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Teaching the Multimodal Language of Emotions in a High-Tech World

The Institute for Learning Sciences & Teacher Education (ILSTE) is conducting an afternoon literacy event on Thursday November 15h at The Howard Centre, Marsden State School, 32 Hickory Street, Marsden QLD.

This event will be of particular interest to all educators who have an interest in motivating students to develop strong literacy skills in the age of digital media.

The literacy event will celebrate important learnings of teachers and school leaders and multimedia experts who participated in the The SELFIE Project, led by Professor Kathy Mills with Professor Len Unsworth. The project worked closely with teachers, principals and the not-for-profit Big Picture Industries media company to teach young project participants how to produce their own digital images, as well as posters, animations and films.

The project has been running for three years and in that time has made a notable difference to the technical and language capabilities of low SES primary students by teaching the multimodal language of emotions in the context of digital media. “Using digital technologies as the key, the SELFIE Project unlocked children’s fascination with technology to increase their use and understanding of the English language,” said Professor Mills. “The ability to express emotions, attitudes and judgements is a large and important grammatical system in language. Ability in these areas is associated with higher academic achievement, well-being and long-term social health. Learning to accurately describe this emotional expression is highly educational for young people.” The project is supported by Australian Research Council and DET as well as ACU, Marsden, Yugumbir and Flagstone State Schools & Big Picture Industries Inc.