| New Literacies continue to complicate the design of traditional learning systems. How can professional educators begin to design for literacy learning in the digital era? What are the characterizing features of such a design? Finally, from this characterization, what theoretical principles for teaching, learning, and designing for New Literacies might be generated? In this dissertation, I present my attempt to answer these questions by designing and studying a New Literacies learning system. Using a qualitative approach to Design-Based Research, I designed, co-taught, analyzed, and refined a college course titled "Digital Media & Literacy" for two semesters. From this design experiment, I found that the process of learning New Literacies coincides with one's developing ability to think and act like a designer, distribute effort, demonstrate meta-representational competence, and situate meaning. From these findings, I propose a design framework that facilitates this learning trajectory. Four categories comprise this framework: a production-oriented approach, critique and reflection, authentic audiences, and reframing teaching as mentorship. Finally, I reflexively examine my design process to explicate a theoretical design tool for educators and instructional designers called design contexts. This conceptual tool aids other educators in designing coherent learning systems that align with New Literacies. |
