Developing critique and academic argument in a blended-learning data visualization course
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Introduction to a chapter that explores how an infographic poster design course was improved. In particular, students were helped with preparing better academic arguments through being taught a multimodal framework for academic argument in data visualization.
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Developing critique and academic argument in a blended-learning data visualization course
- 1. Developing critique and academic argument in a blended-learning data visualization course 1 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 Associate Professor Arlene Archer University of Cape Town Centre for Higher Education Development Travis Noakes, PhD Cape Peninsula University of Cape Town Faculty of Informatics and Design, Applied Design Our first chapter in 2020… Our follow-up chapter in 2021… Learning Design Voices chapter & book cover forthcoming! www.cilt.uct.ac.za/cilt/learning-design-voices … proposed a framework for analysing and producing argument in data visualization. … taught this framework and explored other changes to a blended-learning course for better supporting students’development as critical designers and engaged citizens. ‹#›
- 2. Overview STEPPING INTO THE RESEARCH 1. UCT Writing Centre, Language Development Group 2. SA Multimodal Educators (SAME) research group 3. PhD in Media Studies 4. FAMS2017S Infographic poster design module A MULTIMODAL RESEARCH COLLABORATION 6. Two 2017 poster examples (case studies 1 and 2) 7. Social Semiotics and Multimodality 8. A framework for analyzing and producing argument in data visualization (2020) 9. Challenges in designing infographic poster arguments COURSE CORRECTIONS 10. Curriculum innovations in 2018 11. Learning design principles 16. Next steps META-LEVEL CRITIQUES 12. Tumi’s presentation (case study 3) 13. Mark’s poster (case study 4) POSTSCRIPT 14. The fate of adjunct innovations 15. Stay up-to-date on ResearchGate ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS introducing our presentation’s structure SOCIAL SEMIOTIC RESEARCH INTO DATA VISUALISATION 2 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#›
- 3. stepping into the research About the lead author Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 3 Arlene Archer is an Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics and is the director of the Writing Centre at the University of Cape Town. Arlene has published on social semiotics and multimodal argument, looking at argument in writing, images, between images and writing, and in infographics. She is editor of Multimodality and Society. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9013-7788 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Arlene-Archer https://scholar.google.co.za/citations?user=KCtYGZkAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao https://uct.academia.edu/ArleneArcher?from_navbar=true Multimodality and Society journal https://journals.sagepub.com/home/mas ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR ARLENE ARCHER ‹#›
- 4. stepping into the research SUPPORTING STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC LITERACIES Writing Centre The UCT Writing Centre provides a walk-in, one- on-one consultancy service for students from all faculties, and all academic levels of the university. http://www.writingcentre.uct.ac.za/ Changing Writing Project This project investigates the changing status and forms of writing in Higher Education in a digital age with a focus on student access and diversity. https://changingwriting.wordpress.com UCT Writing Centre and the Language Development Group 4 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#›
- 5. stepping into the research SUPPORTING SOCIAL SEMIOTIC RESEARCHERS IN AFRICA The SAME research group brings together researchers with a common interest in multimodal approaches to communication, pedagogy and research in South Africa. https://samultimodality.wordpress.com @samultimodality SA Multimodality in Education (SAME) research group 5 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#›
- 6. About the second author stepping into the research Travis Noakes’ research has explored visual arts students’ e-portfolio designs for connected learning and UCT journalism students’ designs of data infographics. As part of the ‘Online Academic Bullying’ (OAB) research team, he explores health experts’ use of digital platforms for promoting an emergent scientific paradigm and their negotiations of cyber harassment. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9566-8983 https://publons.com/researcher/1881059/travis-miles-noakes/ https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/Travis-M-Noakes/144922761 https://scholar.google.co.za/citations?user=-beyzEoAAAAJ&hl=en https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Travis-Noakes-2 https://capepeninsula.academia.edu/TravisNoakes?from_navbar=true TRAVIS NOAKES, PhD 6 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#›
- 7. stepping into the research SECOND YEAR JOURNALISM STUDENTS IN FILM & MEDIA PRODUCTION STREAM FAMS2017S Infographic poster design module 7 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#› Could there be a link between crime and education inequality in Afrikaans and isiXhosa communities? by Ali Tyhilana 0 20 40 60 80 100 Nyanga Bonteheuwel Matric passed in record time from Grade 8 in 2017 Passes Dropped out or Failed 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Bachelor Passes No Bachelor Pass Bachelor Passes in 2017 for the people who wrote matric Bonteheuwel Nyanga Nyanga students drop out between grade 10 and matric in 2017 Dropped out Wrote Matric Bonteheuwel students drop out between grade 10 and matric in 2017 Dropped out Wrote Matric 71.7% Of Nyanga youth live in income- poor household 50.6% Of Bonteheuwel youth live in income-poor households. A lack of education, poverty and living with a single parent are motivating factors for crim e. Interestingly, Bonteheuwel has 6 476 youth On the other ha nd there is 4 648 youth in Nyanga. 140 out of 10 000 youth were vic tims of crime in Bonteheuwel whilst only 73 in Nyanga. In 2015, 226 out of 10 000 Youth accused of contac t c rime in Bonteheuwel and a mere 101 in Nyanga. The student drop- out rate was also higher and the ra te for people who had access to university is lower for Bonteheuwel youth. Notably, both communities had low Bachelor Passes. There is a positive relationship between Bonteheuwel’s high rate of youth accused of crime and the high drop-out ra te. One can therefore assume tha t there is a positive relationship between the youth’s criminal activity as well aseducation inequality.
- 8. stepping into the research DESIGNING AN INFOGRAPHICS POSTER FAMS2017S infographic poster design course details 8 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#› SHIFTING BETWEEN FORMATS IN DESIGN 1 Web browser Goes to youthexplorer.org.za Selects two wards for comparison Exports their data as an Excel spreadsheet 2 Microsoft Excel – Spreadsheet software Pate the worksheet data down to one’s focus Clean the data Design three Excel charts 3 Adobe Illustrator – poster layout Design a poster template Import the charts Add links to the original data sources Add links to key reference(s) Place one’s logo Add a link to one’s online presences Export the poster as a web graphic and PDF
- 9. stepping into the research EXAMPLES OF INFOGRAPHICS POSTER SHARING FAMS2017S infographic poster design course details 9 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#› BLOG TWITTER FACEBOOK
- 10. multimodal teaching/research collab A framework for argument in data visualization (2020) 10 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#› https://www.travisnoakes.co.za/2020/03 /multimodal-academic-argument-in- data.html Exploring academic argument in information graphics
- 11. multimodal teaching/research collab Establishing credibility through hedging 11 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#› In academic writing, credibility is often established through tentative assertions, and through discourse markers such as ‘hedging’. "It could be argued that …" In infographics, tentative assertions could be indicated through confidence intervals on bar charts, for example.
- 12. multimodal teaching/research collab Multimodal analysis feedback 12 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#› The poster compares the highest level of education achieved in Nyanga and Newlands. Underlying structure of argument is binary: contrast is set up visually through layout and colour. In terms of layout, the poster is divided by a vertical line into two sections. One simple graph type throughout, a ‘donut’ chart. Size as a semiotic resource - sizing the graphs according to their percentage values. Font sizes get bigger for larger percentages. The poster establishes credibility by employing hedging (‘about’) and qualified emphatics (‘substantially’): Although the youth population in the Newlands ward and the Nyanga ward is about the same, the average level of education in Newlands is substantially higher than that seen in Nyanga.
- 13. course corrections ADDITIONS AND ADJUSTMENTS Curriculum innovations in 2018 13 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#› Added two new sections on ‘multimodal argument’ and ‘creative ideas for infographic poster design’ Added a midway assessment for students’ arguments to be assessed as works-in-progress Adjusted tools and assessment for remote work Access to the Mendi lab could not be taken for granted as UCT’s response to #feesmustfall protests closes campus and/or restricts access to labs for protecting its property and student safety. Over-emphasis on teaching design tools = visual confections ?! A visual confection is an assembly of many visual elements selected from many streams of story then brought together and juxtaposed on the flatland of paper.’ (page 121 in Edward Tufte’s Visual Explanations, 1997)
- 14. course corrections ACTION RESEARCH APPROACH, CONTENT ANALYSIS AND SAMPLING SAMPLING Out of 21 students, Arlene shortlisted the work of four for in-depth analysis. This purposive sample focused on students’ work that evidenced meta-critique in their arguments. TWO CASE STUDIES We selected case study analysis (Yin, 2008) to do detailed descriptions for the multimodal choices in two students’ infographic posters and/or presentations. Research method and ethics EDUCATIONAL ACTION RESEARCH (EAR) APPROACH In education, AR has as a long history. It strives to support educators with improving their educational practices by making changes, whilst simultaneously growing research understanding through reflecting on actions for change. MULTIMODAL CONTENT ANALYSIS A multimodal social semiotic approach was employed in order to investigate the communicative functions of the student- produced texts. 14 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#›
- 15. course corrections ETHICS AND RESEARCH LIMITATIONS ETHICS Research method and ethics 15 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#› We received permission from UCT’s Centre for Film and Media to work with 2nd year students. Students in the FAM2017S class of 2017 and 2018 were asked to consider signing research permission forms. Although each student did agree to be a research participant, pseudonyms are used for each student name for privacy protection. LIMITATIONS ACTION RESEARCH Greenwood (2007, 249–264) flags that AR can work well in the classroom and for small/marginal projects. However, such projects’ peripheral status, minor scale and seeming invisibility typically make such efforts fragile and short-lived. MULTIMODAL CONTENT ANALYSIS Multimodal Social Semiotics has been criticized for being overly textually based, without taking the surrounding practices into account. We tried to address this by including students' reflections on their processes into our analyses of texts.
- 16. course corrections 1 DELIMIT SCOPE Narrow down students' choices rather than giving them side freedom in choices of factors to compare 2 ACCESSIBLE TOOLS Campus was shut down for a period in response to sporadic #feesmustfall protests. The course was thus revised for students to work remotely. They were taught to export their designs into a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation and add an audio commentary, rather than being expected to present in person. 3 GAINS AND LOSSES IN DIGITAL TRANSLATIONS Students were taught about the gains and losses of moving across different digital formats - involving information being abbreviated in a process of simplification. i. youthexplorer.org data selection ii. Excel chart design iii. PNG image exports iv. Poster design v. PDF export vi. Blog post vii. Social media sharing viii. PowerPoint presentation Learning design principles 16 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#›
- 17. course corrections 4 PROCESS APPROACH FOR ARGUMENT DEVELOPMENT • A presentation was added halfway through the course to enable input on students’ data visualizations. • Students reflected on their progress towards developing an argument. They considered how their own life-history, community background and experiences of social interaction might influence their argument’s selection and framing. 5 META-LANGUAGES OF CRITIQUE AND ARGUMENT • To improve their arguments, learners were urged to read topical press articles. • The course flagged the dangers of qualitative complexity being simplified into numbers. • For example, undocumented and illegal immigrants were unlikely to be included in South African census data. Learning design principles 17 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#›
- 18. course corrections AUDIENCES and RISKS OF SHARING 6 ACKNOWLEDGING AUDIENCE AND RISKS OF SHARING ONLINE • Students could share their blogposts with Twitter and Facebook audiences. This was intended to help students experiment as aspirant journalists. • Sharing also confronted students with the challenge of 'context collapse' online - the flattening of distinct audiences in one’s social network, such that people from different contexts become part of a singular group of message recipients (Vitak, 2012). • Such collapse necessitated thinking through how work might be interpreted by potential audiences outside the academic context. Learning design principles 18 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#›
- 19. meta-level critiques PERIPHERAL AND CORE COMMUNITIES Tumi’s poster 19 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#› • Tumi compared Langa to Pinelands, due to their close proximity. • Her poster featured school attendance, employment status and the number of youths affected by crime. • The poster employs ring graphs and pie charts in different colours to indicate educational attendance and unemployment rates. • Person graphics represent the number of individuals “exposed to contact crimes”. • They are visually innovative, but not drawn to scale, so difficult to read at a glance, as opposed to say, a bar graph.
- 20. meta-level critiques Tumi’s PowerPoint Presentation 20 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#›
- 21. meta-level critiques LIMITATIONS OF THE DATA Mark’s poster 21 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#› • Mark compared Athlone and Rondebosch, arguing that a shortcoming is the dataset’s failure to convey “the role that extra-curricular support plays” in shaping learners’ results. • Incorporating process in the task, gave Mark the space to question the larger societal context, his own experience and the data he was interrogating. • Initially, he suggested that poor grade 8 systemic results were the reason for a high drop-out rate. • He revised that later, arguing that many children from affluent homes go for extra lessons after school to improve subject results. Mark highlights the cost of these lessons, and that only people in a certain income bracket can afford them.
- 22. meta-level critiques SEMIOTIC RESOURCES TO REALIZE ARGUMENT Mark’s poster 22 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#› • Mark presented his critique mainly through the semiotic resources of layout, colour and bold font. • Mark highlights in red that there are gaps in the data, including the range of factors influencing the high dropout rates in Athlone. • The argument is predominantly carried in the written mode. However, it would be difficult to critique the data source the way he does using only the visual mode. • This example highlights the ‘complex entanglement’ (Kennedy and Hill 2017) of aspects of data visualization: knowing how to physically create these texts; the pleasure and aesthetics of data visualization; and the underlying discourses and ideological work of data visualizations.
- 23. postscript SHORT LIVED IN PRACTICE, BUT A LASTING RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION The fate of peripheral action research innovations? 23 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#› www.cfms.uct.ac.za/fam/undergrad/ba-film-media-production-multimedia-production www.researchgate.net/publication/346797110_15_Multimodal_academic_ar gument_in_data_visualization
- 24. acknowledgements NEWTON FOUNDATION and UCT, NRF and CPUT Thanks to our funders 24 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#› British Academy Newton Advanced Fellowship South Africa’s National Research Foundation
- 25. gratitude Thanks for watching, watch again on Slideshare 25 Presentation by Professor Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes (PhD) 2021/09/28 ‹#› https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ https://www.slideshare.net/TravisNoakes
Editor's Notes
- TRAVIS Welcome to Professor Arlene Archer and my presentation on a chapter we recently submitted to the book ‘Learning Design Voices’, an initiative of UCT’s Centre for Innovation and Learning Technology. Before we begin, just to request that since you can read much faster than we can talk, do read these slides, while Arlene or I talk around them. Also, do pose any questions you have in the chat. The salient hyperlinks are up on my blog for your ease-of-clicking- its link is in the Zoom chat.
- TRAVIS Here is the structure of our presentation We will first introduce our research work and then describe why a capstone assessment of second year journalism students’ infographic poster designs suggested the need for a multimodal framework to address academic argument in data visualizations. Our ‘Developing critique and academic argument’ chapter originates from ‘Developing critique and academic argument in a blended-learning data visualization course’ and our interest in multimodality.
- ARLENE An important move in academic argument is establishing credibility So, here is a bit about my scholarly background to help you appreciate why I am an expert on this presentation’s topic.
- ARLENE My research into multimodal communication also draws on my work for the Writing Centre where we work with student writing and texts and also the Changing Writing Project, funded by the British Academy
- ARLENE We have a group which acts as a supportive forum for educators leading a wide range of social semiotic research projects. These tie in closely with DRAW’s focus on design research SAME’s researchers also explore architecture, design, health communication and many other domains. What we have in common is a social semiotic approach to data analysis.
- TRAVIS SAME was a valuable forum for feedback on my PhD in Media Studies’ research ideas. At UCT, PhD candidates teach select modules to undergrads My work background is multimedia design which I drew on for teaching the original infographics poster design course in 2017 to second years Arlene kindly volunteered to give feedback to this group with me in their capstone assessment featuring poster presentations.
- TRAVIS The five-week data visualization course took place in an iMac studio at UCT’s Mendi lab in 2017 The course followed the structure shown here. It could be quite challenging to teach and supervise since mostly 19/20 year old novices were exposed to software packages, such as Excel and Adobe Creative Suite for the first time, as well as related design terminology. Supporting students with how to use the tools to design aesthetically-appealing poster productions was arguably where I provided most support in the initial year. Now, unlike what this poster’s arrow might suggest, there is no straight line from exporting youthexplorer’s data into a pre-populated poster.
- TRAVIS The design process is quite a lengthy one via several digital platforms. All designs spanned the three software environments shown here. Students were encouraged to spend a fair amount of time exploring the data for wards in youthexplorer… before selecting two to build an argument on how aspects of inequality relate to local education. The charts to support their argument were created in Excel and exported into Adobe Illustrator where they were combined with other elements, such as logos that students designed for themselves.
- TRAVIS After completing their posters’ designs, students translated these into other digital formats. Each type of export presented a different learning opportunity: Printing A4 posters helped students learn about how on-screen colors differ from those on pages; Exporting pdfs for embedding in blogposts, taught students about balancing compression options with legibility; In tweeting on Twitter and creating Facebook posts, students learnt about differences in how linked-content becomes re-displayed on social media; In adding poster PNG graphics to their presentations for assessment, students learnt more about contrasting display formats; (where a vertical poster is displayed within the horizontal screen)
- ARLENE In order to inform the teaching and analysis, we developed a social semiotic framework to investigate the encoding of both ideational and interpersonal material in argument in data visualizations. In the ideational, the focus falls on students’ basis for comparison in an argument and the underlying classification identified for comparison. What is selected is often as important as what is excluded. For instance, students might choose to focus on social issues when comparing levels of education attained (such as pregnancy and single versus no parent households). The discourses that shape data visualizations are also important to explore. We focus on the semiotic resources that realize such discourses, such as composition, size, shape and colour. Our framework also allows us to explore the ways that interpersonal relationships are established. Here, we look at how credibility is established, as well as the use of citation. In academic writing, credibility is often established through tentative assertions, and through discourse markers such as ‘hedging’. Like "It could be argued that …"
- ARLENE In academic writing, credibility is often established through tentative assertions, and through discourse markers such as ‘hedging’. Like "It could be argued that …" In infographics, tentative assertions could be indicated through confidence intervals on bar charts, for example.
- ARLENE This poster compares the highest level of education achieved by the youth in Nyanga and Newlands. Underlying structure of the argument is binary where two aspects are juxtaposed. The contrast is set up visually through two main resources, namely layout and colour. In terms of layout, the poster is divided by a vertical line into two sections, Nyanga on the left and Newlands on the right. In terms of colour, van Leeuwen (2008) points out that colour can be used both for its connotative potential and to signify textual cohesion. The poster employs colour to signify particular features of the two areas as well as to establish the contrast. The title ‘Nyanga’ and the data related to Nyanga are depicted in a ‘rusty red’ or orange, emphasizing the dryness (dust), less development and infrastructure of the area. This is opposed to the green of Newlands which points to the notion of the ‘leafy suburb’, as well as natural beauty (the forest and nature of this high rainfall area). Other design choices in the poster include one simple graph type throughout, a ‘donut’ chart. The poster uses size as a semiotic resource in argument: sizing the graphs in accordance with their percentage values, and the font sizes get bigger for larger percentages. The poster establishes credibility by employing the academic discourse conventions of hedging (‘about’) and qualified emphatics (‘substantially’). Although the youth population in the Newlands ward and the Nyanga ward is about the same, the average level of education in Newlands is substantially higher than that seen in Nyanga. The poster tends towards description rather than argument, as it does not identify possible contributing factors for the difference in educational performance in Nyanga and Newlands.
- TRAVIS As a lecturer, I was concerned that while the 2017 course had delivered aesthetically attractive designs too many were visual confections (AKA cookie-cutter aesthetic productions) whose strength of argument was easy to criticize. This was arguably my problem as a lecturer who liked to teach to his visual design strengths. I spoke to Arlene and the FAM2017S course convenors, Prof Marion Walton and Dr Martha Evans, on module changes that might assist students with improving their posters’ arguments. To spotlight the importance of developing sound arguments, two new sections were added One presentation shared the framework for analyzing and producing argument in data visualization plus case study examples from our first presentation I added another presentation to help students with varied ideas that they might consider for more creative poster design. A midway assessment was added for students to share their arguments and reflect on its possible limitations. Tool teaching also shifted from the Mendi lab’s exclusive Apple ecology to tools that students could access remotely. Likewise, students recorded their final presentation assessments as PowerPoints with audio.
- TRAVIS To explore what measures might improve 2017’s syllabus in support of stronger argumentation, our action research collaboration was an apt choice. The best benchmark of improvement would lie in students’ work, so Arlene and I assessed and reviewed their varied outputs. From the work of 21 students, we shortlisted four who spotlighted meta-critiques in their presentation and/or poster work. For the latest chapter, we then selected two students with quite dissimilar meta-critiques and ways of sharing their arguments.
- TRAVIS As we did in 2017, we gained permission from UCT’s Centre for Film and Media Studies to do research on its students’ productions. Almost all 2018’s students returned research permission forms. We have partially anonymized each student’s identity in our case studies. While there are many challenges in action research, I’m just flagging one for completed educational interventions: The infographic poster course’s status as a peripheral project in the challenging environment of Media Studies education, and Higher Education more broadly, could mean that it was likely to be short-lived. Arlene and I were also mindful of criticism of multimodal content analysis ignoring designers’ surrounding practices. In response, we considered students’ reflections on their practices.
- ARLENE Delimit Scope The freedom to choose can be an obstacle for inexperienced students. We saw this with students making arguments concerning a ‘broad range of factors’ for educational achievement. The course thus narrowed down students’ choices to themes rather than giving them wide freedom in their choices.
- ARLENE A PROCESS APPROACH FOR ARGUMENT DEVELOPMENT A presentation was added halfway through the course to enable input on students’ data visualizations. Students reflected on their progress towards developing an argument. They considered how their own life-history, community background and experiences of social interaction might influence their argument’s selection and framing. META-LANGUAGES OF CRITIQUE AND ARGUMENT To improve their arguments, learners were urged to read topical press articles. The course flagged the dangers of qualitative complexity being simplified into numbers. For example, undocumented and illegal immigrants were unlikely to be included in South African census data. As aspirant journalists, it is important that students do background research into the aspects they describe and explore surrounding discourses.
- ARLENE Of the twenty students who completed the course, over half chose not to share on social media. A few chose Twitter for sharing versus two overall for Facebook. Although Facebook is a far popular platform in South Africa, its use was more likely to create ‘collapsed contexts’ for students using the genuine identities that Facebook expects. By contrast, students could readily create anonymous accounts under Twitter that were not linked to audiences of family, friends and peers.
- ARLENE Tumi presented a critique of Youth Explorer’s use for exploring education in the “peripheral community” of a Langa township versus a “core community” in suburban Pinelands. Tumi selected both suburbs due to their close proximity – “about 7km apart.” She framed Pinelands as representing a core community, since it is “where most people work” and “children attend school” Tumi’s description reflects how the legacy of apartheid spatial planning remains in the racially and economically skewed demographics of Cape Town’s neighbourhoods. Tumi’s poster featured school attendance, employment status and the number of youths affected by crime. The poster employs ring graphs and pie charts in different colours to indicate educational attendance and unemployment rates. Person graphics represent the number of individuals “exposed to contact crimes”. They are visually innovative, but not drawn to scale, so difficult to read at a glance, as opposed to say, a bar graph.
- ARLENE Interestingly, her ppt presentation context slide predominantly uses images rather than writing to convey the argument, by illustrating the different economic standing of each area. The top image of Langa shows dense housing and poor roads. The bottom image for the leafy treed suburb of Pinelands suggests lots of open space and well-kept verges.
- ARLENE Mark chose two very different areas to compare, namely Athlone and Rondebosch. His poster explored the limitations of what Youth Explorer can tell us about systemic tests. He argues that a shortcoming is the dataset’s failure to convey “the role that extra-curricular support plays” in shaping learners’ results. Mark is very aware of his own positionality in researching something as complex as inequality in South Africa. He writes in his rationale that he grew up in an upper middle-class family that “afforded access to certain resources and opportunities” that households of a lower socio-economic standing could not afford for their children. One such resource he described was three-hours of extra-maths lessons a week.
- ARLENE Mark presented his critique mainly through the semiotic resources of layout, colour and bold font. Mark highlights in red that there are gaps in the data, including the range of factors influencing the high dropout rates in Athlone. This use of colour creates a visual contrast between the two paragraphs, highlighting the difference of perspective in each, thus conveying an argument.
- TRAVIS As mentioned earlier, a limitation of peripheral action research projects in education is that they are unlikely to be sustained. Not only has the infographics poster module not been taught at CFMS after 2018, But the Multimodal Production course is currently not offered to FAM2017S students. By contrast, Arlene and I are making a long-term contribution to the literature through writing on this short-lived intervention.
- TRAVIS Arlene’s research is supported by The British Academy’s Newton Advanced Fellowship. Mine is thanks to UCT and NRF’s support for my PhD and CPUT during my PostDoc.
- TRAVIS Thanks very much to David and Alletia for encouraging us to do this talk for DRAW and thank you to the audience for your attention. Hopefully, we have a few minutes for questions or comments?