Abstract:

Currently, the study of new literacies is especially interesting in educational contexts. In the so-called era of media convergence and participatory culture, to be literate about the media becomes essential for active participation in society. In the same way that traditionally it cannot be assumed that people is literate if they can read but no write, we should not assume that nowadays someone is literate if is able to consume digital media but not to express using these resources. (Jenkins, 2006b). On the one hand, there is a change across the board in the historical knowledge of writing to move to the image domain it is changing across the board in the historical knowledge of writing to move to the image domain. Moreover, a change from the dominant medium, where the screens are taking over books (Kress, 2003b).
This paper explores an innovative educational experience, involving students between the ages of 12 and 13, during the second semester of 2010, in a “Language & Literature” class of a Spanish Secondary School. We worked on the development of written narrative skills’ as a previous step to the composition of an audiovisual product. The events which serve for the students’ stories come from his experience with a social simulation video game, Sims 3.

From an ethnographic perspective (Pink, 2004; Atkinson et al., 2001), we analyze the dialogues, tasks and processes taking place in the classroom. Our study is based on a qualitative analytical perspective based on narrative and ethnographic approaches (Connelly & Clandinin, 2006) and includes a micro-ethnographic analysis of multimodal discourses (Gee & Green, 1998). We will present how, through the emerging categories, it's shown the difficulties involved in media literacy work in the form of management of audiovisual speech (Buckingham, 2007, 2010) and the awareness that information requires different representations for different media. (Manovich, 2001).

References:
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