72.020 - Theorizing Meaning-Making Around iPads in Educational Settings: Directions From Literacy Studies

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

The widespread availability of portable digital devices, and their increasing use within educational settings, suggests a need to re-draw maps of literacy development to account for emerging forms of semiotic representation and patterns of interaction. This symposium explores ways of conceptualising meaning-making with iPads, the relationship between bodies, texts and things, and the linguistic and cultural resources that adults and children draw upon. It presents varied perspectives on how children and adults take up the affordances of iPads to fulfil their diverse needs and purposes, considering the complex and multiple forces associated with the distribution of the technologies themselves and the texts they mediate. It addresses issues related to how ‘culture, language and heritage’ are further evolving around digital environments.

Sub Unit

• Division C - Learning and Instruction / Division C - Section 1a: Literacy

Chair

• Karen E. Wohlwend, Indiana University - Bloomington

Papers

• Preschoolers' Construction of the Sociocultural Affordances of iPads as Tools for Multimodal, Multilingual Composing - Deborah Rowe, Vanderbilt University; Mary Ellen Miller, Vanderbilt University - Peabody College

• The Fluid Materiality of iPad Use: "Working" and "Playing" Around iPads in Elementary Classrooms - Cathy Burnett, Sheffield Hallam University

• Multimodal Layering in Private and Public Learning Spaces: iPads in Primary School Classrooms - Maureen Walsh, Australian Catholic University and University of Sydney; Alyson Simpson, The University of Sydney

• All Fingers and Thumbs: Under Twos and Interactive Story Apps - Guy Merchant, Sheffield Hallam University

Discussant

• Jennifer Rowsell, Brock University