Towards a social theory of semiotic technology: Exploring PowerPoint's design and its use in higher education and corporate settings. PowerPoint has become the dominant technology for designing and delivering presentations in many important settings and skills in the use of PowerPoint have become essential for professional and academic success. This study will investigate the use of PowerPoint in higher education and corporate settings in order to discover what these skills are and how the desig ....Towards a social theory of semiotic technology: Exploring PowerPoint's design and its use in higher education and corporate settings. PowerPoint has become the dominant technology for designing and delivering presentations in many important settings and skills in the use of PowerPoint have become essential for professional and academic success. This study will investigate the use of PowerPoint in higher education and corporate settings in order to discover what these skills are and how the design of PowerPoint supports or hinders the achievement of a range of communicative purposes. The study will provide guidelines for evaluating and improving the design and use of PowerPoint and other, similar presentation software.Read moreRead less
Image/text relations in narrative and information texts for children in print and electronic media: Multimodal text description for multiliteracies education. This project will produce a new theory of the ways images and language interact to make meanings in electronic and traditional texts. The theory will be adapted to provide a new grammar of image/text relations that is accessible to students and teachers. It will enable the literacy teaching and learning required for today's multimodal te ....Image/text relations in narrative and information texts for children in print and electronic media: Multimodal text description for multiliteracies education. This project will produce a new theory of the ways images and language interact to make meanings in electronic and traditional texts. The theory will be adapted to provide a new grammar of image/text relations that is accessible to students and teachers. It will enable the literacy teaching and learning required for today's multimodal texts to be based on an explicit systematic account of how different aspects of language and images are structured to make meanings. A grammar of image/text relations will facilitate consistency in literacy syllabus documents, more efficient teacher education in the literacies of multimodal texts, and more effective teaching of the literacies children need for the multimedia environment they live in. Read moreRead less
Multiliteracies, libraries and cybraries: Comparative case studies of Australia and the United States. Libraries are key sites for literacy learning. Commonwealth and state government policies stress the significance of libraries and ?information literacy?, and have called for the integration of new technologies into libraries. Despite an ongoing multi-million dollar investment in books and online connectivity, there are no large-scale studies of school libraries? transition into cyber libraries ....Multiliteracies, libraries and cybraries: Comparative case studies of Australia and the United States. Libraries are key sites for literacy learning. Commonwealth and state government policies stress the significance of libraries and ?information literacy?, and have called for the integration of new technologies into libraries. Despite an ongoing multi-million dollar investment in books and online connectivity, there are no large-scale studies of school libraries? transition into cyber libraries, or ?cybraries.? This project examines the impact of online information technologies on school libraries in two comparative sites in Australia and the US. It describes new forms of text, knowledge and literacy enabled by networked cybraries, and documents how educational systems enable and impede such developments.Read moreRead less
An investigation of meaning negotiation in electronic discourse. This project investigates the use of collaborative electronic exchanges between language students in Indonesian and Queensland schools to enhance language and inter-cultural development. The chief investigators will develop a new model of discourse appropriate to such asynchronous communication (e-mail and forums), as well as investigate developments in technological literacy. Other outcomes will include guidelines for creating pra ....An investigation of meaning negotiation in electronic discourse. This project investigates the use of collaborative electronic exchanges between language students in Indonesian and Queensland schools to enhance language and inter-cultural development. The chief investigators will develop a new model of discourse appropriate to such asynchronous communication (e-mail and forums), as well as investigate developments in technological literacy. Other outcomes will include guidelines for creating practical technology-mediated tasks, and protocols for establishing and maintaining electronic tandem exchanges with a developing country. Results will be reported to the Industry Partner and relevant educational authorities and published in national and international journals such as ARAL, Babel and CALL Journal.Read moreRead less
Being digital in school, home and community: investigating the implications of young people's engagement with ICT for education. Understanding more about young people's use of ICT at home, at school and in the community has major potential to contribute to the improvement of education. Data on young people's everyday digital literacy practices will point the way to the strategic targeting of government investment in ICT. These data will assist schools in designing their missions, trajectories an ....Being digital in school, home and community: investigating the implications of young people's engagement with ICT for education. Understanding more about young people's use of ICT at home, at school and in the community has major potential to contribute to the improvement of education. Data on young people's everyday digital literacy practices will point the way to the strategic targeting of government investment in ICT. These data will assist schools in designing their missions, trajectories and curricula. They will also interest parents, employers, community groups and the public at large. If well publicised, the study will generate pressure for more and better understanding of how to integrate the use of ICT into education programs in the future. Read moreRead less
Sustainable models of teacher information and communication technology (ICT) professional development that empower multiliterate classroom practices. New concepts like 'multiliteracy', 'rich tasks' and 'repertoires of practice' as identified by recent education documents such as "The New Basics" and "Literate Futures" (Education Queensland 2000a & 2000b) require new teaching practices that demand advanced levels of information and communication technology (ICT) interaction. Such involvement wi ....Sustainable models of teacher information and communication technology (ICT) professional development that empower multiliterate classroom practices. New concepts like 'multiliteracy', 'rich tasks' and 'repertoires of practice' as identified by recent education documents such as "The New Basics" and "Literate Futures" (Education Queensland 2000a & 2000b) require new teaching practices that demand advanced levels of information and communication technology (ICT) interaction. Such involvement with ICT requires new models of teacher ICT professional development that have a well researched foundation based on their transformative realities and long term sustainability. This project will establish a conceptual understanding of what is required of teachers for 'multiliterate' learning and develop a professional development model that has as its goal 'multiliterate' student outcomes.Read moreRead less