Multiliteracies In The Construction Of Our Current Educational Context

Multiliteracies in the construction of our current educational context


Nowadays, incorporating new technologies to educational settings has become a trend; as a consequence teachers and students face a challenge to understand the functional, social and cultural implications of technology in order to become multiliterate in this multimedia, multilingual and multicultural society.


Keywords: New literacies, multiliteracies, technology, traditional educational practices.


Technology has been so integrated in our daily lives that it has also become a necessity in our classrooms. As a matter of fact, the use of computers, mp3 players, calculators, phone cameras, flash drives and other electronic devices, has had a revolutionary impact in our practices as teachers andstudents, to the extent that most of our classes rely on the use of those instruments. This trend has changed our traditional way of approaching education; we all are learning how to master different tools, using more than pencils and paper, to access knowledge.
With those new tools society has also changed, the sense of ubiquity given by the internet has increased the possibilities ofexchanging experiences with others all over the world and has allowed us to cross borders and to be in contact with different cultures and social perspectives. All the transformations produced by globalization have brought to education new perspectives of approaching teaching and learning processes.
Taking into account all of the technology and social networks around us, we cannot consider educationoutside them. We should reflect on how the new dynamics have contributed to the development of different skills that teachers and students did not have when those tools were not an extension of the educational environment. Many papers have been written about this issue with different perspectives; I will discuss in this essay why I believe that education is shaped by society.
The mainpurpose of this text is to provide an idea about the changes that technology has introduced to society and how this fact imply reforms in the educational contexts, theories and practices. One of the recent theories that respond to the new demands in education includes the term new literacies or multiliteracies.
In order to understand what multiliteracy is, we have to go first to the definitionof literacy from different perspectives. According to Ong (1982), literacy is defined in opposition to orality. It is referred to writing and is considered artificial in the sense that is a technological development because of the use of tools. This definition is made in contrast to oral speech, which is considered natural to human beings. Ong’s definition also alleges that writing has shaped andpowered the intellectual activity of modern man[1].
Another assertion to the word literacy is one that still remains in the minds of people today, which also includes the thoughts of traditional schools, defines “being literate” as having the ability to read and write. In my view this is a very primitive definition because it disregards that there are many additional abilities that aperson can develop beyond reading and writing; for example, the mastery of new technological tools and other languages, the understanding of different cultures, as well as the ability to think critically in a globalized world.
Although reading and writing are social practices useful to access knowledge they are not enough to understand the modern changes introduced through technology. “Yet,limiting literacy to basic reading and writing skills that enable us to receive or transmit information denies many additional factors that help create meaning in discourse. Such a simplistic characterization further assumes that the ability to read and write is a binary concept – that is, either you are literate or illiterate” (Glonglewsky & DuBravac, 2006:43)[2]
In this regard, the concept...