On Blogging

      I was pleased to see a reference to Wheeler (2010) in a student post.  He is a prolific blogger and is a good role model for the type of blogs you can write for this paper which you then adapt to fit an essay style for assessment 1.  Wheeler (2010) lists 7 features of a good blogspot as having: a good attention grabbing title, good content that is well written, easy to read and topical, controversial with support for your argument,  information based on good colourful images,  hyperlinks that take the readers deeper into the content, humour and brevity.  

      I was also interested in reading/seeing how much time you spend on digital reading and writing as compared to print versions and how this translated into teaching/learning practices.  Walsh (2010) explains in some depth the process of reading, writing and producing on screen stating that a crucial issue for us in literacy education, is whether the basic aspects of reading and writing on screen are different to print based text. The theory of multimodality is the basis for the understanding that we simultaneously process different modes of text, image, gesture and sound in visual, media or digital tests which is a different function from the linear, sequential reading of print-based texts.  She goes to explain that reading on screen also involves responding to animated icons, hypertext, and sound effects.

      Web 2.0 have opened reading and writing to weblogs (blogs) where the producer needs to use appropriate layout for the screen that can combine text, images etc with sound and music, where design is an important factor including aspects of layout, font size, colour. As Walsh (2010, p.227) states “We have to ensure that with the incorporation of digital communication technologies basic aspects of reading, writing, language learning, grammar, spelling and punctuation are still explicitly taught”. 

      The following utube called “a magazine is an ipad that does not work” illustrates the changing nature of multimodal literacy that we need to be responding to.

      The rationale for my choosing blogs for you to communicate through is because they offer you a digital literacy, multimodal platform that you can use to address issues in this paper and use for your assessment 1 task. 

References

UserExperiencesWorks. (2011, Oct 25). A magazine is an ipad that does not work” [Video file].     

       Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJZSLvTK4pw

Walsh, M. (2010). Multimodal literacy: what does it mean for classroom practice? Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 33(3), 211-239.

Wheeler, S. (2010) What makes a good blogpost. Retrieved from http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2010/05