How to understand and argue for the nature and place of literary texts and experience in contemporary English curriculum has been and continues to be the subject of much debate. While literature as traditionally conceptualised remains an important presence in much English curriculum, the notion of what "literature" is, or what the…

Composing with different modes--image, sound, video and the written word--to respond to and analyze literary and informational text helps students develop as readers and digital communicators. This article showcases five multimodal strategies for engaging children in rich literature-based learning using digital tools and Internet resources.

Research on implementing reading strategy instruction has primarily focused on teachers' verbal communication with limited attention to other semiotic resources such as gesture and artefacts. In this paper, we construct a "telling case" on the basis of how one primary teacher from the United States used speech, gesture and artefacts…

The purpose of the study is to better understand the role of physicality, interactivity, and interface effects in learning with digital content. Drawing on work in cognitive science, human-computer interaction, and multimedia learning, the study argues that interfaces that promote physical interaction can provide "conceptual leverage"…

Freebody and Luke proffered an expanded conceptualization of the resources readers utilize when reading and the roles readers adopt during the act of reading. The four resources model, and its associated four roles of the reader, expanded the definition of reading from a simple model of decoding printed texts to a model of constructing meaning and…

This article explores disruption of habituated literacy practices through the creation of new possibilities in a digital space. Preservice English method teachers at a Melbourne university were invited to create a digital introduction and to reflect after the presentation on aspects of technology, representation and learning that were brought into…

This case study of multimodal pedagogies within an intergenerational (IG) art class addresses questions about the learning opportunities that were created therein and what the fixing of participants' ideas within a semiotic chain said about their facility with communicative modes and media, interests, and identity options. Key findings include:…

This paper describes the visuals second grade students included in their own information book compositions during a science unit on weather during which multimodal science trade books on the topic of weather were read aloud. First, the multimodal nature of the information books used in the unit are described. Second, the teacher's talk about…

Inclusion and differentiation--hallmarks of the current educational system--require a paradigm shift in the way that educators run their classrooms. This article enumerates the need for techno-kinesthetic, visually based activities and offers an example of a calculator-based programming activity that addresses that need. After discussing the use…

Social presence is considered an important quality in computer-mediated communication as it promotes willingness in learners to take risks through participation in interpersonal exchanges (Kehrwald, 2008) and makes communication more natural (Lowenthal, 2010). While social presence has mostly been investigated through questionnaire data and…

In this paper, we explore the affordances of literature-based, arts-infused and digital media processes for students, as multimodal practices take centre stage in an English Language Arts unit on fractured fairy tales. The study takes up the challenge of addressing multimodal literacy instruction and research in ways that utilize a range of…

Advocates of modality preference posit that individuals have a dominant sense and that when new material is presented in this preferred modality, learning is enhanced. Despite the widespread belief in this position, there is little supporting evidence. In the present study, the authors implemented a Morse code-like recall task to examine whether…

The effectiveness of clay modeling to written modules is examined to determine the degree of improvement in learning and retention of anatomical 3D relationships among students with different learning preferences. Thirty-nine undergraduate students enrolled in a cadaver dissection course completed a pre-assessment examination and the VARK…

Preparation for today's influenced technology professional world starts with structure of primary and secondary educational learning environments. The student learning platforms should be aligned in some ways to professional working platforms. This quantitative correlational ex post facto study compared the effectiveness of learning modalities in…

This study takes theories and perspectives from social semiotics, multimodality, sociocultural developmental perspective, social constructivism in science education, and second language acquisition to examine the science discourse in a sixth grade sheltered classroom. The study aims to answer the following two questions: 1. what is the nature of…