The Multimodal Mindset project aims to raise students’ level of understanding of multimodal messages that they encounter in lessons and daily life. The project also enables students to develop multimodal literacy skills using an innovative approach to ensure that they can accurately understand the messages that are communicated through various modes.
The second result of the project called Multimodal Literacy Toolkit is a set of educational materials that utilize the values of Media Literacy, Digital Storytelling, and Creative Drama. Multimodal Literacy, Media Literacy, Creative Drama, and Digital
Storytelling have common benefits such as improving creativity, critical thinking, concentration, and communication skills. Consortium members prepared ready-to-use educational materials for the 3 above mentioned areas.
Multimodal Literacy Toolkit is designed to support the teachers and trainers in making evidence-informed education about how to improve learning outcomes of education to ensure the acquisition of multimodal literacy skills of the students. It is a
reference resource that teachers and trainers can use in the education they provide to ensure the acquisition of these skills by students and in developing their Multimodal Literacy skills.The toolkit consists of three modules each of which is divided into 4 units. Each unit contains content that will enable the messages conveyed by different modes (visual, audio, reading, writing and kinaesthetic) to be understood at the cognitive level.
All of the educational materials were piloted at LTTs in Istanbul with teachers and in Zaprešić with students as well as in each partners’ country at local level with the participation of 40 students per country.
Media literacy for multimodal literacy
By reviewing many courses based on media literacy, one important issue has been pointed out: the necessity of including media literacy in the curriculum to enable our students to become responsible active citizens in this age of digitalization and daily exposure to social media in multimodal representation. This is why it has been decided to focus on courses that develop media literacy skills and study multimedia literacy concepts. The aim is to raise awareness of the importance of recognizing fake news as well as the dis/miss/information and to be able to analyse and evaluate the multimedia message
and multimedia effect.
In the effort to teach our students to acquire multimodal literacy, we will have them both construct and deconstruct multimodal messages. They need to be able to understand that the messages are nowadays being delivered in two or even modes (modes including written and spoken language as well as patterns of meaning that are visual, audio, gestural, tactile, and spatial.). Effectively creating and composing multimodal messages involves skills and understanding that most of us never received at home, at school, or work. Even with the emphasis on multimodal literacy in society today, most kids grow up in environments that stress reading and writing. For the most part, music, photographs, drawings, and other media arts are still treated as extracurricular activities, hobbies, or artistic pursuits. Our students need a wide range of mediarelated knowledge and competencies to become multimodal literate.
The significance of media literacy as a part of the multimodal representation is rising as the media is becoming more and more manipulative and an expert in creating usergenerated media content. Our students, as media consumers, should also develop the skills to understand and analyse the multimodal environment in today’s multimodal and
quickly changing mediascape.
Creative drama for multimodal literacy
By reviewing many courses based on creative drama, one thing stood out: most of them focus on conflict management, positive outcomes, relations of power, and especially conflict related to an imbalance of power. This is why we chose courses based on a similar topic: bullying and peer aggression. Drama techniques work very well with developing emotional intelligence. Moreover, these drama techniques were specifically created to raise awareness of the imbalance of power and offer opportunities to re-establish good relations.
Digital storytelling for multimodal literacy
Digital Storytelling can be a powerful educational tool for students of all ages and grade levels who are tasked with creating their own stories. This use of digital storytelling capitalizes on the creative talents of students as they begin to research and tell stories of their own, and learn to use the library and the internet to research-rich, deep content while analyzing and synthesizing a wide range of information and opinions. In addition, students who participate in the creation of digital stories develop enhanced communication skills by learning to organize their ideas, ask questions, express opinions, and construct narratives. Students who have the opportunity to share their work with their peers may also gain valuable experience in critiquing their own and other student’s work, which can promote gains in emotional intelligence, collaboration, and social learning.
The courses will focus on theoretical background and practical use of digital storytelling and building narratives as well as the opportunities for creating teaching and learning resources through photo stories and if-then adventure stories.
Those who participate in the creation of digital stories develop enhanced communication skills by learning to organize their ideas, ask questions, express opinions, and construct narratives. Participants who have the opportunity to share their work with their peers may also gain valuable experience in critiquing their own and other students’ work, which can promote gains in emotional intelligence, collaboration, and social learning.