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49© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
A. Montgomery, I. Kehoe (eds.), Reimagining the Purpose of Schools
and Educational Organisations, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-24699-4_5
Re-imagining Schooling: Weaving the Picture
of School as an Affi nity Space for Twenty-First
Century Through a Multiliteracies Lens
Stefania Savva
Abstract Currently, evolving ways of communication, interpretation and creation
of meaning are challenging the ways people view themselves and the world, altering
their learning demands and needs. Closely related to this process of change is the
need to re-conceptualize schooling. Working within these realizations, the theories
of affi nity spaces and multiliteracies pedagogy are brought into the foreground of
the discussion to consider: What are the requirements of school for the twenty-fi rst
century? What are the potentials of affi nity spaces and multiliteracies pedagogy to
empower meaningful school-based learning? The core of this chapter reports on the
development, implementation and evaluation of a theory based framework named
Affi nity Multiliteracies Practice (AMP) with the intention to provide an example of
a teaching and learning approach to schooling that acknowledges students’ multiple
and diverse identities, experiences and capabilities while also equiping them to
become the fl exible and dynamic learners required in the twenty-fi rst century.
Keywords Affi nity spaces • Pedagogy of multiliteracies • Framework • Diversity •
Twenty-fi rst century literacies
Introduction
“Your assignment, should you choose to accept it” is to take education truly into the
twenty-fi rst century. Scott McLeod ( 2008 ), in his blog, ‘Dangerously Irrelevant’,
reminds us of a line from Mission Impossible in order to address the challenge
posed for some time now to researchers, policy makers and educators to reinvent
schools for the twenty-fi rst century. In such a consideration, schooling should be
grounded in socio-constructivist and sociocultural notions of learning where educa-
tion is thought of as real-life, relevant, active and meaningful project-based process
where learners work collaboratively to make meaning for curriculum that is con-
nected to students’ interests, experiences, talents and diverse skills that are often
S . S a v v a ( *)
University of Leicester , Leicester , UK
e-mail: savvastephania@gmail.com
50
referred to as multiple literacies of the twenty-fi rst century – aligned to living and
working in a globalized new millennium (McLeod 2008 ). Attention is increasingly
paid to these competencies and multimodal literacy practices that students need to
acquire and utilise in various contexts in order to succeed in the postmodern world.
Yet contrary to this pervasive need, research has consistently shown that print liter-
acy reading and writing activities still dominate mainstream learning contexts
(Winch et al. 2006 ).
This chapter attempts to provide an alternative view of schooling in the twenty-
fi rst century through incorporating a consideration of the premises of literacy peda-
gogy seen from a sociocultural perspective. More specifi cally, the pedagogy of
multiliteracies (New London Group 1996 ; Cope and Kalantzis 2000 ) offers an inter-
esting proposal as to what constitutes literacy in a constantly changing, socially and
culturally diverse, globalized and technological world (Anstey and Bull 2006 : 19).
Before entering into a description of the actual research project, this chapter exam-
ines the changing demands of learning in relation to the notion of literacy and out-
lines the theoretical background – the New London’s Group multiliteracies
pedagogy and Gee’s affi nity space – to propose a potential framework to address
schooling through a literacy lens. The discussion continues with a vignette to exam-
ine the feasibility of the framework adopted for re-imagining schooling. The study
focus is on the learning experiences of a group of culturally and linguistically
diverse (CLD) students working in a public primary classroom setting for a
multiliteracies- driven project over a period of four months. In seeking to interpret
how these students think about, and respond to, literacy practices, the analysis
adopts a socio-qualitative approach of interpretation to meaning making that elicits
a deeper understanding of the potential of the framework applied to empower mean-
ingful school-based learning.
New Literacy Demands and Twenty-First Century Schooling
Contemporary notions of literacy have broadened from the concept of literacy as
being addressed to a singularity or a discrete set of skills (Purcell-Gates et al. 2004 )
to a plurality of shared ideas, of various and diverse ‘literacies’ (Liddicoat 2007 :
13), to include newer communicative practices associated with information and
communication technologies (Stooke 2010 ). Luke and Freebody ( 2000 ) provide
one of the more recent and useful defi nitions of literacy in stating that ‘Literacy is
the fl exible and sustainable mastery of a repertoire of practices with the texts of
traditional and new communications technologies via spoken, print, and multime-
dia’ (Luke and Freebody 2000 : 9). In this perspective, a text is viewed as communi-
cation and representation that is concerned with more than language (Jewitt 2009 :
14); it involves modes such as image, gesture, posture, sound, and movement (Walsh
2011 ). Ajayi ( 2011 ) and Rowsell et al. ( 2008 ) highlight how new communication
technologies can enable the possibility to practice multiple literacies across cultural,
social, economic, and national boundaries, and in the process, re-conceptualize their
S. Savva
51
self-identities as multiple, hybrid, complex, and dynamic. The cumulative effect of
these factors ensures that knowledge afforded by new digital literacies and hybrid
textual forms will become increasingly indispensable to literacy teaching/learning
(Leu et al. 2004 ).
However, the challenge for education is not only to educate for new breadth and
forms of literacy but also to have learners delve into a critical interpretation of these
forms and modes’ (Ailwood et al. 2000 ; Unsworth 2002 ; Thwaites 2003 : 27).
Individuals should consider different perspectives, to analyze and problem-solve
complex issues, and to think critically about social issues. To succeed at the latter
requires meaningful and challenging learning experiences that are culturally rele-
vant (Callow 2006 : 9) and enjoyable while developing students’ repertoires of lit-
eracies (Ailwood et al. 2000 ; Unsworth 2002 ). Such an approach relates to work in
new literacy studies (Barton et al. 2000 ; Street 2001 ) with the consideration of lit-
eracy from a social and cultural perspective (Vasquez et al. 2004 ). Such a view
acknowledges literacy as “dynamic, culturally and historically situated practices of
using and interpreting diverse written and spoken texts to fulfi ll particular social
purposes” (Kern 2000 : 6; Gee 2000 ). The learner is seen as an active participant in
the learning of literacies (Tierney et al. 2006 ) while the resources that the child has
gained from sources outside the school are valued (Jewitt 2008). Literacy learning
and literacy practices are not separate from people’s identities and life worlds; in
fact, literacy is among the tools that we use to construct particular identities (Gee
1997 ; Kress and Van Leeuwen 2001 ; Bezemer and Kress 2008 ).
Put in the context of education, Callow ( 2006 ), notes the learning relationship
between teacher and students should be informed by these understandings of liter-
acy learning and practices and aim at creating socially just and equitable principles
around language and education; that, requires practical ideas and pedagogies which
teachers can implement in current contexts (Callow 2006 : 8). For example it is
imperative that literacy pedagogy should be grounded in intellectual quality and
rigor, equally committed to high cognitive, operative and affective dimensions of
engagement (Callow 2006 : 10). Such conceptualisations on the social aspects of
literacy are unsettling to traditional pedagogies and literacy education in schooling
(Korhonen 2010 ) however it is imperative to challenge the status quo to move edu-
cation forward. The following section discusses a potential framework for re-
imagining schooling by incorporating a sociocultural approach to literacy. The
focus here is both on literacies as communication (meaning for others, as supports
for social interaction) as well as a form of representation (or meanings for ourselves,
as supports for thinking).
The Affi nity Multiliteracies Practice Framework
Taking into consideration the unique characteristics of the contemporary twenty-
fi rst century environment as discussed earlier, a theory-based framework, the
Affi nity Multiliteracies Practice (AMP) is proposed for twenty-fi rst century
Re-imagining Schooling: Weaving the Picture of School as an Affi nity Space…
52
schooling. The AMP (Fig. 1 ) relies on a creative overlap between the theory of the
New London Group ( 1996 ) for a pedagogy of multiliteracies and the theory of affi n-
ity spaces proposed by Gee ( 2004 ).
The AMP is informed by the theory and practice of multiliteracies pedagogy as
developed by the New London Group ( 1996 , 2000 ) and Cope and Kalantzis ( 2000 ,
2005, 2006, 2012). ‘Multiliteracies’ was coined by the New London Group (NLG)
in a seminal article published in the Harvard Educational Review in 1996 . This land-
mark article “served as a catalyst for global change in literacy research, policy, cur-
riculum and pedagogy” (Mills 2006 : 62). Cope and Kalantzis ( 2000 ) stress that there
is nothing radically new in a multiliteracies pedagogy; prevailing pedagogy has sim-
ply been repackaged in order to expand the scope for literacy by viewing many types
of expression and communication as literacies, whether formal or informal; spoken,
gestured, written or graphic; offi cial or unoffi cial (Ryan and Anstey 2003 ). Within
the spectrum of education and learning in general, this broadening can redefi ne the
intentions and practices of teachers to include considerations of the students’ real
world experiences, who they really are and what kind of literacies they practice.
Encompassing students’ strengths and interests in popular culture and media litera-
cies could be the way to social inclusion, while developing more traditional forms of
literacy (Rowsell et al. 2008 : 112). The ultimate goal of literacy pedagogy should be
to enable the reader to use any or all of the resources available to transform the
meaning of texts so as to be meaningful to them and apply it to different contexts.
Lave ( 1996 : 161) refers to this as ‘changing participation in changing practices’. In
other words, we must teach students to recruit previous and current experiences as
an integral part of learning to make meaning (Cope and Kalantzis 2000 ).
In the pedagogy of multiliteracies, learning is considered a process of meaning
making, during which learners continually reshape themselves. Meaning making
Fig. 1 The AMP framework
S. Savva
53
and any other semiotic activity are treated as ‘a matter of Design’ (NLG 1996 : 73).
Drawing on the concept of design, we can speak of it as either the way in which a
text has been designed, or to the process involved in designing (Cloonan 2007 : 19).
Multiliteracies theory presents:
… any semiotic activity, including using language to produce or consume texts, as a matter
of Design involving three elements: Available Designs, Designing, and The Redesigned.
Together these three elements emphasise the fact that meaning-making is an active and
dynamic process, and not something governed by static rules. (NLG
2000 : 20)
Multiliteracies theory offers the notion of design to describe the codes and con-
ventions of meaning-making modes and posits that there are six identifi ed modes of
meaning showing regularities or grammars (NLG 1996 : 74). These existing design
elements can be linguistic, visual, audio, gestural, spatial or multimodal designs
(NLG 1996 : 73–74, 2000 ). Students can draw from existing designs to make mean-
ing for their own purposes; in this way they become “active designers” (NLG 1996 :
64) with the help of experienced others (educators) during overt instruction, which
actually constructs the scaffolding of their learning (Cope and Kalantzis 2000 ). The
redesigned or transformed notions of meaning produced can then be used by others
as available designs to draw upon (NLG 1996 , 2000 ).
In a multiliteracies driven curriculum, two important ideas prevail: Learning by
Design and Multimodality
1 (Kalantzis and Cope 2005 , 2006 ). Learning by Design is
building into curriculum the idea that not every learner will bring the same Lifeworld
experiences and interests to learning (Kalantzis and Cope 2012 ), as well as acknowl-
edging that every learner is not on the same page at the same time (Kalantzis and Cope
2005 ). They identify these different domains or identities collectively as Discourse
Worlds, and suggest that students draw on two in particular to make meaning, their
Lifeworld and their School-Based World (Barton et al. 2000 ; Anstey and Bull 2006 :
34, 2004 ). These worlds overlap and inform one another (Fig. 2 ). Part of readers’
Lifeworlds and School-based Worlds is their knowledge and experience as readers.
The idea of multimodality discusses learners’ movement between written, oral,
visual, audio, tactile, gestural and spatial modes, which are combined during com-
munication in order to produce meaning (Kress and Van Leeuwen 1996 ). The aim
of literacy teaching with respect to multimodality lies in the acquisition of the abili-
ties and skills which are necessary to produce various text forms linked with infor-
mation and multimedia technologies (Baldry
2000 : 21), which usually combine
different semiotic media for meaning making. The “multiliterate” subject possesses
a range of literacies (e.g. visual literacy, techno-literacy etc.), reads multimodal
texts in an integrated fashion (paying attention to the relationship between the dif-
ferent semiotic modes being deployed) and produces multimodal texts managing
various resources (Kress
1995 ).
The goals and ideas of multiliteracies pedagogy could be served only if a holistic
approach to schooling applies. To elaborate on the latter, the theory proposed by
1 An interesting example of how the two are linked is found in Mary Neville, Teaching Multimodal
Literacy Using the Learning by Design Approach to Pedagogy: Case Studies from Selected
Queensland Schools, Common Ground, Melbourne, 2008.
Re-imagining Schooling: Weaving the Picture of School as an Affi nity Space…
54
Gee known as affi nity spaces is brought into the foreground of the discussion for a
re-conceptualisation of schools as learning environments in the twenty-fi rst century.
Gee has opposed the traditional schooling system that persists and promotes domi-
nant discourses and hierarchies and suggests an alternative view of schools. To
make a claim on the previous, Gee is building on Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger’s
( 1991 ) concept of communities of practice, but in contrast to their defi nition of
thinking about groups of people as being either ‘in’ or ‘out’ of a community, he sug-
gests that we think of spaces where people interact. An affi nity space is a place –
virtual or physical – where informal learning takes place. Spaces can be real tangible
spaces, like a classroom, or virtual spaces, like an online discussion forum or game.
The point is that this shared space exists for people to interact and share their ideas
based on common interests, endeavours, goals, or practices, irrelevant of race, gen-
der, age, disability, or social class (Gee 2004 : 67). Gee ( 2005 ) calls these kinds of
spaces ‘semiotic social spaces’ (SSS). Semiotic involves the study of signs and sym-
bols. In the case of SSS, semiotic refers to the way people interact in the space so as
to create meaning that might be unique to the space and to the people using it. In
discussing characteristics of what he terms “affi nity spaces,” Gee acknowledges
how within the affi nity space, people are not separated between novices and experi-
enced in these affi nity spaces but rather coexist (Gee and Hayes 2009 ). Affi nity
spaces encourage users to gain both intensive (experts or specialists) and extensive
(broad knowledge shared with everyone) knowledge while also enable use of dis-
persed knowledge (available outside the affi nity space) and also tacit knowledge
(knowledge built up in practice not able to express with words) (Gee and Hayes
2009 ). Learners or users of these spaces participate in varied ways and different
Fig. 2 Discourse worlds in a reader’s identity (Reproduced from Anstey and Bull 2006 : 34.
© 2004. Used with permission)
S. Savva
55
levels, such as peripherally and centrally. Leadership is porous and leaders are
resources; different people lead in different days, different areas, and resourcing,
mentoring, advising people (Gee and Hayes 2009 ).
Gee points out that schools do not have the features of affi nity spaces, since dis-
tributed knowledge, networking, and collaboration across and beyond the school
rarely occurs. However, these are ways in which students interact and engage in
their daily lives and should be incorporated in the school system (Morgan 2010 ).
The AMP framework proposed offers an example of a creative synergy between the
notion of affi nity spaces with multiliteracies pedagogy to provide a teaching and
learning approach that could apply to the goals and practices of a twenty-fi rst cen-
tury school learning context.
A Vignette
To test the feasibility of the AMP framework in a real life setting, a case study
research strategy was undertaken which enables a holistic and in-depth investiga-
tion of the phenomenon (Yin 1994 : 13–14). In particular, an intervention was
designed, implemented and evaluated in a primary school with a group of students
coming from various cultural and linguistic backgrounds (Fig. 3 ). A total of 42
students (24 boys and 18 girls) aged 10–12 from Grades fi ve and six were recruited
for the fi nal study using a non-probability, purposive sampling (Cohen et al. 2007 )
and following on from their parents’ or guardians’ written consent. The students
engaged in the intervention from January until April 2013 in Paphos, Cyprus.
Qualitative data were collected from: (a) researcher notes, (b) naturalistic obser-
vations during each session, (c) semi-structured interviews with students, and (d)
the fi nal product produced by students, i.e. the virtual museum exhibition. Different
sources of data gathering (Yin 1994 : 13–14) allows for the triangulation of data
(Stake 1995 ) (Fig. 4 ).
Student group: ethnic background
Cypriot
Russian
British
Ukranian
Iranian
American
Fig. 3 Ethnic background
of student group
Re-imagining Schooling: Weaving the Picture of School as an Affi nity Space…
56
Implementation of the AMP Framework
The AMP framework was implemented as part of a series of multiliteracies lessons
enacted by the researcher with the assistance of two school teachers. The method
involved students working on desktop computers with a built-in camera as well as
the use of tablet computers to create a virtual museum exhibit. During the initial
phase of the project the student group was introduced to the virtual museum concept
using the WebQuest method (Dodge
1995 ) in the form of a blog designed specifi -
cally for the purposes of the research. A webquest is an active process of directed
discovery using primarily internet sources during which students take up an active
role to solve a problem or participate in a realistic situation (Dodge 1999 ). Attention
is given to defi ne the parameters of the students’ activity to focus in analysing and
using in meaningful ways the information found (Hammond and Allinson 1989 ;
Jonassen 1991 ). The activities incorporated creative play and innovative experimen-
tation using multimodal resources. Links to virtual museum platforms where pro-
vided in the process element of the WebQuest which students could follow. This
procedure was the fi rst step for students to begin imagining, visualizing (Smith and
Woody
2000 ; Lister 2008 ) and conceptualizing individually what constitutes a
museum.
The next step in the procedures that followed had students engaged in construct-
ing their own virtual museum by working in heterogeneous groups, mixing students
with different abilities and levels of performance. Groups developed different rooms
of the museum, creating storyboards with objects, writing text, fi nding audio and
videos to upload on the WebQuest. Both virtual and real objects were used to create
the virtual learning space. All groups completed museum rooms with the same
Preliminary phase
DEVELOPING
FRAMEWORK
Learning design
and strategic
planning of the
field study based
on the principles
of the framework
Data collection
FIELD
RESEARCH
Focused Group
Interviews
Participation and
Observation
Content analysis
Final product
Analysis phase
Immersion in data
Inductive and
deductive
socioqualitative
analysis with
interpretation
using qualitative
software Atlas Ti
Researcher
insights
Interpretation
Thick description
Final
interpretation and
conclusions
Fig. 4 Qualitative research process
S. Savva
57
content and students could compare and contrast the rooms created. Each group
populated one room and the whole class created a single museum. Developed
groups included novice and experienced technology users and novice and experi-
enced writers. At one point the entire class created a single room using a projector.
In the end, all student work was put together into the fi nal museum.
Findings: The Affi nity Literacy Zones
The interpretation of fi ndings from the fi eldwork relied on the philosophical assump-
tions of interpretivism and social constructivism. The intention is to understand the
experience from the participant’s point of view; specifi cally to address how the
pedagogical approach and the ecology of the AMP framework contributed to stu-
dents’ learning experiences and perceptions. To assist interpretation, a socio-
qualitative analysis of the data was pursued incorporating a hybrid combination of
both inductive (data-driven) and deductive (a priori template of codes) methods,
with attention being directed towards the literacy learning opportunities and prac-
tices occurring during the fi eldwork.
In addition to the levels of qualitative analysis that were necessary to understand
the ongoing effi ciency and success of the project – it was also important to analyse
the content of the emergent qualitative themes (McWilliam 1994 ) arising from the
data. An important realisation early in the analysis was that the emerging themes
were not categorical – but represented complex crossing points of students’ literacy
practices which were in constant motion. Thus the socio-qualitative analysis
involved the development of ‘affi nity literacy zones’ (Fig. 5 ) as they denote spatial
fi gures as organisational units for the data (Bruner 1971 ) while also illustrate
Fig. 5 Affi nity literacy
zones deriving from
socio-qualitative analysis
Re-imagining Schooling: Weaving the Picture of School as an Affi nity Space…
58
elements of students pre-existing literacy identities and practices which are impera-
tive to the learning experience reported here. The displayed themes are inter-linked
and do not offer statistical data in terms of the number of students or types of stu-
dents that fi gured in each zone. Rather, the themes represent proximal pathways to
literacy that chart students learning experiences from the project: the employment
of the affi nity literacy zones are useful as they contribute to understanding the pri-
mary school socio-qualitative context of the study (Freebody 2003 ).
Students revealed generally positive stances through the affi nity multiliteracies
learning spaces cultivated as the affi nity literacy zones suggest. For example the
fi ndings from the analysis indicated that processes within the approach enacted
allowed the teacher’s role to be supportive and facilitative rather than authoritative
to the students’ work, enabling a dynamic student role . This permeates all of the
literacy practices reported as students immersed into the process of design and cre-
ation of the virtual museum exhibit as both novices and facilitators. Students
directed their own investigatory activity; they were actively involved in asking ques-
tions, planning their activities and reaching conclusions about their work (Kuhn
et al. 2000 : 496–497). The fi ndings suggested overall positive gains that parallel
technologically-enhanced intervention studies through student engagement in group
work with more student ‘ownership and responsibility for their own learning’ (Looi
et al. 2010 : 24) and for their peers.
Another inference from the study is that students were acknowledged for their
personal attributes, and they were granted freedom to express and celebrate their
individualities with others in the community of practice cultivated. This points
towards the realisation of being responsive and refl ective to the “various ‘subjectivi-
ties’- interests, intentions, commitments, and purposes – students bring to learning”
(NLG 1996 : 72); thus students’ exhibited empowered subjectivities . Interacting
within the premises of an affi nity space served to fulfi ll some aspects of culturally
responsive learning; the students believed they were re-introduced to the school
environment starting from a clean sheet when they engaged in this project. In this
sense students who were coming from diverse background were more engaged in
the intervention than they were in their everyday school activities and felt comfort-
able sharing their personal stories and experiences.
The descriptive narratives from the intervention suggest that the implementation
of the AMP framework using digital resources was successful in improving stu-
dents’ performance with regards to engagement in classroom discussion and practi-
cal activities. The students’ enthusiastic participation in the lessons and contributions
to class discussion validated the choice of consistently using digital media as there
was an apparent motivational effect of ICT . The most commonly reported reason
among students for feeling that the project was helpful, was that the use of digital
media and devices was relevant to their lives and the visual input enhanced under-
standing (particularly through the use of moving imagery and animations). The for-
mer confi rms other research that the visual, kinaesthetic and auditory forms of
computer-assisted activities motivate students (Passey et al. 2003 ).
An important inference from the analysis was that within the affi nity space cul-
tivated, collaborative learning nourished as students learnt to collaboratively
S. Savva
59
identify problems with peers via observation and dialogue, inference, form and test
of hypotheses, and deduce evidence based conclusions about underlying causes dur-
ing the different literacy tasks (Dede et al. 2005 ). In this sense learners became
designers of their experiences while working in groups, as collaborative knowledge
makers (Cope and Kalantzis 2008 : 581). Interaction with peers enhanced classroom
participation and a sense of belonging, exhibited satisfying identity, and stimulated
imagination in particular for students who were coming from varied background.
The use of the affi nity space was particularly important to connecting students’
thinking practices within a socially distributed cognition (Cope and Kalantzis 2008 :
581).
The fi ndings from the fi eld notes and the fi nal product created (the virtual
museum) suggested the enactment of the premises of the AMP framework facili-
tated multimodal meaning making on behalf of students. There was evidence of
meaningful engagement of students with a variety of texts of great linguistic and
cultural diversity, displaying knowledge and representation in multiple forms: print,
images and combination of forms in the digital context. During the process of selec-
tion of multimodal resources, students realized that electronic texts are fl uid and
dynamic. Writing became “multi-vocal” and intertextual (Snyder 1996 ). Students
reported a level of awareness of the impact of multimodal forms of expression:
I think that it was best to use as many ways as we could to make the virtual museum because
people have different preferences and so they might like watching a video more, or listening
to music than reading a text. So yes, it was important to use many means to make the
museum easier to understand… (FN, St.6, Gr. 5)
In this sense, it can be argued that there was “a broadening of the range and mix
of representational modes’, all of which contribute to meaning” (Jewitt and Kress
2003 : 277). There was an indication that these students took the fi rst steps towards
becoming critically literate about the texts and social practices they found online.
This proved to be an important step to critically engage with the text they employed
or the choices they made.
I noticed how the author of the article I wanted to use for the museum was from Africa. I
think it showed in the way he spoke in his text about freedom and I thought he must have
experienced something that made him talk like that… (FN, St.3, Gr.5)
Nevertheless, the move from viewing semiotic resources as discrete units to
making meaning through establishing purposeful interactive links across various
resources (Luke 2003 ) required further work. It was not possible to discuss them in
depth in class or reconstruct and refl ect on the visual experiences they articulated
due to their diffi culty in making critical connections and little time available.
Although there was an intention to help students represent their knowledge in com-
plex manners and encourage higher order skills, there was an apparent weakness in
achieving higher-order abstraction and metacognitive strategies which are consid-
ered possible based on the affordances of ubiquitous learning.
I just wrote the text as I would for any school task. I didn’t look deep into why somebody
wrote these things… I was only interested in writing the important parts and that is all…
(FN, St.8, Gr.6)
Re-imagining Schooling: Weaving the Picture of School as an Affi nity Space…
60
This indication of a lack of capacity for higher order thinking, using deep under-
standing in new ways’ (Anstey and Bull 2006 : 60) could be explained in terms of
students’ lack of systematic engagement with similar activities in class (MOEC
2012 ) and also the lack of suffi cient time due to the nature of the intervention. The
challenge was for students to work towards a meaningful synthesis, that is, shifting
‘from collection to connection’ (Luke 2003 : 400) to establishing links and coherent
fl ows across varied multimodal resources. It was not possible for texts to be studied
in their social context and from a range of contemporary social perspectives (Moore
1997 ; Pope 1998 ). There is still space for broadening students’ perspectives on
semiotic affordances and constraints (Norman 1988 ), utilizing various semiotic
resources for metacognitive benefi ts.
Conclusions
The fi ndings from the implementation of the Affi nity Multiliteracies Practice and
the identifi cation of the affi nity literacy zones indicate that it could be used as a
basis for creating dynamic school environments for twenty-fi rst century learning.
The overall inference is that within the multiliteracies-enhanced affi nity spaces
developed during the fi eldwork the participating group of students had opportuni-
ties to widen their engagement with various composite discourses that came from
their own multicultural, multilingual and technologically literate background. What
could be claimed from the evidence of the motivational aspect of technologies for
learning in this case study is that it could be worthwhile to incorporate the concept
of affi nity spaces into rethinking schooling in the twenty-fi rst century. Since there
was an indication that the AMP promotes meaningful literacy learning, it would be
worthwhile to fi nd ways of allowing children to explore multimodal sources and
software for themselves in a structured, supportive environment (Goodison 2002 :
294) sharing characteristics of an affi nity space. It could be that the combination of
the motivation such as enjoyment from the use of technological devices and the
increased engagement in particular literacy events within the premises of the multi-
literacies pedagogy could be particularly benefi cial for empowering students’ liter-
acy practices.
However, what is noticeable from the interpretation of the affi nity literacy zones
is how it appeared that there are no inherent qualities in the AMP framework for
developing students’ higher order and critical thinking skills. Even these students
who have been characterized as multimodally literate (Davies 2006 ) or digitally
natives (Prensky 2001 ), are not ‘per se’ equipped to make critical connections and
advanced cognitive processes despite scaffolding strategies in the AMP framework.
Using the multiliteracies pedagogy proved that it has the potential to empower stu-
dents’ critical awareness of and uptake of multimodal texts by taking into perspec-
tive the social aspects of literacy which entail the infl uence of variant cultures,
languages and symbols to make meaning. Nevertheless, it cannot be claimed that
the AMP substantially addressed twenty-fi rst century learning in its fullest. The
S. Savva
61
challenge for future practice in teaching and learning using the AMP framework is
to fi nd synchronous and synergistic ways (Cole 2006 ) of combining the qualities of
affi nity spaces with multiliteracies pedagogy within the school learning context to
enhance twenty-fi rst century learning. Such an environment would operate in the
groundings of a pedagogy of multiliteracies where affi nity literacy zones should
work through and parallel to the practices of the teachers and students to encourage
a technologically and digitally diverse multimodal learning experience – and an
empowering group atmosphere (Holland 1998 ). Dillenbourg et al. ( 2002 : 16) stress
that there is still a need to develop new technology that supports specifi c pedagogi-
cal functions (e.g. group regulation or project management) for schooling in the
postmodern era. Attention should be paid however to fi nd an appropriate balance;
technology enhanced learning should aim to reach a deep understanding of the rela-
tionship between technological, or even technical, choices and teaching/learning
processes (Dillenbourg et al. 2002 : 15).
The case study reported in this paper is a single small-scale example and any
implementation of similar learning designs should be supplemented by additional
research to suffi ciently address the value of the AMP framework to address twenty-
fi rst century learning in schools. For students to develop higher order skills and
metacognitive understandings, requires further investigating the kind of practices
and technologies that allow us to transform education in the twenty-fi rst century.
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Stefania Savva is in her fi nal years as a PhD candidate in museum studies at the University of
Leicester in the UK under the supervision of Dr. Viv Golding. Following from her undergraduate
studies in primary education in Greece, she completed an MA in art, craft and design education in
London in 2009. With experience of working as an educator in both formal and informal settings,
Stefania is currently a research associate at the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts,
Cyprus University of Technology, at the Art and Design e-learning Lab supervised by Dr. Nicos
Souleles. Concurrently, she is undertaking freelance research and writes blog articles. Stefania has
presented in a number of international conferences and has published work in academic peer-
reviewed journals. Overall her research interests include multiliteracies pedagogy, educational
technology, virtual learning environments, culturally responsive teaching and innovative
approaches to museum education for the twenty-fi rst century.
S. Savva
