!!

I’m not sure if this plan for my DST will work and I really hope to get some feedback and suggestions from all. So do let me know what you think.

Wk8: Researching DL1 - semiotic awareness, authorship & implications

I'm not sure if upon the completion of the DST assignment, I would be able to concur whole-heartedly that engaging in DST would be beneficial for L2 learners. After reading the 2 articles for this week, Nelson and Ware, I am able to see that DST has the potential to tap into areas where traditional writing assignments may not be able to.

Both articles acknowledged that DST may have certain 'thorns' - using Dr T's term in his PPT slides - especially in terms of time (Dr Nelson's took 17 weeks (!!)). But I do agree that engaging in multimodal texts, gives the authors opportunities to express themselves more creatively especially when their language proficiency could be a hindrance in expressive writing in the traditional sense. The integration of other modes to communicate messages would allow the 'writing product' to be more meaningful in delivering its intent or message. Initially I felt that this could also be a reason why we have integrated project work (IPW) in schools, to acknowledge that some students who may not be very good in writing can also showcase their ability in presentation, IT skills, etc. But after reading Ware, I realised that the use of PPT in her case study school is actually quite similar to what is happening in our Singapore classrooms too!

Like what Dr Nelson concluded, we may not be cheerleaders of ICT but we cannot negate the fact that technological presence have "changed the landscape of communication" (Bearne & Kress, 2001). Because of the shift in the roles of image and writing in many domains, it is crucial that we acknowledge this shift as there are implications to teaching and learning. New kinds of identity are also being formed for students and teachers. The access to technology has enabled our students to be 'authors'. Kress (2007) (I'm intrigued by his work, or perhaps it's the beard...lol) posits that a new curriculum and pedagogy that acknowledges and values the semiotic work of students should be in place, so that it will be in tandem with the changes in communication. But how ready are we for that?

My concern is still in the area of assessment. How do we then assess these multimodal works of our students? Are we ready to allow their 'authorial voices' to be heard?

Reflection on e-learning task 2

I was reading other articles from Kress and I realised that I commented in my earlier post that prior knowledge would affect the way we make meanings of the stories. I think I agree with what Kress had to say about the various meanings which can be derived from various readers/viewers.

Kress (2004) stated that:

Signs have the potential of becoming signifiers with meaning and the sign makers original meaning can be changed through interpretation by the listener, reader, viewer of the sign.

In relating to Pierce's work (sign as icon, index, symbol), Kress also noted that 'the reader, speaker, viewer can change the content of the meaning according to the changing local context in which the sign is encountered. Social conventions can never determine meaning in an absolute sense.'

Further, Kress stated that: "The social in social semiotics draws attention to the fact that meanings always relate to specific societies and their cultures, and to the meanings of the members of those cultures."

Therefore, the same story viewed by viewers of different races, cultural background will impact the meanings they make. I'm glad that I could find a reason to explain why I didn't get the meanings of some 'signs' when I viewed some of the stories online. I didn't think my mind was that shallow :(