Agency, Divergence, Multimodality and Conceptualization

Photo courtesy http://icoblog.wordpress.com/category/new-media/

New Media, New Learning
Bill Cope, and Mary Kalantzis, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA

"...Consider how digital media has affected Agency, Divergence, Multimodality and Conceptualization in your life, in the lives of your students, or in society in general...." - Jane

Agency - Today we now have thousands of channels to chose from on the television. There are so many options we can create our own angle. We can now contribute to Wikipedia and create our own YouTube Channel. We are content providers. We have become users instead of watchers and listeners. In the case of games we are now participants online as opposed to watching on TV. As consumers we can chose how we view digital media by device, browser and through our own custom interface. Instructors can create their own channels for our students.

Divergence - there are opportunities for new groups to form where it requires less skill and infrastructure. The web provides the ability to broadcast and share information developed by smaller groups. Short print runs are an option for publication which provides for more flexibility for content and turn around. The economy of scale Production TV to Youtube, Large print runs to print on demand. Knowledge and culture can become more fluid. Students and teachers can create their own content.

Multimodality - This concept of everything can be reduced to a pixel as digital print, and video can be shared over different devices. Actually the content as binary code can be transferred and shared as print, web, video, audio and stored remotely or locally and shared with others include viewing or working together at the same time if needed and from remote locations. Students and teachers can share information in real time or with others as needed.

Conceptualization - This perhaps are new skills that are required to look at information and think how is this being presented. There are categories and fields that have been organized in a database that was developed using an ontology. As a user you will learn to recognize patterns and become familiar with how the information is being presented.

Image Courtesy IVRY TWR

We have new hardware and technology along with new ideas and ways of teaching. It may be useful to go back and think how we are using the new technologies. Are we still applying the same practice to New Media that we used for Old media?