In the course videos, Dr Cope and Dr Kalantzis adress the issue of miultimodal literacy - the set of skills needed for finding your way around and gaining benefits out of a multimodal environment, in the same manner that traditional literacy skills (reading and writing) are the skills required for functioning in a text-lead environment. 

In this post, I would like to adress the two different aspects of multimodal literacy: multimodal information consumption, or comprehension, and multimodal information creation or communication. I believe that similar to reading and writing, and wile they are mutually depedent, these skills are not entirely the same. The 21st Century student has to become profficient in both. 

Comprehending multimodal communications may require several different literacies, such as: visual, verbal or auditory, as well as traditional reading skills. While traditional education often overlooked the importance of developing various literacy skills, today there is a growing understading that these are skills that need to be practiced and integrated within the learning process. Visual literacy, for instance, has long been taken for granted. However, the abilty to extract meaningful information out of visual input can be enhanced, by equipping them with visual interpretation skills and an inventory of relevant refferences (Serafini, 2010). An even more complex skill is the ability to extract meaning from the combination of text and visual images or information from other modalities. 

The other aspect of multimodal literacy is the skilled use of different modes for conveying messages and communicating information. Dr Kalantzis mentioned in the videos that one of her goals is that students will be better able to skillfully choose the means that they use in order to communicate. The many possibiliteis offered by the new media and the ability to combine different forms of media in the same settings puts less limitations on the creation of a communication - but less limitation and more freedom requires a better mastering of the different media types and their intgreation.

My example of the challenges brought on by the need for multimodal literacy skills comes from my work: I recently worked on a project which consisted of the creation of a guide for social workers on outcomes oriented practice. Originaly, we set out for writing a traditional text based guide. I'm quite proficient at writing such texts - I've been writing text my entire life, first as a student and later in my professional life. However, while we were working on the project we came to an understanding that sticking to the traditional format means giving up on some very helpful tools. We decided to create a digitized guide, which enables the incorporation of instrctional videos and interactive tools. These are all things that my co-workers and I need to adapt to, and we have many decisions to make- what can be adressed only in the videos? What needs to be written, how can we convey our main messages beetter by adding visual input,etc. I hope that kids who are in the educational system today will come out with a more natural mastering of these skills. 

Serafini, F. (2010). Reading multimodal texts: Perceptual, structural and ideological perspectives. Children's Literature in Education, 41(2), 85-104.‏

Bezemer, J., & Kress, G. (2008). Written. Written Communication, 25(2), 166-195

While researching for this post I found this very intersting TED talk by gallery director Brian Kennedy, on visual literacy and its importance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E91fk6D0nwM