Thoughts on Multiliteracy #1

Multiliteracy. Hmmm.

I've been pondering this topic for three days, and unless I completely misunderstand the ideas of the New London Group, literacy (absorbing information through the artifacts, such as the printed page, used to convey it) is, due to the globalization of society made possible through rapid advances in technology, changing: we understand through becoming color-literate, sound-literate, place-literate, and more.

I think we've always been "multiliterate": even what we understand from what we read changes as we accumulate life experience. We synthesize what we encounter along the way and add it to the mix of input from whatever medium adds to the message. We consider the social setting. We factor in cultural elements. We link to similar past experiences. We consider age and gender and occupation and purpose and a hundred other things—and as long as we remain mentally active, we all gradually become more and more multiliterate. I understand far differently now, I think, than I did at 16 or 30 or even 50 because my input both increases and changes.

I think what the New London Group has done is to try to shake up our thinking and force us to realize that many elements combine in the information processing we call 'understanding.' I don't think this is really anything new, though I grant that the ingredients of the mix of stimuli may be. We're all multiliterate. We have to be unless we want to remain frozen in time and space.

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Sources:

"Putting Multiliteracies to the Test"
Part 1
Part 2
Part 4