Tinker Tale 3

Book Hangout on Air
Our Deep Play Group read and discussed “Multimodal Learning for 21st Century Adolescent” by Thomas Bean. It presents multimodality in teaching and learning with a concentration on expansion of “text” as printed material towards audio and visual tools. This teachers’ resource is full of instructional strategies and practices that are useful to teach and learn subject specific literacy. The author emphasizes creativity, collaboration and technology. 
 

• Talk about specific passages that struck you significantly.

“…The screen is now the dominant site of texts; it is the site which shapes the imagination of the current generation around communication…” (p. 23). As educators, we need to adjust the use of our traditional textbooks and to expand our classroom resources with practices that use modern technology.

• What surprised you most?  What contradicted your current understanding?

I was surprised while reading about skills required for the use of text in modern classrooms and society. There are different critical reading skills needed to navigate and learn from websites than those needed for traditional print-based comprehension. The modern reader can exploit wide varieties of text and he or she needs to possess abilities of evaluating text towards relevance and accuracy as well as making metacognitive intertextual connections between diverse sources.

• What were your main takeaways from the book?

There were several takeaways from this book. First of all, there are many websites and applications used to teach subject content and literacy, like; wordle.net, freerice.com, etc. Second of all, this book stresses the importance of teaching subject literacy using modern technologies, images, symbols and applications. Lastly,  reading “Multimodal Learning for 21st Century Adolescent” by T. Bean changed my view on assessment, especially grading projects.  I realized that besides evaluating content, I need to pay closer attention to design, composition, creativity and the esthetic parts of projects which should be included in project rubrics.

• What are the implications for teaching and learning?

We need to take on a multimodal approach, that is- creativity, collaboration and virtual experiences, like simulations, in our classrooms on a regular basis. Teaching becomes more associated with coaching and mentoring in a problem based context. Consequently, it is very important to teach content area critical reading skills as well as problem solving abilities.

• What have you learned? What ideas will you apply to your current context?

By completing our reading assignment I learned five practical strategies of surviving attempts of integrating technology (p. 20) and basic copyrights principles, (p.80) among many others. Each year I will try to learn and apply one new application to support teaching and learning in my classroom. In addition, I was exposed to new instructional strategies like Talking Drawing procedure and the Internet Slow Down and Think (ISDAT) strategy