Mediation, multimodality and multiliteracies

Human learning is mediated through interaction with others using “mediational tools”: Language; Participant interaction; Tasks; Technology

In general, it refers to interaction and involves negotiation. In relation to education, the construct of “mediation” has its roots in the sociocultural theory of learning: In contrast to the cognitive model of learning, sociocultural approaches stress the central role of social interaction for learning: all human learning is mediated through, or shaped by, interaction with others, and this shaping does not take place in a vacuum, but through mediational tools.

The medium of the computer enables users to employ a range of ways of communicating: affordances. The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill. The verb to afford is found in the dictionary, but the noun affordance is not. I have made it up. I mean by it something that refers to both the environment and the animal in a way that no existing term does. It implies the complementary of the animal and the environment. ( Gibson, 1979:127)

The same object, here a fist-sized stone, offers different affordances to different animals. For an adult healthy human, it offers the affordance of throwing it, or to use it as a tool, to name just two. For a mouse, it offers the affordances to hide behind it or to climb on top of it, and for a cat it offers the affordance of hiding prey .

Gibson give emphasis on what the animal – or the human being percieves rather than what is inhrent in the object; Affordances different possibilities and constraints in the environment, which give agents different options for actions. This environment includes not only physical objects but also social phenomena such as interaction or tools like language.

The concept of affordance has also influenced recent developments of an ecological view of learning. Based on the view that “an affordance is a property of neither the actor nor of an object : it is the relationship between the two”, van Lier ( 2000:252) prioritises relational and interactional process over material and objects.

He suggests the ecological notion of affordance as an alternative to the concept of input and emphasises the idea that the unit of analysis in research should not be “the perceived object or linguistic input, but the active learning, or the activity itself”(van Lier, 2000:253).

In CMCL teachers and researchers need to attend to: the “material stuff” – that we use to make meaning – of the computer (hardware and software); the total environment ( the location in which the learner operates); human aspects of the learning experience.

It’s crucial that software and materials designers are aware of the ways that affordances works. If they design the tools for communication (text, image or icon) to best effect by taking into account how learners make use of them, it is more likely that learners will be encouraged to interact and communicate with their teachers and with one another.

The functionalities of the computer medium also have an impact on the modes of communication. New computers can provide access to environments bringing together a number of modes, including those based on text, spech, gestures, images and icons. “ Combining these in multimodal software allows for an “orchestration of meaning” ( Keress et al., 2001:05)

Two contrasting positions have emerged: Some researchers point to the potential quantitative increase in communication that such environments allow; Others perceive computer environments as restricted compared to face-to-face settings. According to Cook(2003), the new environments can be more accurately described as “bi-modal” or “tri – modal” rather than “multimodal”, once what remains are often reduced acts in which the only modalities are those of writing, vision and sometimes sound.

However, the authors argue that neither view is helpful: they do not try to understand what the new media can offer in their own right. Rather than starting with the old form of action ( e.g. the tools have no way of supporting learners shaking hands) we can consider the new form of action (e.g. the tool offers simultaneous one-to-many speaking and writing) and any of the affordances the tool may have.

Today, computers offer multimodal communication and networking tools which can encourage co-operation and collaboration in various modes, thus supporting social cultural approaches to learning. Extent of impact of a new tool [New technologies] change, through their affordances, the potentials for representational and communicational action by their users; this is the notion of “interactivity” which figures so prominently in discussions of the new media. (Kress, 2003:5)

Specific online environments offer a whole range of tools, from asynchronous written conferencing ( which is dominated by one mode) to video conferencing (which affords a number of verbal and non-verbal modes of communication).

Definition of multiliteracies: The notion of literacy has served to conceptualise the understanding (by users) of the tools in their environments. According to the OECD –Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (2000), literacy is “the ability to understand and employ printed information and daily activities, at home, at work and in the community to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential.”

Therefore, new literacies can be seen as the knowledge and understanding that users bring to the activities they carry out in the new electronic media, empowering those on the right side of the digital divide to choose the appropriate language to represent their meaning.

The impact of the technological developments on literacy in recent years can thus be summarized as a “revolution in the uses and effects of literacy and of associated means for representing and communicating at every level and every domain”. ( Kress, 2003:01)

As a result, Kress and the New London Group called for the development of “ multiliteracies ”. Multiliteracies Literacy pedagogy now must account for the burgeoning variety of text forms associated with information and multimedia technologies. This includes understanding and competent control of representational forms that are becoming increasingly significant in the overall communications environment, such as visual images and their relationship to the written word. ( New London Group, 1996:60)

Yet, the concept of multiliteracies has also a critical dimension – Literacy also needs to include the awareness that representational resources are social practices constructed by a particular society and are therefore limited. ( Lankshea and Knobel, 2003a)

Critical Literacy What is important is to make them [students] aware of the implications and ramifications of new literacies. The liberating and democratizing powers of current technology should not be taken for granted. Students have to go beyond developing a simple functional literacy in the new media and genres. They have to still adopt a critical literacy for expanding the possibilities of the new resources, appropriating the available media for their oppositional purposes, and democratizing the cyberworld for broader participation. ( Canagarajah, 2002:222-3)

In the context of online communication, multiliteracies include the skill of using the hardware and software. They also involve an awareness of and ability to deal with the constraints and possibilities of the medium. CMCL presents the additional challenge that learners struggling with meaning-making via multiple modes in a new medium must also operate with a set of linguistic representational resources where they only have limited proficiency.

However, while this increased demand may be considered a key obstacle to aquisition, the opposite sometimes obtains: less proficient learners who are confortable with the technology may be valuable interlocutors for peers who are better linguists but worse technologists.

Multiliteracies go beyond dealing with the technical aspect of the eletronic medium and include engaging with others through the new technologies and using these creatively as well as critically. Teachers have a dual responsability: to select the most appropriate tool for the job and to make the most creative use of the affordances of the tool they have chosen.

Institutions may be more o less supportive of CMCL users: First, decisions based on economics and security may determine that an institution will restrict online activity to one platform and will prohibit the use of software; Second, cultural factors play a role: many institutions still follow a teacher-led agenda and countless students are more familiar with the hierarchical and instructivist learning contexts.

So, how to use the tools available to learners critically and creatively is a key issue for CMCL and for education more generally, and needs further in-depth research.

Mediation, multimodality and multiliteracies

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Mediation, multimodality and multiliteracies