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It is important for
educators not to infer that multimodal technologies are replacing text as
literacy. In fact, many multimodal platforms work hand-in-hand with text
to further develop meaning. They enhance the text, and have people
engaging more with text now, than ever before. Luke (2000) argues that
“communication on e-mail, Usenet and the internet have generated ‘an explosion
of writing’. Millions who write in online collaborative environments,
such as e-mail-based chatgroups or bulletin boards, are constructing new
writing and communication strategies developed through negotiating texts and
meaning among a collective of often culturally diverse writers.” (p. 76).
She (Luke, 2000) suggests that educators need to embrace the change in literacy
and proposes that “‘new’ electronic writing is a different form of literacy –
not an inferior or lesser form of some ‘golden age’ vision of literacy.” (Luke,
2000, p. 85).
In fact, if any form of literacy is ‘inferior’, it would be literacies that are not multimodal. Through the use of technology, and the collective aspects of multiliteracies, people no longer just read and write; they see multiple levels of literacy “levels of invention, production, dissemination, and uses” (Luke, 2000, p. 75). Literacy writing is no longer passive. With the use of technology, society can now use digital tools to create, and produce other modes to share and use communities of practice to enhance our understanding of how to create these texts. Through critical literacy, and digital storytelling, educators can help students create and decipher the texts all around them. |