Sounding out synthesis: Investigating how educators in a teaching with technology course use sonic composition to remix reflection

Abstract

This study explores how educators ( n = 23) in a graduate-level “teaching with technology” course used the affordances of digital composing, and sonic composition in particular, to “sound out” reflection. Using the twin-lenses of sociocultural theory and social semiotics, findings suggest that sound operated as a: rhetorical tool for illustrating affect/argument; complementary mode to syncretic meaning; and a diegetic structural feature/locating mechanism. Examining how multimodality became a technology and communicative resource for teachers to remix reflection, this study highlights the frictions and freedoms of using sound to synthesize learning in the online teacher education classroom. As such, this article proposes novel ways to think with sound in e-learning and (re)educates the senses to hear practitioner-inquiry in new ways.