Brock has formed a new centre to focus on cutting-edge literacy education research.

The Centre for Research in Multiliteracies will work across disciplines and fields to improve literacy in Ontario. The director will be Jennifer Rowsell, Canada Research Chair in Multiliteracies and associate professor in the Faculty of Education.

Jennifer Rowsell

Researchers at the centre aim to understand new ways in which children, youth and adults use new forms of media in their academic and every-day lives. They hope to develop handbooks, workshops and curriculum documents, as well as advise school boards and provincial education authorities, about how to integrate interactive technology in the classroom.

The centre’s work will also include research by graduate students working for educational change and the integration of information technology in instruction.

It is located in the Brock Research and Innovation Centre at 130 Lockhart Dr. Kevin Kee‘s Augmented Reality lab, John Bonnett‘s Virtual Reality lab and the Tecumseh Centre for Aboriginal Education and Research are also located in the building.

The centre will include a video game lab, a digital writing lab, a vernacular literacies library, a 21 century pedagogy laboratory and a videoconferencing suite.

It also hosted a guest speaker on the weekend. Prof. Maureen Walsh from Australian Catholic University presented “Teaching Literacy in New Times: Multimodal Approaches to the Teaching of English.”

For more information, call 905-688-5550 x6121.