This document discusses modal validity and access to resources for learning and assessment. It describes a school project where students were given laptops and 4 hours per week over 4 weeks to create a digital presentation on the war in Afghanistan and Sweden's participation. Two sample presentations are shown - a propaganda slideshow and one relating the product to educational goals like research, representation of facts, and expression of a moral dilemma. It argues that what is "locked in" are the laptops and tools, as well as students' competences, and why it is locked is possibly due to teachers' lack of competence with technology or methods for assessing different modes of expression. It suggests unlocking this by shifting what modes are considered valid for assessment and developing digital

1. The Locked Cabinet
On Modal Validity and Access to Resources
for Learning and Assessment

2. Mats Nilsson
mats.nilsson@sh.se
Lecturer in Media Technology at Södertörn University
The project – UNGMODs
Ungas multimodala gestaltning
Young People's Multimodal Expressions
mt.sh.se/ungmods
PM: Patrik Hernwall (hernwall@dsv.su.se)
Södertörn University
Stockholm, Sweden
www.sh.se
KK-stiftelsen
(The Knowledge Foundation)
www.kks.se

3. This presentation
• Digital tools in education
• Access to tools
• Assessment of multimodal expressions -
modal validity
• Examples
• Propositions - discussion

4. The Locked Cabinet
What‟s locked-in?
Laptops and their use;
physical and mental tools,
pupils‟ competences
Why is it locked?
How to unlock?

5. Multimodality
Social semiotics (Kress, G.)
Mode: “…a socially and culturally
shaped resource for meaning making.”
Distinct affordances of modes
Multimodality: sets of comprised modal
expressions
(Multimodal expressions: signs of
learning)

6. Modal Validity
Which forms/modes are valid for
(re)presentation of „the learned‟?
Modes traditionally valid for assessment:
Written text (and speech)
Methods and models for assessment of
other modes?
The locking-in of conditions for learning
and competences

7. Access to tools
mental - technological
Resources
infrastructure
tutoring
time
Educator modal validity Learner
assessment expression
space
„external‟ skills
...

8. School project - samples
School project – pupils have access to
technological resources
Designated classes ~ 4 hours a week over a
four week period
Subject: The war in Afghanistan and the
participation of the Swedish army
Pupils‟ task: “Produce a factual, digital
presentation…”

9. Propaganda slide show

10. Relating the product to
educational goals
Research of facts
Selection and representation of
facts
Abstraction and discussion of subject
Relating of issue to familiar context
Interpretation and expression of moral
dilemma and personal standpoint
Use of genre-specific attributes as support
for expression

11. From Swedish national curricula
When assessing, the teacher should
“[…] make use of all available information about the
pupil‟s knowledge in relation to the national
requirements available for each course […]”
and
“[…] also pay attention to knowledge that the pupil
have acquired in other ways than through the current
education […]”
(SKOLFS 2011:144, Swedish national curricula for upper secondary school)

12. The Locked Cabinet - Discussion
What‟s locked-in?
Laptops and their use;
physical and mental tools,
pupils‟ competences
Why is it locked?
The teachers lack operational
competence?
The teachers lack methods
for assessment of
expressions?
How to unlock?
Shifts in modal validity – a wider range of modes valid for assessment?
Digital (assessment) literacy?
Look at methods for assessment used in i.e arts, crafts, sports?

13. Thank you