ABSTRACT
This talk focuses on how five affordances of digital tools – multimodality, collaboration, interactivity, intertextuality/recontextualization, and identity construction – serve to foster critical literacy. Richard Beach begins with a review of how uses of digital tools are transforming instruction through supporting experiential and connected learning, as well as alternative learning spaces. Drawing upon an Activity Theory perspective on how tool use mediates object-driven activity, he posits that the five affordances are not “in” digital tools but rather are evoked through activity mediated by these tools. Enactment of the following affordances of multimodality contribute to critical engagement leading to critique of the status quo and institutional transformation: how the use of curation/infographic, concept maps, e-book authoring, digital video/screencasting, and image/audio production tools to create multimodal digital texts enhance student engagement and critique.
