Multiliteracies & TPCK

Discussion of the relevance of Multiliteracies and how it supports your Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge.

Multiliteracies are about finding meaning from the different text types or ‘media’ that surround us. It requires teachers to present information in a variety of ways, such as audio, gestural, spatial as well as written and linguistic modes. The New London Group has defined it as a way to “ensure that all students benefit from learning in ways that allow them to participate fully in public, community and economic life.” (New London Group, 1996).

This reading helped me to understand the importance of ICT as a literacy, and to that end, we spent a lot of time trying out different designs for our activities. The spatial and gestural modes are included in our activities for the teacher to incorporate when the activities are teacher-centered. However, “Merely knowing how to use technology is not the same as knowing how to teach with it” (Mishra & Koehler, 2006).  Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK)requires a teacher being able to combine a selection of appropriate tools, strategies and activities to teach the content of the lesson. In a history classroom, this was a new area to be explored, especially outside the traditional web quests.