Multimodal Evening?

I've just let my children watch both a classic episode of the Super Friends and the full length Disney Peter Pan with bonus features so that I--jacked up by two self-pitying bowls of Sugar Corn Pops--could finish the brutal details of online human subjects research training and applying for an IRB exemption.  I typed on my laptop while they watched TV (and simultaneously browsed the Official Pokemon Handbook and the case for the Peter Pan DVD).  This counts as multimodal, right?

Really, I'm trying to write a clever introduction to soften the following blow to my ego:  I couldn't finish my assigned reading this week.  I only got through an article and a half, and I'm not going to go back and do it.  I just can't.  There are five more articles for next Tuesday, plus a "museum exhibition" media project.  I have to get all that human subjects paperwork turned in tomorrow... I have to create a research wiki for my program capstone.  I have to let go of some of the other homework. Those of you who know me personally know that this surrender is pinching the little nerve behind my left ear. 

I do have a limited insight to share about wikis and teaching, even though I didn't do all the homework.  Matt Barton was the guest speaker in my Digital Writing class this week.  He made me understand something about all this technology that I'm swimming in this semester.  It isn't going to work in a classroom unless I build the proper structure around it.  That has to do with purpose.  Wikis build community, promote collaboration and revision, rebuke the notion of ownership.  So it was stupid of me to use them as a space for my students to create little individual reports on marginalized American writers.  They didn't even read each other's pages let alone revise or discuss them.  I should have started with a shared task to build community around the wiki...

Barton talked about a lot of other stuff, but I can't even type it all out here.  I need to get to my lightbulb moment.  After Barton left, my professor mentioned that we would be focusing on creating more intentional Moodle forum discussions next week.  Oh!  We have to have a clear purpose for the use of a certain technological platform for student learning.  Duh.  I can't just show them Voicethread because it's cool and it will make them want to stay busy and complete a task.

So my lightbulb was this:  what I need is a revision of that popular RAFT strategy accounting for all these new technologies available for multimodal  writing.  In fact, this chart would make a great wiki!   But I'm putting it in my blog (clearly I'm too tired to practice what I preach).  Leave a comment/ idea to fill in a space in the chart.  Or leave me the URL for the wiki about this that already exists:).

Role                                Audience                      Format                                     Topic
School Board Member      Fellow Board Members    Memo (in Moodle as a forum)     your opposition to
                                                                                                                           sex education curriculum

Poet                               the general public             Blog posting                             importance of poetry in daily life

Museum Curator              the public                        Flickr slide show of                   the theme of the exhibit
                                                                            “artworks” with narration
                                                                            (written or oral)    
       
                                                                            Wiki   
       
                                                                            Microsoft Word Web Page/ hypertext   
       
                                                                            iMovie   
       
                                                                            Power Point/ Apple Keynote   

Composer                         Producers                     Garage Band                              the score/ soundtrack of a                                                                                                                                      scene from Kite Runner
       
                                                                            Inspiration/ VUE/ Compendium   
       
                                                                            Voice Thread
  
                                                                            MEEZ   
       
                                                                            Scratch