Here, I would like to consider the link between Multimodal Knowledge Representations and assessment practices, in particular the idea of authentic assessment.

Kalantzis and Cope suggest that Multimodal Knowledge Representations involves "Using new media resources: Today’s learners need to be able to use digital media to juxtapose and link text, diagram, table, dataset, video documentation, audio recording and other media. Across all subject areas, meaning making and knowledge representations are supported and enhanced today by digital production skills and technologies." Equally, they suggest that students be involved in learning and demonstrating multiliteracies (ibd).

This requires changes in our teaching practices from standard testing (fill in the blanks, mutliple choice, etc.) which assesses students' memories, to practices that allow students to demonstrate their knowledge and apply it in meaningful ways. Grant Wiggins, well known for his Understanding By Design work (
Wiggins, and McTighe. Understanding by Design. 2nd ed., ASCD, 2005), has also written about the importance of authentic assessment and I believe this links well with the idea of Mutlimodal Knowledge Representations.

According to Wiggins, quoted in Dr Jon Mueller's site on authentic assessment, authentic assessment is ""...Engaging and worthy problems or questions of importance, in which students must use knowledge to fashion performances effectively and creatively. The tasks are either replicas of or analogous to the kinds of problems faced by adult citizens and consumers or professionals in the field." (Wiggins, G. P., Assessing Student Performance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers 1993, p. 229). Two aspects of this definition stand out for their links to the ideas discussed in in this course, namely active knowledge making and mutlimodal knowledge representations.

Firstly, active knowledge making is linked to the idea that students be engaged in solving real-world problems as a means of demonstrating what they know about a subject according to Cope and Kalantzis. Secondly, Wiggins' claim that the kinds of assessments students be involved in should mirror the kinds of tasks they would be expected to undertake as adult citizens clearly links to Cope and Kalantzis' claim that "Active knowledge making practices underpin contemporary emphases on innovation, creativity and problem solving—quintessential ‘knowledge economy’ and ‘knowledge society’ attributes." (Cope and Kalantzis).

What this means is that teachers wishing to change their practice towards a reflexive pedagogy which involves students producing these kinds of knowledge artifacts potentially have well-developed resources at hand with which to assess this work. This would make the transition potentially less daunting for teachers.

A futher point to consider would be the idea of multiliteracies and authentic assessment.