Multimodal Digital story-creation, Affordances and Students´ agency
Helene Dahlström
PhD in Education
Mid Sweden University
helene.dahlstrom@miun.se
The availability of multiple ways of communicating and expressing us has increased due to the digitization of society. These different ways of communicating also mean that we to a greater extent, use different modes as communication resources than we did before. Digital resources, provides an access to different modes within the same device. Given this changes of communicating, there is a need to explore how students, in a school context are using these changing conditions for text creation. This study will explore how Swedish 11-12 years old students use different modes while creating digital stories. The study will have a multimodal approach, which generally refers to the fact that representation, communication and interaction are more than verbal and treat the choice of modes as significant (Archer & Breuer, 2015). The existence of choice for students in text creation can be seen as students´ agency through choices (Bezemer & Kress, 2016). The unique affordances of modes give the sign maker the opportunity to choose which mode that are best suited to convey a special message, based on their interests and needs. This ongoing study will explore how students´ agency can be understood in relation to the affordances that the different modes offer, when students create digital stories. The data collection consists of video recording of 26 students creating digital stories, and of the multimodal texts, created by these students. Questions to be answered are: How do students use different modes in digital story-telling? What affordances do different modes offer and how can those be understood in relation to students´ agency?
References:
Archer, A. & Breuer, E. (2015). Methodological and pedagogical approaches to multimodality in writing. I G. Rijlaarsdam (Series Ed.) & A. Archer & E. Breuer (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 30, Multimodality in writing (pp. 1–16). Leiden: Brill.
Bezemer, J. & Kress, G. (2016). Multimodality, learning and communication, A social semiotic frame. Oxon and New York: Routledge
Kress, G. (2010). Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. London: Routledge.
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2018.
91COM-Multimodality- moving the theory forward, Odense, Denmark, 15-17 august, 2018