One of the challenges and benefits of being a student within the Master’s program in Communication and Technology at the UofA is the nudge it gives to those of us who haven’t fully exercised our transliteracy skills. So cheers! Another course, another new social media site.

Last term, as part of Comm 597 New Media Narratives, we posted on a Blogspot site, created a podcast, fulfilled the requirements for another assignment through Delicious and otherwise explored different tools as part of larger narrative on transliteracy.

It was an eye-opener in that it brought home the richness that these skills add to the art and skills of communicating. It is learning a new language. However, it’s easy to quickly run into the limits of one’s literacy. Does anyone remember the scene in A Fish Called Wanda where Kevin Kline pretends he speaks Italian by uttering words like mozzarella and parmesana to get Jamie Lee Curtis all hot? Yep, kind of like that. It’s fun, but only works for a while. Practicing the skills and becoming fluent takes time. So it’s going to be frustrating, I’m sure, but worthwhile further honing skills as part of Comm 506.