the lens of travel professionals. Students
developed a Web site that featured
themed tours based on those standards.
The students incorporated their knowledge of ancient Greek culture. They
used persuasive-writing skills to make
the information engaging for potential
users and incorporated math knowledge
to calculate currency conversions. The
students honed their information
literacy skills as they gathered and evaluated information from other travel
locations, and they practiced their
visual-communications skills in
designing an attractive and useable
Web site.
Change Agent 4:
Multimodal Learning
Communication in today’s world is
complex, fast-paced, and conveyed
through sophisticated media. People are
bombarded with multimedia messages
that they need to be able to interpret to
gain a deeper understanding of the
information. For instance, the New York
Times online often includes interactive
graphics to help its readers understand
events. Recent graphics have illustrated
such phenomena as changes in carbon
emissions across the United States, the
retreat of sea ice in the Arctic from 2003
to 2006, the differences in the language
of presidential inaugural addresses from
Washington through Obama, the spread
of the swine flu, and the depth of past
recessions compared with today’s
economic picture.
Neuroscience research supports the
power of learning through a combination of text and visuals. The dual-channel modality of the human brain
suggests that the limited working
memory (where people do their
thinking) treats text/sound and visuals
differently. Emergent research suggests
that certain combinations of the two can
significantly increase levels of learning
(Mayer, 2003; Moreno & Mayer, 2007).
Students need to be prepared not
only to interpret and analyze such
media, but also to compose and
produce communication using such
media. Teachers should provide opportunities for students to produce graphics
and charts to convey their ideas.
One of the most powerful ways in
which schools are beginning to use
multimodal learning is in digital storytelling, a type of composition in which
the student tells a first-person narrative
in his or her own voice using sound,
oral language, music, and visuals. When
century classroom.
Despite the entertaining lectures of
such professors as Lewin, MIT was
struggling with relatively high failure
rates and low attendance in its lecture-style introduction to physics courses.
Ten to 15 percent of MIT students,
arguably one of the most select student
populations in the world, were failing
physics courses, and in many classes,
attendance had fallen to around 50
percent. MIT decided to move from
lectures to smaller high-tech classrooms
The easy access to online information
means that the kinds of prior knowledge
students bring to the classroom vary
now more than ever before.
engaging students in digital storytelling,
teachers need to ensure that students
not only are motivated and interested by
the use of media, but also meet literacy
standards.
The Center for Digital Storytelling
( www.storycenter.org) has links to many
resources and articles about this
medium. You can find examples of
digital stories posted by students and
teachers in Niles Township High School
District 219 in Skoki, Illinois, at
www.digitalstories.org.
Two Choices
In our list of Resources for Learning
Online (p. 57), we referred to the online
physics class of Walter Lewin, a physics
professor at MIT whose online lectures
have made him something of a Web
rock star. Although Lewin’s classes are
interesting and even entertaining, a
story that appeared recently in the New
York Times (Rimer, 2009) may serve as a
guidepost for thinking about the 21st
in which students work in teams on
real-world problems, collaborating with
teachers and students alike. Students are
involved in inquiry rather than note
taking: They are now conducting experiments and collaborating on knowledge
products—authentic learning in action.
As a result of these changes, attendance
soared, and the failure rate dropped to
below 5 percent.
This story suggests the changes
schools need to make to leverage the
opportunities offered by Web 2.0 technologies. Educators must
; Become familiar with new technologies and knowledge resources, even
those that at first blush do not seem at
all related to their teaching.
; Incorporate new knowledge
resources into the learning program of
each student. Leverage these rich online
tools to differentiate learning and
engage reticent learners.
; Promote self-directed learning for
all students.