It has become increasingly important for educators to examine successful ICT implementations with the aim of understanding precisely what makes them successful in teaching and learning. In this study, an analysis of data from qualitative case studies of four Canadian schools illuminates factors that facilitate successful ICT implementation. Findings suggest that informal ICT education, such as ‘just‐in‐time’ learning, is most influential. Furthermore, supportive and collaborative relationships among teachers, a commitment to pedagogically sound implementation of new technologies, and Principals who encourage teachers to engage in their own learning are viewed as highly useful factors.

Globalization and digitization have reshaped the communication landscape, affecting how and with whom we communicate, and deeply altering the terrain of language and literacy education. As children in urban contexts become socialized into communities of increasing cultural and communicational connectivity, complexity, and convergence (Jenkins, 2004), and funding for specialist second language (L2) support declines, classrooms have become linguistically heterogeneous spaces where every teacher is a teacher of L2 learners.This article has two purposes: The first is to give an overview of the concept of multimodal literacies, which utilize diverse media to represent visual, audio, gestural, spatial, and tactile dimensions of communication in addition to traditional written and oral forms (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009a). Since the New London Group's manifesto on multiliteracies in 1996, which merged language and literacy education agendas in L2 teaching, language arts, media literacy, and cultural studies, new basics have developed that apply to all classrooms and all learners. Second, this article reviews and reports on innovative pedagogical approaches to multimodal literacies involving L2 learners. These are grounded theoretically Multimodal literacies transcend the alphabetic world that is the focus of classroom literacy instruction. A generation ago, the world of literacy was based on paper. Now, literacy engages people in texts and discourses that traverse space and time on screens in which we can access and mix semiotic resources that include a multiplicity of languages. We do this instantaneously and ubiquitously, using new media in constant evolution.Multimodal communication is not new. Face-to-face communication is inherently multimodal, and even the pinnacle of modern literate achievement, the book, has used visual modes to accompany alphabetic print for centuries,

No abstract

No abstract

At Joyce Public School (JPS) in the Greater Toronto Area, we are engaged in ongoing collaborative action research to develop pedagogical approaches to emergent literacies that engage multilingual, multicultural, and multimodal perspectives in complex interplay. Our research is grounded in the challenges children experience in acquiring literacy across home, school, community, and societal contexts in a culturally and linguistically diverse urban setting, given limited curricular opportunities for involving multiple languages in literacy education. Our research involves collaboratively designed classroom-based narrative projects that productively entwine multilingualism, English language discovery, and digital technologies in elementary literacy instruction. This article provides first-person perspectives on and an analytical discussion of the emerging pedagogies of three primary-grade teachers involved in our collaborative multiliteracies research who successfully engage multilingualism in English language and literacy education.