So what's your point? (NLG - A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies)

I've been trying to digest the info in this article and was constantly relating it back to own personal experiences in the hope of being able to truly appreciate and understand the points that have been noted. After much thought, I decided to start off small by defining the term 'literate'/'literacy' and work my way through this article from there on.
literate -
1. Able to read and write
2. Having knowledge/skill in a specified field

literacy -
1. the quality or state of being literate
2. a person's knowledge of a particular subject/field

Based on these definitions alone, I was able to think about how it would relate to pedagogies and it became apparent to me that in this modern era, being able to communicate goes way beyond being able to converse, read and write words - we need to be able to decipher the "burgeoning variety of text forms associated with information and multimedia technologies". One simple example would be the navigation of a website, where many different types of 'text' exist within that one site and it requires from the 'reader' a particular skill to make meaning or understand the images/texts. It is obvious that the use of websites to find and display information has become a culture for many of us today, which was not the case a decade or so back, showing that "the proliferation of communication channels and media supports and extends cultural and subcultural diversity."

This evolution of technology and communication resulted from many different factors such as changing working, public and personal lives and vice versa. These factors also ultimately makes up an individual's multiple identities as they belong in different communities resulting in multiple discourses of identity and multiple discourses of recognition to be negotiatied. Hence, with all these differences, language is not understood by all in just one particular way, but has multiplicity of meanings.

Therefore, as educators, it is pertinent that we are aware of these diversities to design learning processes and environments that would best cater to these differences. In terms of multiliteracies, it requires us to design texts (using language to produce or consume text), based on the framework that includes Available Designs, Designing and The Redesigned, especially when communicating to our learners.

An example would be to take a simple written narrative from a book, which is an Available Design and then Designing it by adding moving images and texts as well as audio, and the product of this then becomes The Redesigned.

I personally feel multiliteracies pedagogy is crucial in today's teaching context, especially when children are exposed to and stimulated by rich 'texts' by the media on a daily basis. If I merely stick to the available designs, I might not be able to pique their interest and ultimately stimulate their minds. Even PowerPoint presentations in the classroom has already become a norm to most students and if I don't design or re-design the PowerPoint presentation such that it adds more meaning to their learning, then I might lose students interest in viewing PowerPoint presentations as a tool for teaching.

A teacher is like an architect - constantly creating unique blueprints to maximize a particular space (teaching tools) for its clients (students).