Composition Projects: Multimodal

Overview

Expressing ideas through visuals and audio, and understanding others' ideas in these forms, is as critical in today's world as traditional reading and writing. These multimodal compositions can aso increase learners' Motivation because they resemble the real-life texts they encounter out of school.

Use It in the Classroom

Watch a sample video from the Global StoryBridges Project, which focuses on English language learners. Youth at each site work collaboratively to represent their lives and communities through a full range of multimodal communication. They decide what to represent and how to tell their stories, watch and discuss videos from other sites, and decide together what questions to pose and how to respond to questions and comments from others.

Students practice digital literacy skills, important aspects of 21st century learning, as they create multimodal compositions. Having students share their compositions with peers and view others' projects can also help expand their Social Awareness & Relationship Skills.

Design It into Your Product

Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.

Watch how KidBlog provides a global platform for students to engage in digital authorship. Students share their ideas via videos, photos, and written explanations, and their blogs are available to classrooms across the United States and globally, which increases their Motivation to write and broadens their Literacy Environment.

Product designers can build in examples of messages shared in different ways for students to practice their Metacognition in making choices about which modalities to use for communicating messages most effectively. Digital platforms can also be powerful global shared spaces, where students can find Social Supports in the form of authentic audiences for their work and develop global awareness and understanding by seeing others' compositions.

View References

Resources

Below are additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.

Kids Living and Learning with New Media

Case studies of digital literacy and communication

Multimedia Learning

Subtopic that includes research on the use of multimedia and visuals in instruction on Digital Promise's Research Map

Multimodal Compositions

Tips and pitfalls to avoid for multimodal projects

Student Motivation

Topic that includes research on the factors that motivate students to learn and reach their goals on Digital Promise's Research Map

Thinking About Multimodality

Overview of the importance of multimodal composition