The Low Bridge to High Benefits: Entry-Level Multimedia, Literacies, and Motivation

Abstract Low-bridge approaches to multimedia in the writing classroom rely on familiar literacies, free consumer-level software, and remix uses of materials to facilitate student production of new media compositions. The projects shed light on reconfigurations of teaching environments that foreground the classroom as a construction site or studio space. The model features an emphasis on the interplay between technical things and human goals and concerns. This emphasis requires hands-on experiences working with technologies as part of classroom activities. Skill challenges yield high levels of motivation, and student composers experience flow-like states of creativity. The writing class as new media studio becomes a site of heightened personal engagement with learning that moves from the practical to the personal to the public. These practical approaches yield significant opportunities for students to develop new media literacies through the process of making projects. Examining these projects reveals the need to focus on a sense of personal agency and the possibilities for delivering social change when we talk about new media literacy.