A short presentation with basic ideas about literacies and multimodality based on Kalantzis and Cope's book "Literacies 2nd edition).

1. INTRODUCTION TO THE
CONCEPT OF LITERACIES
LA SALLE UNIVERSITY – SCHOOL OF EDUCATION SCIENCES – BA IN SPANISH, ENGLISH, AND FRENCH
Yamith José Fandiño – Bogotá, Colombia – Feb. 8, 2017

2. INTRODUCTION

3. Considerations
 How literacy fits in human history
- Language as an innate, natural capacity to make and understand meaning.
- When language becomes symbols, it takes a manufactured form that can be transported, that
lasts.
- First, we had oral, visual, and gestural communication.
- Then, we had reading and writing as an artifact, a piece of technology.
- Now, we have new ways of communicating simultaneously through different modes.
- 3 historical moments or phases of globalization.

4. First languages

5. First languages
 Humans as a species = creative, but isolated  Different ways of expressing meanings.
First languages
 Small populations = Unique languages with - large differences among themselves
- internal differences (age, gender, clan)
- Dynamic = Complex cultures and epistemologies.
- Logic = My specific relationship with the world is the specific way in which I speak about the world.
 Extraordinary multilingualism = Lingua francas  Speak 3, 4 or 5 languages.
 Great dynamism = No dictionaries, grammars or literacy practices. Renaming as result of changes in
meaning (life, seasons, relationships).
 Immense multimodality = Elaborate symbolic systems  Images, body paints, dances, gestures.

6. Starting to write

7. Starting to write
 Writing = a restrictive form of meaning making.
- Spreading of first language systems with some form of writing (Chinese in Asia, Mesopotamia in Egypt,
Aztecs in Central America, etc.)
 Writing = 1. Elites and religion  Inequality because just a few had that knowledge.
2. Control  Canonical texts and standardization.
3. Uses  List properties and taxes.
 Progressive advance of writing = the death of small languages.
- Modernity = The rise of nation states  Individuals should be able to communicate with strangers.
Common languages = Strong political agendas.

8. Starting to write
 Writing = Institutionalize textbook-based education system.
knowledge that mattes.
Rules and skills that are needed.
Ways of testing.
School = A place to teach a standard language that everybody shares.
Not going and learning that language means marginalization.

9. Digital literacies

10. Digital literacies
 Digitalization = A means of manufacturing meanings
Signs, images, sounds produced by the same tools.
Organization, work, relationships change.
Challenging written language as a privilege form of meaning making.
 Second half of the 20th C
Photolithography = Images and texts together.
New visual and oral modes = Telegraph, telephone, radio, TV = Communication across distances.

11. Digital literacies

12. Digital literacies
 The Internet
Web 1.0 = a transmission model of putting messages in the world through images and texts together
Searching, navigating, looking.
Web 2.0 = Interactive and dialogical model  Primarily oral and in real time.
 New media
Synaesthetic (Switching between modes)
Images are predominant.
Communication anywhere, any time.
New power and relationships = Social media, news feeds, video instruction, apps.
Receive an deliver information in multimodal ways.

13. Digital literacies
 Multimodality
Wherever we are, there is a mixture and interleaving of images, texts, colors, sounds in media.
 Writing
Originally, a privilege of an elite = The priest, the lords  Inequality
Modern times = Journalists, writers, specialists  Makers of most literate culture and the others were
consumers.
Now = We are ALL readers and writers of multimodal texts.
No passive receivers, but active communicators.
English, Spanish, Arabic altogether in life-like spaces.

14. Digital literacies

15. Digital literacies
 Are educators prepared to enable learners to make meaning through new technologies?
Across all disciplines? (Science, Maths, Languages, etc.)
Across all social domains (Personal, family, friendship, work, love, academia, etc.)
 What does it mean to prepare anyone with a repertoire of digital meaning making modes?
What values?
What skills?
What sensibilities?
How to do it successfully?

16. Reference
Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (2016). Literacies. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.