My 15-year old daughter learns in classrooms that are state-of-the-art, i.e. they have highly sophisticated smart boards, laptops, tablets and smart phones, as well as an abundance of traditional treeware. Each child is able to use this technology with embarrassing ease because this is the world young people live in (at least in the developed world). The children are very familiar with interactive websites such as National Geographic, http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/ ,NASA for Kids, https://www.nasa.gov/kidsclub/index.html, Natural History Museum, http://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover.html etc. These sites recognize the importance of multimodal literacy. Educators are aware that children nowadays have shifted away from the static, printed text to much more dynamic texts supported by animation, three-dimensional images (maps, charts, graphs, etc.) sounds and videos. “This is an age of multimedia authoring where competency with written words is still vital, but is no longer all that is needed to participate meaningfully in the many spheres of life” (Mills, K. 2000, “Shrek meets Vygotsky: Rethinking adolescents’ Multimodal Literacy Practice in Schools,” British Journal of Educational Technology 31.1. p. 36)

There is so much more to multimodal literacy. Research has found that multimodal literacy instruction can dramatically improve ‘knowledge retention’ by using sound, text and images rather than just words alone. In other words, students learn much better and can retain much of what they have learnt when corresponding words and pictures, etc. are presented simultaneously rather than successively (Mayer, R. (2001). Multi-Media Learning. Cambridge University Press).

I can recall when I was a teenager doing presentations at school in front of my peers. I had notes scribbled on pieces of paper, supplemented with diagrams and charts/pictures drawn on a black board. The presentation was bland and lacked depth. Here in the 21st Century, school children are able to use Ipads/tablets, instead of pieces of paper and use smart boards connected to the internet to show videos, animations, colorful images and text, 3D maps and charts. This enables children to produce interesting and engaging presentations that encourage lively debate and critical thinking amongst peers. I believe that students using well-designed combinations of visuals and text learn more than students who only learn using text.