Dr. King’s research interests include early and emergent literacies, digital and media literacies, text analysis, history of literacy, historical approaches to research, qualitative inquiry, queer theory in educational contexts. His current projects include an examination of early literacy policy in post-apartheid South Africa; the impact of visual literacies on instruction in composing processes; and the effects of online conversion in a reading master’s program.
Session Description
Our session will guide participants in understanding the research on critical media literacies and the corresponding strategies and tools that teacher educators can use to prepare teachers and students for communicative competencies.
We will:
- (1) share a current example of a viral digital campaign (e.g., Science of Reading, book bans),
- (2) examine the essential elements of the message (semantic features) that were retained in its transfer across platforms and messengers, and
- (3) discuss the critical media literacies necessary to examine the content and intention of the messaging.
During the session, we will lead the participants in the exploration of AR/VR and generative AI applications (Chat GPT) as a way to demonstrate critical media literacies and to explore strategies for classroom applications.