Globalization and the Age of Multiliteracies

Due to globalization and the diversity of communication technologies we need to rethink the way we currently teach literacy. We need to look closely at an evolving era of multimodality in which multiple modes of meaning can now be expressed and obtained through mass media, multimedia and in electronic hypermedia.

This evolution of Multiliteracies requires new decoding skills from our students to enable them to navigate and decode a variety of media. For example, a simple task of reading and interpreting information from a web page can require complex literacies and numeracies.

The New London group discusses the idea of Design, where teachers are the designers of learning processes and they should engage students by tapping into the student’s own experiences. Children of the electronic generation need to be taught to “think, assess, react, decide and act” (Spender 1995 – Prestige pg 8), when learning and interacting with information.

How do we put these ideas into practice when the schools’ current curriculum is already overcrowded? How can we incorporate new technologies into the traditional methods of teaching? What professional development can we allocate to teachers on Multiliteracies when their students are more multi-literate than they are?

New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60-92.