The New London Group’s influence on how we approach the teaching of literacy, stems from a desire to be more inclusive. As society becomes more culturally and linguistically diverse, how we reach the goal of educating everyone has to mirror the shift towards a multimodal world we live in. To that effect, this tasks goal is to take a visual and text-based task and approach it from a different semiotic mode. Sound is the medium and my goal is to showcase its role as part of a suite of technological tools that transformhow we teach literacy in order to benefit our global audience.

Multiliteracies is the name given to the New London Group’s approach to literacy pedagogy. The “multi” is both a reference to the changes from one medium to many, (text to audio in this case), as well as the recognition that the audience is made up of multiple groups. All these groups deserve the right to benefit from a learning experience that lowers the barriers to success that exist in our present approach.

The main audio is an oral explanation of the bags contents but listen for other clues too. Listen for sounds that play a part in identifying the objects being spoken about. If you are listening closely you should be able to name Zambia’s major river.

It also sounds like I am recording this in a cave. Not quite sure why, but that is strictly beginner Garageband skills.

My back up plan for the audio file is a link to my google drive in case the WordPress audio block is not working.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1okfZAObB7F2v9RcDFVbxbNbXaNo-529-/view?usp=drivesdk

Reference:

The New London Group.  (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. (Links to an external site.)  Harvard Educational Review 66(1), 60-92.