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Manga and Digital Literacy in Schools

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The National Year of Reading is still going strong in Australia, and on October 24, I had the opportunity to volunteer at an event. Crossing Boundaries with Reading is a literacy program at a Queensland high school.

The program is funded by QUT with an Engagement Innovation Grant, and Logan City Libraries are partners of the program. It’s a collaborative effort that brings educators and librarians together with pop culture to teach digital literacy. The official site features a student-drawn logo and news on the program. Here’s a snippet from the project’s About page:

Drawing on the popularity of digital technologies and Manga in youth culture, the project will enable Year 8 and 9 students to cross boundaries with reading in various ways designed to engage their interest and learning. Boundaries will be understood as spaces of opportunity rather than limitation.

Digital literacy isn’t something that “born digital” teens automatically have. Some students don’t have equal access to technology at home or school, and many haven’t learned how to use digital tools to create content. The project aims to promote reading, equip youth with digital literacy skills, and explore manga and digital storytelling as a way of “crossing boundaries” with reading.

Crossing Boundaries students

Students drawing manga and learning digital literacy skills

The students split into five groups and cycled through the activities scheduled for the morning. QUT lecturer and information literacy researcher Mandy Lupton and Dr Anna Lundh, a researcher and teacher at the Swedish School of Library and Information Science at the University of Borås (SSLIS), staffed the Blender room. I helped with the workshop, where students worked collaboratively on TV-sized PC screens. There was also the option to draw with coloured pencils. Some of the students are really gifted – they just sat there quietly, and all of a sudden, they’d show you a piece of art.

The PC screens were connected to the Internet, with different word games at each station. Students rotated between tables every ten minutes. Magnetic Poetry and Free Rice were the favourites, and there was some definite competition going on! At least 2500 grains of rice were donated to the World Food Programme. Because of its popularity with students and the bonus of charitable donations, the school will consider using Free Rice in the classroom.

The event concluded with a combined session and two short presentations. Dr Hilary Hughes of QUT spoke about manga, and Mimi Tsai shared examples of digital stories. It was a great day, and I hope to apply concepts I learned today in future digital literacy programs.


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