ABSTRACT

This collection critically considers the question of how learning and teaching should be conceived, understood, and approached in light of the changing nature of learning scenarios and new pedagogies in this current age of multimodal digital texts, practices, and communities.

The book takes the concept of digital artifacts as being composed of multiple meaning-making semiotic resources, such as visuals, music, and design, as its point of departure to explore how diverse communities interact with these tools and develop and explore their understanding of digital practices in learning contexts. The first section of the volume examines different case studies in which involved participants learn to grapple with the introduction of digital tools for learning in children’s early years of schooling. The second section extends the focus to secondary and higher education settings as digital learning tools grow more complex as do students, parents, and teachers’ interactions with them and the subsequent need for new pedagogies to rethink these multimodal artifacts. A final section reflects on the implications of new multimodal tools, technologies, and pedagogies for teachers, such as on teacher training and community building among educators.

In its in-depth look at multimodal approaches to learning as meaning-making in a digital world, this book will be of interest to students and scholars in multimodality, English language teaching, digital communication, and education.

chapter 1|16 pages

A Sensational Theory of Designed Experience

Replacement Parts for a Theory of Multimodality

chapter 2|21 pages

Pedagogies for Digital Learning

From Transpositional Grammar to the Literacies of Education

part I|80 pages

Focus on Children

chapter 3|15 pages

Stars, Scores, and Cheers

A Social Semiotic Critique of “Fun” Learning in Commercial Educational Software for Children

chapter 4|18 pages

Storytelling with Children in Informal Contexts

Learning to Narrate Across the Offline/Online Boundaries

chapter 6|14 pages

Watching the Sound

Sign-Making in Musical Expressiveness of Children with Motor-Related Disabilities Made Through Eye-Tracking Software

chapter 7|17 pages

Popularizing Scientific Knowledge for Children

A Multimodal Perspective

part III|76 pages

Focus on Teachers

chapter 12|16 pages

Analyzing Attitudinal Stance in OpenCourseWare Lectures

An Experimental Mixed-Method Approach

chapter 13|17 pages

Making Science Easier to Access

Investigating Academic Social Networks as “Composites of Connotations”