Critical Computational Literacy: Coalescing Storytelling, Design, and App Development

• In Event: 52.082 - Multiliteracies, Connected Learning, and Opportunities for Equity: Exploring Key Principles of Literacies Research in the 21st Century

Abstract

Storytelling has been and continues to be a quintessential human endeavor. It remains as relevant and powerful today as it did for West African Griots in the 14th century. The basic principles remain the same; to effectively communicate an event to audiences for various purposes. What has changed is the production and dissemination of these stories. At the heart of a powerful story is one that leaves an indelible mark on the audience.
Critical Computational Literacy (Author 3, 2014) is the intersection of reading and producing multimodal “critical texts” while using high-level computational thinking practices, including, but not limited to: design aesthetics; systems thinking; coding; and app-development. In our ubiquitously connected world, multiliteracies have ceremoniously become the literacy de rigueur (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009; Kress, 2010; Luke, 2000). Knowledge acquisition today may involve watching videos, listening to podcasts, analyzing infographics, or even sifting through memes for an essential message. Knowledge production has similarly mirrored this shift (Alvermann, et al., 1999; Margolis, 2008; Morrell, 2008). No longer limited to a singular process of production and dissemination, stories now have the ability to interact with their audience (e.g. commentaries, surveys, tweeted responses, re-mixing, etc.) through a collective meaning-making process.

This paper examines the learning processes urban youth engage in through their construction of an app created in conjunction with a newstory in an after-school media production organization. Conceptually, this research draws from critical literacy (Luke, 1995; Shor, 1999), multiliteracies (Ito et. al, 2013; New London Group, 1996), and sociocultural learning theory (Lave & Wenger, 1991). This research study examined two ten-week sessions where urban youth discussed, created, and reflected on the various apps they created for newstories.

Data was collected throughout the two ten-week curriculum through field notes, youth-produced artifacts (reflections, drawings, apps), audio recorded discussions and conversations, and one-on-one interviews at the conclusion of the project. Using a grounded theory approach, data analysis began with students’ final reflections and transcribed interviews. By prioritizing students’ reflections of their products, the authors’ voice led the analysis of coding process. Data were coded in relation to themes generated from student interviews and reflections.

Findings from this research study demonstrate that historically marginalized urban youth learned computational concepts and how to leverage these tools to tell stories that are rarely raised in the mainstream media. They challenged prevailing and dominant ideologies by changing the means by which audience members understand these topics through gamification in apps to expand and deepen an audience member’s knowledge of an issue.

This project demonstrated that youth are capable of developing the technical know-how of computational thinking, as well as re-envisioning how these tools can be used. Instead of considering apps as the engines of entertainment and profit making, these youth demonstrated the potential of these technologies as tools of knowledge dissemination and acquisition, and social justice. They saw themselves as reality changers and innovators with empowered voices to transform others.

Authors

• Clifford H. Lee, Saint Mary's College of California

• Elisabeth M. Soep, Youth Radio