Lesson 7 - Choosing Media

3.3. Text and Other Forms of Knowledge

I have focused particularly on the text and academic knowledge, because of the traditional importance of text and printed knowledge in academia. The unique pedagogical characteristics of text though maybe less for other forms of knowledge. Indeed, multimedia may have many more advantages in vocational and technical education.

In the k-12 or school sector, text and print are likely to remain important because reading and writing are likely to remain essential in a digital age, so the study of text (digital and printed) will remain important if only for developing literacy skills.

Indeed, one of the limitations of text is that it requires a high level of prior literacy skills for it to be used effectively for teaching and learning, and indeed much of teaching and learning is focused on the development of skills that enable a rigorous analysis of textual materials. Indeed reading ability is one of the core skills identified for the 21st century. Reading and writing literacy is somewhat under attack with the use of truncated language in text messages, automated spelling correction, and emotive symbols in social media. However, we should be giving as much attention to developing literacy skills in using and interpreting multimedia in a digital age.