Re-envisioning teacher education in the new media age: multiliteracies, multimodality and internet communication technologies

Multiliteracies pedagogy and research (New London Group, 1996) addresses the range of literacies needed by diverse students to effectively negotiate the increasing multimodality of texts, both inside and outside of schools. Yet, few university teachers understand how youth are able to express themselves, their experiences and lives, in new, empowering and perception-shifting ways as designers in the 21st century. Several theorists (Bruce, 2000; Lemke, 1998; Luke, 2000; Bolter, 1998; Glister, 1997) argue literacy education must be reconceptualised to recognize the importance of teaching and supporting multimedia literacy in a world where internet communication technologies (ICTs) incorporate all semiotic resources. Expression through multiple media and more recently hypermedia—is common to youth—but has often been demonized by historically logocentric approaches to teaching and assessment by privileging print, over all other forms of expression (Albright & Walsh, 2003; Lemke, 1998; McCloud, 1993). As digital media becomes more pervasive in a post-typographic world, tertiary education will need to engage with its representational resources for acquiring traditional school literacy and knowledge. This paper reports on initiatives in Multiliteracies instruction for both pre-service and in-service teachers to more adequately attend to the multisemiotic landscapes of students’ changing worlds in New Times (Hall, 1996).