Today I took part in making a multi-modal presentation. A text can be described as multi-modal when it combines two or more semiotic systems. There are five semiotic systems that can be involved in a multi-modal text these are; Linguistic, Visual, Audio, Gestural and Spatial. A linguistic text has aspects of vocabulary and grammar of oral and written language, A visual text has aspects such as colour, moving images and still images. An audio text features such as volume, pitch, music and sound effects, A gestural text comprises aspects of movement – speed, still and slow – with facial expression and body language. Spatial is seen in texts with the direction and position of images/writing on the screen and the organisation of objects within a text (Anstey and Bull, 2010). Anstey and Bull ( 2010) give examples of multi-modal texts being a picture book, webpage and live ballet performance. They can also be things like power points, flip charts (ACTIV-Inspire), word documents but also use through a range of different resources. Multi-modal texts can encourage hands-on learning it can encourage children to become interactive with Smart boards that are in some classrooms within school.
Beauchamp (2012, p8) states that “the multi-modality of technology is an other reason to use it, as it allows teachers to present an idea in a variety of ways to help pupils understand it” I felt that this quote that was in the lecturers power point was accurate because teachers need to test ways in which the children in their class learn. Teachers need to make sure that the apps and programmes that they use are not distracting to some children in the class . Teachers can use power points and other programmes as back-up to what they are teaching. “We must challenge the implicit assumption that speech and writing are always central and sufficient for learning” (Beauchamp 2012, p8) Teachers are at the centre of children’s learning and have to have ideas in which they can put across the main message of a lesson or book that children are reading not necessarily with plain words on a page but include images, movement and sound.
In today’s workshop our aim was to create a flip chart lesson with the use of the app ACTIV-Inspire on the mac computer. ACTIV-Inspire can be used to empower teachers to bring their lessons to life and as a student teacher I had an opportunity to bring a lesson to life. In my pair we both decided to make a flip-chart with aquatic animals. With our flip-chart that we created children were able to describe the colour of each aquatic animal and have the opportunity to answer what the animal is named in English and then learn the animals name in Spanish. We aimed the activity at level 2 children who had prior learning of describing words in Spanish. The modern languages outcome from the Curriculum for Excellence (Education Scotland 2004) that my partner and I chose was “I experiment with new language, working out the meaning of words and phrases using vocabulary I have learned so far” [MLAN 2-11c]. With our multi-modal text we had a range of visuals to help the children guess the topic that we were learning about, It also had a sound effect of Under the Sea from the little mermaid to get the children’s mind’s thinking about what we could be learning about. It had written word in both English and Spanish of the animals names and also the colours. At the end of the lesson we had in mind two interactive games where the children were to match the animals to their Spanish name and also to learn their Spanish colours. Although we could not complete it as we had to start again due to a setting of a reveal blind attached to all slides on the flip chart.
In my opinion I think that ACTIV-Inspire is a a good resource for teachers and student teachers to use to create a lesson for children to learn. Although I found it difficult to get my head around I think if I had more experience using the programme and watch step by step tutorials more than once that I would get the hang of it. When my partner and I created our flip chart we wanted to put a reveal blind on one of our slides and it ended up going on to all of them and after numerous attempts we could not take it off. We then had to make another one because the reveal blind would not turn off so we were unable to finish it. It allows children to become interactive in their learning environment and encourages communication of lessons in a different way. It adds variety and choice to lesson plans. Multi-modal texts can be used alongside the Curriculum for Excellence in a range of ways.
Multi-modal texts in my opinion can help student teachers and teachers in a variety of ways because it can allow them to see what children are benefiting from seeing the text in a different perspective. It changes learning from being teacher led to child led as the children can get involved in the activities that the teachers have set throughout programmes on a computer/IPad. Multi-modal texts can add a variety of different techniques into learning for example; if the children are reading a book in the classroom teachers can make the book into their own and add in parts of the book so that children can use adjectives to describe specific scenes in the book.
References
Anstey, M. and Bull, G. (June 2010) Curriculum & Leadership Journal – An electronic journal for leaders in education – Helping Teachers to explore multi-modal texts. [Online] http://www.curriculum.edu.au/leader/helping_teachers_to_explore_multimodal_texts,31522.html?issueID=12141 [Accessed 23 January 2018 ]
Beauchamp, G. (2012) ICT in the Primary School: From Pedagogy to Practice. Pearson.
Education Scotland (2004) – Curriculum for Excellence; Experiences and Outcomes [Online] https://education.gov.scot/scottish-education-system/policy-for-scottish-education/policy-drivers/cfe-(building-from-the-statement-appendix-incl-btc1-5)/Experiences%20and%20outcomes [Accessed on 23 January 2018]
