Multimodal Literacies MOOC’s Updates

Essential Update #3 - Multimodal Literacies - Writing

Make an update of 300 words or more: Find an approach to learning to write that you have encountered, used, or would like to know more about. Describe and analyze the approach using the concepts introduced in this section.

There is a wonderful site called Tar Heel Reader that allows students to write their own stories, add images from Flickr, and post the stories to the Tarheel Reader website. The link is - https://tarheelreader.org/

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/classroom_qa_with_larry_ferlazzo/2020/01/writing_helps_grow_readers.html

I came across the website, thanks to the Education Blog of Larry Ferlazzo. He is an EFL teacher in California, and his Edublog routinely is nominated for awards. He curates list of websites that use technology to assist teaching and learning. 

The Tar Heel Reader site gives students a sense of purpose with their writing, and uses both reading and writing, simultaneously to help learners make something meaningful out of what they are reading. 

Having an authentic audience motivates the students to write about what they have read, and create something tangible to show what they have learned. Interacting with the site allows the learners to use a variety of modalities to interact with and make sense of the material.

He first wrote about Tar Heel reader in 2008 , and ever since, they have been assisting students become better readers and writers, using a multitude of modalities. 

You can see images of the site below, and if you go to the link , at https://tarheelreader.org/ , you can see the site has been designed to allow for alternative access methhods. The bottom image has samples of past students work. 

Tar Heel Reader looks like a very promising tool to help students become better readers and writers, by using technology with a purpose. 

You can read Larry Ferlazzo's 2009 Edublog post about Tar Heel Reader, here:

https://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2009/04/16/titatok-tar-heel-reader-for-student-writing-again/

  • Timur Merekeyev