Multi-Modal Literacies: The Socially Networked Classroom

I just finished reading the first chapter of Dr. Kist's book "The Socially Networked Classroom" and I have to say that so far I'm really interested.  So far in my college career, I've thought of literacy as basically having to do with written material, specifically in print, not on the web.  However, Dr. Kist's book has shown me that the definition of literacy is something that changes along with the times and with the development of new technologies.  I liked the classroom demonstrations he wrote about as well.  In class, we did many of these activities such as counting to ten and the snowball activity.  I thought it was informative to read the rationale for using these activities and I plan on incorporating some of these into my own classroom.  Overall, the main idea that I really like in this book is that students can learn across multiple platforms.  Students can read traditional books, watch films, look at art, write blogs, and participate in online communities discussing the books they read.  I think this is a great way to keep students interested in the class and to provide them with different ways to express themselves.  I particularly liked the lesson about writing multigenre papers.  Students could learn so much from writing a traditional essay about a piece of literature and then transfering those ideas into a news article or an artistic piece.  I think using different platforms of expression can appeal to all learners and increase students' interest and creativity.