Pedagogy as a situated, dynamic process of multimodal design

In this presentation I will discuss the meaning of multimodal design, a term drawn from multimodality and social semiotics, and how it can be applied to pedagogy using Interactive whiteboards in the classroom. Three central elements of multimodal pedagogic design will be introduced, multimodal content, the social relations of the classroom, and time organised as pace. The conditions for pedagogic design and the influence of curriculum practices and histories on the multimodal designs of pedagogy will be discussed. The questions for thinking about pedagogy will also be examined.

Teachers have always made texts for use in the classroom. The wide spread introduction of Interactive whiteboard (IWB) technology into UK classrooms, and the screen more generally, makes the multimodal resources of colour, image, dynamic movement, and sound newly available for pedagogic design in newly connectable ways. These facilities present teachers with new questions about how to design and use teaching materials, new possibilites and constraints. This presentation will examine teachers' design of digital multimodal resources for IWBs and the influence on these of prevalent policy discourses of interactivity, multimodality and fast pace influence.

Dr. Carey Jewitt is a Reader in Education and Technology and UK Research Councils Academic Fellow at the London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education. Her research is on multimodal representation and technology mediated learning, with a focus on theory and research methods. She co-edits the journal Visual Communication . She is currently editing the Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis (2008) and has written several books on visual and multimodal analysis, most recently Technology, Literacy and Learning: A Multimodality Approach (2006, Routledge).