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1985 19952015

2005

Joel Mario ThomasMuseum of Multimodal History

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Joel M Thomas is the current executive director and founder of IE21CL, the Institute for the Emergence of 21st Century Literacies and a graduate student in the CCNY M.A. in Language and Literacy Program.

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In 2015, I will graduate with a Masters in Language and Literacy from the City College of New York where I founded IE21CL, the Institute for the Emergence of 21st Century Literacies. It will also mark my first full year back into civilian life after having served eight years in the United States Navy. Over the last ten years since my time in college at Kean University, I have watched our country and our world change in dramatic and unprecedented ways, and I now ask myself one question: How do I use the material of my life and my learning to take action within and upon the worlds that I occupy? Given my experience, one thing I now know that I can do is work towards transforming an almost world-wide education system that Cathy Davidson says was designed to turn farmers into factory-workers. But while my study as an undergraduate prepared me to think globally, the Language and Literacy Program and the Digital Literacies Class, in particular, has given me the understanding, awareness, and tools to take action locally. And the most transformative sites for that action, I believe, are in the classroom, out in the community, and up in the cloud--that new virtual space where Cathy Davidson also says the digital composer can now release her ideas to be delivered to millions while bypassing the old gate keepers of the past who once came in the form of editors and publishers.

Rewriting The Next Chapter

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