Redesigning for mobile plurilingual futures

Abstract

The New London Group’s 1996 manifesto was a clarion call to educational researchers to fundamentally redesign language and literacy education for the needs of global learners communicating in evolving digital media environments. In this conceptual overview, the “how”, “what” and “why” of multiliteracies are critically re examined from the perspective of mobile digital language learning in posthumanist media ecologies, with attention drawn to paradigm shifts in language, technology, multimodality and context. We argue that Web 3.0 environments, AI and rapidly emerging algorithmic cultures have outpaced earlier critical theorizations of multiliteracies and digitally mediated learning practices as well as meaningful implementation of multiliteracies pedagogies in schools. We then reconsider the affordances and constraints of Web 3.0 tools for multilingual/plurilingual language learning, and sketch pathways for critical and productive engagements with mobile devices and multiliteracies pedagogies that reframe and advance the important critical work of the New London Group.

The use of digital tools in French as a Second Language teacher education in Ontario

“…There is currently significant pressure on teachers to quickly and effectively instantiate technologically mediated pedagogical approaches in their teaching, encourage and support students struggling with repeated COVID-19-related lockdowns, and continue to meet course objectives and provincial curriculum standards. Traditional second language pedagogies utilized to meet standards, however, may in turn undermine innovative applications of new tools by teachers and students alike (Lotherington et al, 2021).…”

“…The study of FSL teacher candidates' attitudes to and uses of digital tools in and out of the classroom formed a preliminary survey in a multistage research project, whose larger collaborative research agenda was to promote the design of agentive language learning pedagogies using the just-in-time and on-demand features of mobile toolkits enabled on smartphones. Production pedagogies promote interdisciplinary learner engagement through cultural creation in response to real-world needs, concerns, and student purposes (Lotherington et al, 2021;Thumert et al, 2018). In the field of language teaching, where theoretical and practical foot-dragging into the current century can be seen in the unwavering maintenance of four skills language teaching and testing, and in "no cell phone" policies as a means of constraining student attention and agency, mobile technologies that give the user options for multimodal and interactional composing are often treated as a hindrance to learning and as a thorn in the side of reified language learning ideologies or are considered optional add-ons to twentieth-century ideals of communication norms.…”

Can we put a Number on it? Design Education Under Capitalism, Science, and Technology

“…These behaviors are rendered into data, ready to take their place in a numberless queue that feeds the machines for fabrication into predictions and eventual exchange in the new behavioral futures markets (p. 110) Design inventions are increasingly becoming a mediation of behavioural data collectors. Insofar as user behaviour, attention, and user action are central to surveillance capitalism, user-centred design plays a more and more central role in mediating and modulating user experiences in digital contexts (Lotherington et al, 2022).…”

“…In both cases, design and creativity are shaped by market-driven forms of instrumental 'creativism' (Thumlert & Nolan, 2019) where, as Thomas Crow (1988) famously predicted, the arts have become the "research and development arm" of the culture industry and corporate interests (p. 35). What's more, the unregulated and rapid growth of tech giants and big data will not only introduce new conflicts but also exacerbate existing social issues, as well as new forms of algorithmically-mediated identity construction (Leander & Burriss, S., 2020;Lotherington, et al 2022) whereby algorithms reconstruct our identities by deciding what we see on our social media feeds. As design education continues to try and catch up with technological trends, these issues have affected design schools, whereby curricula and pedagogies cater to the market demands over other critical factors.…”

Teachers’ Perceptions of Integrating Technology in Rural Primary Schools to Enhance the Teaching of English First Additional Language

“…Ventouris et al (2021) assert that the integration of technology is centred on teachers' perceptions of technology's value as a tool in teaching English first additional language (EFAL). When using technology in classrooms, it is positioned as a tool that can improve the teaching, learning and assessment process in creative ways (Lotherington et al, 2021), which means that the use of technology can enhance teachers' practice and learners' learning. However, teachers' perceptions on how to integrate technology in teaching, specifically in the rural Intermediate Phase (grades 4 to 6), need to be explored in order to profit from its significant advantages in the teaching of EFAL.…”