A multiliteracies perspective on the new literacies

The new communications environment of the 21st century offers unprecedented opportunities for multimodal meaning making, a transformed dynamics of social agency and divergence of discourses. Multi-literacies theory presents a set of educationally useable conceptual schemas and suggestions for an expanded repertoire of literacy practices as a response to these opportunities (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000a). The following discusses the theory and case study of a collaborative application if a set of schemas to address contemporary issues in multiliteracies pedagogy (Cloonan, 2008a).