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“We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist . . . using technologies that haven’t been invented . . . in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.” (Fisch, McLeod, & Brenman, 2008) In order to successfully prepare 21st century students for an unknown future, educators need to use the four components of multiliteracies pedagogy outlined by the New London Group (1996), and incorporate the use of technology, communities of practice, student’s identities, social media, and digital tools, to project based learning situations.
Educators and society also need to stop seeing literacy as an individual, monomodal, pen and paper task, but rather as a sharing process, in which people learn by, and through collaboration, and dissemination of information, through text, images, videos, and a plethora of other modalities afforded to us by technology. Scribner (1984) suggests that functional literacy is being able to participate “in the actual life conditions of particular groups or communities” (p. 10). To be able to function in today's society, and into the future, students need to be equipped with knowledge of technological tools. The reason for modern schooling is to provide students with the necessary skills, and knowledge to be successful in the future outside of school. Futuristic teachers need to help students become life-long learners who are ready, organized, and equipped for new capitalism (Gee, 1999). Multiliteracies pedagogy takes that one step further, by focusing on issues of social justice, so that students can become well-rounded problem solvers, and global citizens, ready to take on the problems of the future. In our fast paced, technology driven society, we engage in a wide range of multimodal technologies. On order to be able to effectively participate with these literacies, and in society, students need to be given the tools to effectively mediate and make meaning of the multimodal texts they engage with. |