e-Learning Ecologies MOOC’s Updates

Essential Update #3: Multimodal Texts

Navigating, Harnessing, and Creating Multimodal Texts

For this week’s topic, I have selected multimodal texts. Multimodal texts are ones that utilize a multiplicity of modes of communication, which may include words (printed or digital), images, videos, and audio clips, among others. A more scholarly definition of a multimodal text, as described by Anstey and Bull (2010) is that it is a text that utilizes two or more semiotic systems at once. The five semiotic systems are: 1) linguistic; 2) visual; 3 audio; 4) gestural; 5) spatial. (The last one, spatial, refers to how objects are presented in space; it might include particular layout of a web page, for instance.)

For school students of today, and increasingly for many young adults in online universities, navigating the multimodal landscape of the Internet has become second nature. We skip comfortably across the surfaces of web pages, venturing from one to the next through hyperlinks and Google searches. On individual web pages, we are frequently bombarded by embedded videos of various kinds (animation, simulation, filmed with an iPhone, etc.), still images, a multiplicity of textual styles, and audio clips. In the well-crafted online classroom, these various modes of representation are used to convey meaning for diverse learners. On a discussion board, the instructor may embed videos to capture students’ interest and engage them in a deeper discussion by providing a concrete starting point for conversation. Many available apps encourage this multimodality; in VoiceThread (https://voicethread.com/), for example, the instructor can post an object that could be a photograph, a clip of music, or anything else, and then students can respond in myriad ways (typed text, recorded voice, etc.). Apps such as Screencast-o-Matic (https://screencast-o-matic.com/) enable instructors to create screencast videos, which can then be uploaded to YouTube to provide additional explanation of an assignment along with the text directions.

While most of us have become adept at navigating multimodal texts, however, in my experience there remains a disconnect between how individuals use these texts in their daily life and their role in education, however. For example, Kitson (2011) presented a study on the use of multimodal texts called learning objects (learning objectives, instructional content, and multimedia content) in which she examined the affordances of and impediments to using interactive whiteboards in the classroom. One of the difficulties involves the potential challenges to meaning making created by offering multiple pathways of learning. Does the student end up developing a clear understanding of the topic, or do the various textual modes distract and ultimately disrupt?

Similarly, in my own online university teaching experience, while adult students utilize the multimodal texts provided to them, they tend to default to typed text for responding in discussions or submitting classwork, unless required to use another format (such as a video). Part of this challenge may lie in a lingering bias among educators toward text as the preferred mode of demonstrating knowledge, as Svardemo Aberg and Ackerfeldt (2017) found to be the case in a study of students’ assignments in Swedish schools. In my own experience, for instance, I have responded to students’ posts in discussions using videos I have recorded on my laptop. However, while I invited students to do the same in several of my classes, not one student opted to do so. Similarly, when given the option of submitting a lab worksheet or recording a video showing the lab, students overwhelmingly choose to complete the worksheet. Working to move students in the direction of greater multimodality of expression in the classroom is a task I am beginning to undertake in my instructional work. In that regard, I am finding this course highly inspirational. 

 

Sources Cited

Anstey, M., & Bull, G. (2010). Helping teachers to explore multimodal texts. Curriculum Leadership Journal.

Kitson, L. (2011). Reconceptualising understandings of texts, readers and contexts: One English teacher's response to using multimodal texts and interactive whiteboards. English in Australia, 46(3), 76-86.

Svärdemo Åberg, E. & Åkerfeldt, A. (2017). Design and recognition of multimodal texts: selection of digital tools and modes on the basis of social and material premises? J. Comput. Educ. (2017) 4: 283. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40692-017-0088-3