Abstract

This learning module supports chapters 1-7 of the 'Literacies' book, written by Kalantzis, Cope, Chan and Dalley-Trim, and published by Cambridge University Press. The module opens with an exploration of the social context and aims of literacy teaching and learning. It goes on to expore a range of historical and contemporary approaches to literacy pedagogy, including didactic, authentic, functional, and critical approaches. The course takes has a 'Multiliteracies' perspective, which aims to expand the definition of literacy to encompass today's multimodal communications, and the diversity of literacies across different social and culltural contexts. A Multiliteracies approach also suggests a broad range of activity types—experiential, conceptual, analytical and critical. The Learning Module includes updates that can be delivered into the activity streams of learners to prompt discussion, surveys which prompt short responses, and projects in which participants write multimodal works and peer review each others works before they are published into each person's web portfolio. In one of these projects, participants themselves design a learning module, deliverable to a defined student group. A second learning module, "Multimodal Literacies: Communication and Learning in the Era of Digital Media", addresses chapters 8-16 of the "Literacies" book.