{"id":5893,"date":"2016-08-24T09:18:29","date_gmt":"2016-08-24T08:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/altc.alt.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=5893"},"modified":"2016-08-24T09:39:12","modified_gmt":"2016-08-24T08:39:12","slug":"introducing-twitter-into-the-classroom-a-multimodal-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/altc.alt.ac.uk\/blog\/2016\/08\/introducing-twitter-into-the-classroom-a-multimodal-analysis\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing Twitter into the classroom: a multimodal analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

In a recent practitioner- research study in a Computing department at University College Isle of Man, I explored the literacy practices of students studying for a Diploma in Information Technology (IT). This involved examining similarities between their everyday and college-assessed literacy practices and the texts they produced. I took a social semiotic approach to consider how literacy can be viewed as social practice, complemented by a multimodal approach to understanding digital texts produced as instances of literacy practices.<\/p>\n

Twitter is a social networking site where virtual micro blogging takes place by connecting people in real time. Gillen and Merchant\u2019s (2012) concept of \u2018virtual existence\u2019 offers a way of understanding the relation between features of the digital texts and the environment (virtual and real) in which tweets are constructed. They clarify that tweets are sent by keying \u2018shorthand for the various ways of producing a tweet\u2019 in \u2018letters and spaces\u2019 to \u2018constitute our own utterance\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"Tweet2-min\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sending photographs builds interpersonal relationships and friendships are constructed virtually through the visual and verbal mode, two important modes in face-to-face communication.<\/p>\n

Synchronous Twitter messages or tweets created on a screen are viewed chronologically and new tweets regularly update the user\u2019s site, consequently Tweets have a sense of virtual existence (Gillen and Merchant, 2013) which means the tweets received and the re-tweets sent are re-contextualised and take a new appearance, that is the original tweet was reproduced in another place and his re- tweets appeared on his follower\u2019s sites giving a longer existence and wider dispersion to the tweet. The re-contextualisation of a text raises issues about the durability of texts and Minocha and Petre (2009) use the term \u2018permanence\u2019 to explain the idea that once posted digitally a text can be used and re-used for a very long time, and one has little control over its interpretation or replication. The texts \u2018permanency\u2019 is partially determined by the network provider and partly determined by the person posting the information.<\/p>\n

The re-contextualisation of a text raises issues about the durability of texts<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Digital writing is itself multimodal and incorporates for example, shapes, size, colour, and mark-making or inscription. However, in this section my focus is on the verbal aspect of digital writing which is alphabetic but also includes emoticons, a common feature of digital writing. The focus on the verbal nature of digital writing allows an understanding of \u2018the potential for meaning-making that writing \u2013 and indeed speech – offers\u2019 (Lillis, 2013, p.26).<\/p>\n

Introducing this everyday digital literacy practice into the classroom was achieved by classmates sending Twitter feeds to respond to an assessment task. Students created a new Twitter account linked to their college email to maintain privacy and they used a #hashtag to communicate within a closed group. Figure 2 shows a screen capture of a set of Twitter<\/p>\n

<\/a>
PowerPoint slide with Twitter feeds<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

feeds that classmates sent for their assignment work. By using Sap Web PowerPoint tools, Twitter feeds were inserted in speech bubbles on a PowerPoint slide and regularly updated as newsfeeds with the same hashtag which were received in the Twitter account. The hashtags sent on the Twitter site organised the tweets and the layout of the Sap Web tool organised the presentation of the tweets. The update of the newsfeeds reflected in the slides indicate that students were collaboratively engaged in reading and writing using software that enabled meaning-making to shift \u2018moment by moment\u2019 (Gillen and Merchant, 2013, p.11) to engage in sociocultural and specifically, collaborative learning.<\/p>\n

Looking in detail at both the literacy practices of young people and the texts they produced, as a teacher, I have found it possible to ascertain what is going to be advantageous to students for future educational success, employment and various aspects of life. It appears that using digital media can connect their everyday with their college-assessed literacy practices in terms of reading and writing on the screen. If a careful selection of the media, modes and genre used for assessment are made it would allow knowledge to be brought into the classroom. This would in turn enable greater congruence between young people\u2019s everyday and college-assessed literacy practices.<\/p>\n

Dr Adele Creer is an Lecturer HE and FE, University College Isle of Man, @AdeleCreer, www.linkedin.com\/in\/AdeleCreer<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

If you enjoyed reading this article we invite you to join the Association for Learning Technology (ALT)<\/a> as an individual member, and to encourage your own organisation to join ALT as an organisational or sponsoring member<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gillen, J. and Merchant, G. (2013) ‘Contact Calls: Twitter as a Dialogic Social and Linguistic Practice’, Language Sciences, vol. 35, pp. 47-58.<\/p>\n

Lillis, T. (2013) The Sociolinguistics of Writing, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press.<\/p>\n

Minocha, S. and Petre, M. (2012) Handbook of Social Media for Researchers and Supervisors: Digital Technologies for Research Dialogues, Milton Keynes, The Open University.<\/p>\n

Stenglin, M. (2009) ‘Space and Communication in Exhibitions: Unraveling the Nexus’, in Jewitt, C. (ed) The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis, Oxon, Routledge.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"  In a recent practitioner- research study in a Computing department at University College Isle of Man, I explored the literacy practices of students studying for a Diploma in Information Technology (IT). This involved examining similarities between their everyday and college-assessed literacy practices and the texts they produced. I took a social semiotic approach to […]","protected":false},"author":480,"featured_media":5895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,99],"tags":[749,773,1054,1000],"class_list":["post-5893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-case-studies","category-innovative-practice","tag-blendedlearning","tag-collaboration","tag-multimodality","tag-social-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/altc.alt.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1112\/2016\/08\/Amys-Sap-web.png?fit=625%2C468&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6447,"url":"https:\/\/altc.alt.ac.uk\/blog\/2017\/06\/assignments-as-controversies\/","url_meta":{"origin":5893,"position":0},"title":"Assignments as Controversies","author":"howardscott75","date":"6 June 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Ibrar Bhatt\u2019s book \u2018Assignments as Controversies: Digital Literacy and Writing in Classroom Practice\u2019 explores the practices of learners in college classrooms. 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