Digital Literacies Meet Second-Language Instruction in Colombia: Developing Language Learning and Digital Agency

• In Event: Digital Literacies for Global Meaning-Making: Learning From Four Cases From the Global South

Abstract

Purpose and Perspectives
This paper describes the authors’ (Author 3A, 2020a, 2020b; Author 3B, 2020b, 2020c) digital literacies efforts with second-language learners in Medellín, Colombia. (Re)mixing (Alvermann, 2016) Critical Digital Literacies (Ávila & Pandya, 2012; Aguilera & Pandya, 2018; Author 3B, 2020; Author 3B, et al, 2021a, 2021b) and affinity spaces (Author 3A, 2020a, 2020b; Black, 2009; Gee, 2018), the authors used digital spaces to engage students’ daily lives through English and, by creating multimodal websites and podcasts, respectively, students develop new forms of language agency and engagement that also enriched instructional practices.

Methods and Data Sources
This paper shares the cross-case analysis of two classroom experiences, threaded in the shared vision of transforming students’ engagement with languages and the construction of new digital identities in these scenarios. Data sources come from two implementation experiences in secondary (Author 3A) and preservice education (Author 3B) and include semi-structured interviews, reflective journals, and students' digital artifacts (Ellison, 2016). Cross-case data analysis engaged Authors 3A and 3B in revisiting their own data and reading each other’s data to raise new questions and new layers of analysis. The shared reading and the different layers of confronting old and new data made the findings for this paper.

Findings
Our cross-case analysis showed three distinct moments:
By creating multimodal texts and podcasts, students became active producers of knowledge. Students transcended traditional classroom practices, carried out deeper inquiries about their topics of interest and their language learning, and became conscious of the possibilities for knowledge creation and dissemination they themselves were a part of.
The classrooms evolved from one-directional learning spaces to true communities of affinity (Black, 2009) and shared learning. Instead of being passive learners into active producers, students developed agency to create their knowledge (Labbo, Reinking, and McKenna, 1998) and their realities (Hinrichsen & Coombs, 2014).
Authors 3A and 3B transformed their positionality in their classrooms, moving from being knowledge providers to becoming co-creators of critical knowledge to explore and identify common social values, customs and personalities. (Gee, 2018, p. 8)

Significance
Findings disrupt traditional classroom practices and conventional views of digital literacies devoid of deeper reflexivity about the forms of agency that must surface in these learning spaces. This paper also demonstrates the new forms of participatory literacies (Roccanti, 2014) and new forms of living and learning in a digital age (Aguilera & Pandya, 2018). Each of these new forms, as our data showed, entail new needs, forms of affinity, and common endeavors as sources of learning and opportunities to explore, practice and apply all that they know and take from their costumes, communities and societies (Manderino & Castek, 2016).
Returning to the conference theme, we must reconsider our responsibilities as scholars and educators for maximizing ethical collaboration and agency in these global digital spaces. We need to foster true collaborative digital spaces that enable people from different regions in the world to contribute and collaborate, regardless of language background or language level, in ways where they profit from these spaces as arenas for learning and growth.

Authors

• Zeidy Y. Agudelo-Lopera

• Edison F. Castrillón-Ángel