Driving multiple windows with different types of data

A response to the Like Driving a Car Activity
created by Simon Moll (@smoll)

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Operating the gas and break pedals, a gearshift, a windshield, and the car stereo with intention all at once is the analogy for the multi sensory integration required for the threshold skills of basic online learning task navigation.

We can listen to the radio or discussion in our cars – our own tunes, the radio, songs you wrote, audiobooks. However, the voice we hear when a class assignment is presented, and the tools we understand that we can use, are key factors in our integrated digital literacy outfit.

The browser is like your brakes and gas, it is foundational, all the information that you are driving is run through this interface. You can go fast, stop, back up, show your style of “driving” and also it can have ‘sudden stops’ – or risks to your movement or navigation.

The word processor is like your set of gears. Specific to your learning road, it shapes the order and pace of how you stack the ideas, and organize your opinions, knowing about your word processor and what it can do can make you feel like your hands are comfortable and you can ‘grasp’ onto your own ideas as well as other information, images, or files you can connect to what you are manufacturing for the learning task.

The assignment description is like a windshield, it is part of your learning experience that your are expected to “look through” as you move around research, reflect and write. If you don’t look through the windshield of your assignment you may not present your response to the learning task in a way that earns you marks – you may see what you see, but if you don’t look ahead through the requirements of the assignment and use your mirrors (peers) to check around you, you will have difficulty when facing assessments.

The car stereo is your own inner sounds, the tunes, the comments, the self-talk, and the murmuring that we do when we read some words out loud, or re-read a difficult sentence. You may be listening to the same sounds as your family and classmates, you may experience different wavelengths of internal harmony or noise than your peers.