Meaning Making Using New Media: Learning by Design case studies

ABSTRACT This article discusses a study of three Australian middle-years teachers who deployed Learning by Design principles and practice to support multiliteracies learning through students’ production of digital/multimodal texts. The aim of the research was to develop an understanding of how three teachers embraced new e-learning pedagogical designs for teaching and learning about multiliteracies, and to what extent Learning by Design facilitated both the teachers ’ and students’ learning. This qualitative research involved the collection and analysis of the three teachers’ curriculum-planning artefacts before and after professional development on Learning by Design, interviews, audio and video recordings, classroom observations and student digital/multimodal products. This article examines Learning by Design as an e-learning pedagogical framework and the dimensions of professional practice that contribute to quality student production of digital/multimedia texts. The study demonstrates the existence of five conditions that are necessary for the Learning by Design pedagogical framework to be effective as a heuristic to enhance digital/multimodal literacy outcomes