I have also learned to think in a more transliterate way when designing our school wide learning engagements. Normally in person, we meet as a whole school in our MU room and I mostly talk to the students and try to engage them in some dialogue or sharing their thinking but it’s challenging with 430 students in the room. This year, I have created presentations that the whole school can watch from their classrooms that include visuals, video and audio recordings, pictures, etc. I have received a lot of feedback about how students are participating and have made adjustments. For instance, for our youngest students, they tend to be more engaged when they see a person’s face on screen as opposed to just a voice over. My task now is to think about how we want to move forward using different literacies as we come back to primarily in person instruction. This is definitely a way to think about reaching a wider audience which in my case includes a number of different groups including staff, parents, and students. I have also been thinking about how to redesign some of our parent meetings and workshops to include literacies that are not so dependent on written or spoken English for our parents that primarily speak other languages.
One of our instruction coaches has been working with our 3rd - 5th graders for the last couple of years on sketchnoting as a tool for making thinking visible and for responding to literature. The students use it as a note taking tool when watching videos or presenters. They have also used it as a way to demonstrate their understanding of a concept such as migration, energy, or sustainability. For myself, I have a habit of using post it notes for all kinds of note taking and designing plans. I make little charts for myself or notes to keep track of ideas. My desk often looks like a colorful assortment of all shapes and sizes of notes that seems to have no organization, but it usually follows my conversations with others as we work on a problem or idea together . So I think for me, sketchnoting could be a way to capture that same kind of information gathering into one space that takes into account multiple perspectives and ideas around a shared topic. As I use it to depict my journey through my action research project, it’s a nice way to reflect on the learning process and how much we’ve accomplished so far.