Using digital media in the classroom as writing platforms for multimodal authoring, publishing, and reflecting

This multiliteracies-framed study is an analysis of how English Language Arts students designed digital portfolios across three digital media platforms: Weebly (a website building platform), blogs, and Instagram (a photo and video sharing app). Analysis centers around an examination of students’ writing (defined broadly), student surveys, focal student interviews, and a reflective interview with the teacher to understand the research question: How did students use each of the platforms and what did this afford that may not have otherwise been possible in this typically formal and text-based class? Findings indicate that the students designed complex, reflective, multimodal compositions that would have otherwise not been possible with the typically formal, prescribed forms of writing typical to this classroom. Implications for this study include embracing alternative communication styles in classrooms beyond traditional forms of text-based writing to allow for students’ out-of-school and in-school literacy practices to be bridged.