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Worlds have Collided and Modes have Merged
As Kalantzis & Cope (2011) explain, today’s communications environments, particularly since the rise of new, digital media, are increasingly multimodal. Written meanings are closely connected with visual, spatial, tactile, gestural, audio and oral modes of meaning. Navigating contemporary social spaces requires the application of not just one set of rules for meaning-making (literacy in the singular), but the negotiation of different literacies depending on the people and contexts you encounter. There are, in other words, many literacies and these vary according to cultural context, social purpose, life experience, personal interest, knowledge base and so on. The key is not learning how to communicate in the one, right way, but how to negotiate these differences in meaning.
To read, produce and convey meaning through multimodal texts, students need to be able to combine traditional literacy practices with the understanding, design and manipulation of different modes where written-linguistic modes of meaning interface with oral, visual, audio, gestural, tactile and spatial patterns of meaning. (Walsh, 2008 & Kalantzis & Cope, 2011).
As Coiro et al (2008) explain, no previous technology for literacy has been adopted by so many, in so many different places, in such a short period, and with such profound consequences (pp. 2-3).
To read, produce and convey meaning through multimodal texts, students need to be able to combine traditional literacy practices with the understanding, design and manipulation of different modes where written-linguistic modes of meaning interface with oral, visual, audio, gestural, tactile and spatial patterns of meaning. (Walsh, 2008 & Kalantzis & Cope, 2011).
As Coiro et al (2008) explain, no previous technology for literacy has been adopted by so many, in so many different places, in such a short period, and with such profound consequences (pp. 2-3).
Laetitia Kilpatrick (K-6 Assistant Principal) and Sue Morton (primary teacher/librarian)