The term ‘multiliteracies was first proposed by the New London Group in the 1990s as they felt that due to the changing times and advances in technologies and multimedia, the younger generation was interacting with knowledge in multimodal ways. The digital media provided a variety of sources of information including textual based information, images, audio, video and graphical data. ‘..Learners are immersed in new situations or information, observing or taking part in something that is new or unfamiliar, but within the zone of intelligibility and close to their own life-worlds. For example, teachers introduce something new but which makes sense by immersion in experiments, field trips and investigations in projects’ (Cope & Kalantzis, 2015).

Multiliteracies have become a natural way of acquiring and representing knowledge and understanding for the learners due to the availability of digital technologies and multimedia. The knowledge base has shifted from didactic pedagogies to authentic pedagogy. By linking multiliteracies with multiple intelligences theory proposed by Gardner (1999) we can support the notion of personalized learning through multimodality. Especially keeping in mind the needs of 21st century learners where more emphasis is placed on interaction and learning through collaboration; it is only natural to allow learners to pitch in information according to their learning preferences so that they can view a phenomenon from different perspectives. For developing higher order thinking and lifelong learning it is important that learners acquire 21st century skills including communication, critical thinking, problem solving, creativity and collaboration and multiliteracies are an excellent vehicle for catering to these. SAMR model proposed by Ruben Puentedura in 2006 also emphasizes the role of multiliteracies using digital technologies to promote high order thinking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QOsz4AaZ2k

A piece of information can be presented in many ways for example if a habitat is being studied; students can write a textual report on that particular habitat and insert images into the report, they may want to prepare a podcast, a multimedia presentation or a documentary. They can collaborate online with people living in that habitat and record interviews or collect the climatic data and present it in graphical form. In this way learning can be more authentic, meaningful and closer to real life. We need to provide opportunities to 21st century learners to switch form one mode to another for realistic and relevant meta-cognitive learning process. Multiliteracies assist in providing a holistic, multi-dimentional, 360 degrees learning and knowledge making across different media, styles and products to acquire both horizontal and vertical learning.

References:

The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard educational review, 66 (1), 60-93.

Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2015). The things you do to know: An introduction to the pedagogy of multiliteracies. In B. Cope & M. Kalantzis (Eds.), A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Learning by design (pp. 1–36). London: Palgrave

Links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=075aWDdZUlM
https://www.learning-theories.com/multiliteracies-new-london-group.html http://newarcproject.pbworks.com/f/Pedagogy%2Bof%2BMultiliteracies_New%2BLondon%2BGroup.pdf
http://people.umass.edu/~mgebhard/Gebhard%20Publication%20PDFs/2012%20-%20Multiliteracies%20-%20Gebhard%20&%20Ives.pdf