Multimodal Literacies: Communication in Digital Media Era

This module introduces the key ideas of the course: communication, representation (or making meanings for oneself as an aid to thinking), and the design of meaning. Today, our tools for communication and representation have been widely expanded by digital tools. For these reasons, we need to extend our literacy pedagogy to encompass literacies in the plural, including a wider range of modes of meaning than alphabetic text alone.

This module begins with an overview of the conventional focus of literacy pedagogy – reading and writing. In its second half, the module applies a parallel set of tools to analysis of visual meanings.

In this third module of the course, we examine spatial, tactile, gestural, audio, and oral meanings – all today part of a wider repertoire of teaching and learning that we call "literacies" in the plural, or "multiliteracies." In the final section of the module, we explore how we use literacies to think in characteristically "academic" ways. In this sense, literacies play a critical supportive role in the learning process.

The final module of the course examines the question of learner differences – including literacies learning at different age levels and second language learning. We also explore strategies for differentiated instruction. Finally, we investigate the range of assessment strategies that can be used to diagnose learner needs, offer feedback during the learning process, and evaluate learning outcomes.