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As literacy is a social process, educators need to look at how identity affects student literacy and build on that positively. Multiliteracies pedagogy builds on the influence that technology has on identity, and helps students think critically think about the identities that they create both online and through their work in the classroom. Angay-Crowder et al. (2013) suggest that through the use the four components of multiliteracies (New London Group, 1996) that this pedagogy can “develop students’ leadership skills as they work as a team, set goals, manage time and resources, and construct a positive identity.” (Angay-Crowder, Choi, & Yi, 2013, p. 44)
Students today often have multiple online identities based on different social networking platforms. Many of them have an awareness of how their posts effect their identity. They use different platforms to post in different modes, in order to develop the identity that they desire, based on the specific audience of each platform. What is ideal, is that these identity based social media outlets promote multimodal reading and writing. Moje et al. (2009) argue young people “wrote for multiple reasons, namely because their literacy acts were situated in social networks and because they stood to gain social and cultural capital by reading and writing” (Moje, Luke, Davies, & Street, 2009, p. 21). By interacting, designing, creating, and posting on social media, students are allowed the opportunity to think metacognatively about their own identity, and how they want to be perceived. Cope et al. (2011) argue that “learning is also integrally related to learner identity—you don’t learn unless you feel you belong in a learning context where you know you can act as a knowledge maker and that your action will work and be seen to work by your fellows” (Cope, Kalantzis, McCarthey, Vojak, & Kline, 2011, p. 83). Identifying, and capitalizing on students’ identities, is an essential skill for 21st century teachers to be able to engage students in their learning. By planning projects, activities, and learning models that focus on students identity, and identity creation, 21st century teachers will be more able to activate students learning potential. |