MONASH EDUCATION Improving refugee students access to digital

MONASH EDUCATION Improving refugee students’ access to digital literacies: integrating transmedia storytelling in an EAL (Year 7) classroom Dr Ekaterina Tour Dr Maria Gindidis Janine Breadmore Jess Mc. Culloch

Background and challenge § Background: – The importance of digital literacies (Mills, 2016; VCAA, 2016) – EAL students need teachers’ support to learn how to use technology in a new linguistic and socio-cultural context. § Challenge: – Lack of suitable resources and pedagogical tools to teach digital literacies in EAL contexts § Transmedia storytelling as an approach to teach digital literacies - A new concept for education, particularly for EAL education (Rodrigez-Illera & Molas-Castells, 2014) 2

Transmedia storytelling § In transmedia storytelling, elements of a particular narrative are dispersed across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating an integrated and coordinated storytelling experience (Jenkins, 2010). § Channels: digital, print and real-life objects (Slota et al. , 2016) § Based on the active participation of the students who are chasing down bits of the story across media channels (Rodrigez-Illera & Molas-Castells, 2014) § Guided by learning objectives (Slota et al. , 2014) § Project-based and student-centred learning (Rodrigez-Illera & Molas-Castells, 2014) 3

Aims of this project In collaboration with a teacher § To plan, implement and evaluate a transmedia storytelling unit to gain better understanding of this approach § To develop and disseminate a web-based toolkit for EAL practitioners to support teaching digital literacies: 1. a flexible framework 2. a set of teaching resources / example 4

Research questions § In what ways does transmedia storytelling support refugee students’ learning? § What are the features of transmedia storytelling especially when developed in an EAL context? § What are the main challenges for EAL teachers in planning, teaching and assessing transmedia storytelling in an EAL program? § * Teacher-researchers partnership? 5

Research site § § Term 2, 2017 A language school in a Melbourne suburb A teacher and her Year 7 class 13 students – 7 students: refugee/ refugee like status (Burma, Iraq, Iran, Myanmar, Malaysia, Thailand) – All had interrupted schooling – No access to technologies at home (5/7 refugee) § School access to technologies: significant filtering and blocking for safety reasons § Curriculum focus in Term 2: email literacy 6

Project Planning Implementation Evaluation • Planning meeting (teacher and team) • Collaborative design of the unit • Adapting, changing, improving the unit • Teaching the unit • Students’ work / assessment • Teacher’s reflections • Interview 7

Transmedia narrative: The Compendium of Close Shaves 8

Learning unit 9 lessons Teacher acts as characters Email literacy 2 assessment tasks Operational Cultural Critical Flexibility 9

Engagement; Collaboration; Flexibility

What Could Possibly Go Wrong with Technology? .

• Transferable skills? • Collaboration and Assessment • Fiction or Real world?

Teacher- researchers collaboration 13

Sharing our work – Thank you The toolkit and example will be available on the Vic. TESOL website in 2018 14