The first module we studied in my graduate class was an introduction to digital and multimodal literacies and their importance to the disciplines and to supporting a culture of inquiry in classrooms. The students read and did online discussions around chapters in Reading the Web: Strategies for Internet Inquiry, 2nd Edition by Dobler and Eagleton, Reading, Writing, and Literacy 2.0 by Johnson, From Curiosity to Deep Learning: Personal Digital Inquiry in Grades K-5 by Coiro, Dobler, and Pelekis, and Digitall Supported Disciplinary Literacy for Diverse K-5 Classrooms by Colwell, Hutchison, and Woodward. They also read a variety of articles around digital literacy that were published in the last couple of years in Reading Teacher. When we got together for face to face class (masked and socially distanced), they created their own multimodal text . Enjoy what they learned about what digital and multimodal texts are, what to think about when planning to include them in literacy instruction, and why the are important to supporting disciplinary literacy and inquiry. why are digital and multimodal literacies important?
In this pandemic, digital and multimodal literacies are even more important to supporting the literacy development of all of our learners. I hope you will visit the blogs of my students (links posted on Oct. 30 blog post) for more detailed information about how to support 21st century literacy skills!
