10. Embracing Digital Multimodal Composing with Celeste Kirsh

How do teachers navigate the boundaries between the physical world of the classroom and the virtual worlds of social media, podcasting, and digital composition?

Celeste Kirsh, our guest today, has been tracing those boundaries for over ten years. Celeste is a middle school English and social studies teacher, as well as a blogger, podcaster, social media presence, and now a PhD candidate at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Her name will be familiar to any of you who have tuned in to previous episodes of our show, since it’s her editing expertise and technical wizardry that deliver these conversations to your ears. 

You might also know Celeste from her own podcast, Teaching Tomorrow, where she riffs on the future of learning with a range of top-notch guests. Today, Celeste shares what it’s like to be an educator who is teaching and learning out loud, in a public sphere, and how she continues to straddle the virtual world and the so-called “real” world as a teacher educator and emerging scholar of digital composition. 

Teaching Writers Speak is a podcast developed by members of the Toronto Writing Project. The Toronto Writing Project—or TWP for short—is made up of teachers and researchers who view writing as a vehicle for change, both in our institutions and in the world at large. 

This episode was produced by Celeste Kirsh, Velta Douglas, and Ty Walkland. Celeste is our editor and Rob Simon, TWP’s director, is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Doug Freisen. 

You can learn more about the Toronto Writing Project, and sign up for our upcoming writing workshops and speakers series, by visiting www.torontowritingproject.com.