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Immersive virtual reality (VR) is anticipated to peak in development this decade bringing new opportunities for 3D multimodal designing across all levels of education. The need for students to gain capabilities with multimodal texts--texts that combine two or more modes, such as spoken, written, and visual--is emphasised at all levels of education from P-12 in the Australian Curriculum. Likewise, the use of technology-supported pedagogies is increasing worldwide, rendering multimodal texts ubiquitous across all knowledge domains. This original, qualitative classroom research investigated students' 3D designing of multimodal texts using an immersive VR head-mounted display. Upper primary students (ages 10-12 years, n = 48) transferred their knowledge of ancient Rome through 2D drawing, writing, speaking, and 3D multimodal designing with VR. The application of multimodal analysis to video data, screen recordings, and think-aloud protocols, and the thematic coding of student and teacher interviews yielded four key findings: (i) VR gaming supported 3D multimodal designing through haptic and embodied experience, (ii) VR improved performance through creative redesigning, (iii) VR-supported knowledge application, consolidation, and transfer, and (iv) pedagogical strengths of VR were situated and transformed practice. This research is timely and significant given the increasing accessibility and affordability of VR and the need to connect research and pedagogical practice to support students' advanced knowledge and capabilities with multimodal learning across the curriculum.

While males have predominantly held leadership positions in national-level parliaments, the rising visibility of females as heads of government, despite their underrepresentation, is a significant trend. This study investigated the political resignation speeches of four female leaders in national parliaments: Australia, England, New Zealand, and Scotland. Examining their speeches revealed a strategic utilization of self-praise to construct their identity as effective leaders. A comparative analysis of these speeches highlighted distinct self-praise strategies employed. These speakers interacted with varied levels of familiarity with their audience influencing their self-praise strategies. Addressing familiar individuals prompted the use of diverse strategies, notably emphasizing direct self-praise with modifications. In contrast, when addressing less familiar recipients, leaders tended to lean more towards straightforward strategies. Across these speeches, a multimodal discourse analysis uncovered the diverse communication modes utilized by leaders including variations in bodily movements, hand gestures, and eye contact. These modes of communication reflected the perceived social distance between the speakers and their audience.

It has been widely recognised that plurilingual pedagogy offers many benefits both for language learning and learning in general. However, in contexts where the linguistic profile of students is diverse, it can still be challenging for teachers to view working with the language resources of their students as feasible. In this article, we discuss how engaging students in digital multimodal composing (DMC) can support teachers' uptake of plurilingual pedagogy. We draw on data collected from a design-based qualitative study that investigated the implementation of plurilingual pedagogy in primary classrooms in Australia. In this study, teachers engaged in professional learning on plurilingual strategies alongside digital multimodal composing. The study identified a number of affordances of digital multimodal composing that were particularly beneficial for inclusion of students' varying knowledge of language. They included (1) an aural mode of meaning-making, (2) a playful composing process and (3) a flexible interplay of languages and modes in digital texts. The article concludes by discussing approaches to the use of digital multimodal composing for plurilingual strategies in linguistically diverse settings.

Australian schooling is characterised by high levels of choice and competition, and education policymaking promotes the dissemination of information to assist families to choose a school. The aim of this study is to examine whether current information sharing is adequate for informing school choice for young people seeking vocational education and training (VET) opportunities. We examined secondary school websites in Western Australia, a state that is experiencing severe skills shortages, to ascertain the nature and extent to which information about VET in secondary schools is publicly available. Our findings showed that information about VET programs is largely invisible on school websites, as well as on the state jurisdiction's website (Department of Education WA, n.d.).

This pilot study explores and documents online students' and their lecturer's debut experiences of utilising VoiceThread (VT), a digital multimodal platform, as an alternative discussion space via Open Universities Australia (OUA). Feedback from the lecturer's teaching log and interview was corroborated with his OUA students' survey responses, and analysed in relation to student online learning experiences with VT and Discussion Board, as well as technological and affective aspects of both platforms. Findings indicate that VT has a stronger potential in boosting stakeholders' online engagement and enjoyment of distance learning, thus fostering online community building. Specifically, VT creates not only a multimodal and dynamic platform in lieu of Discussion Board, but a supportive online learning environment that promotes more inclusive and ongoing interactions. Despite the positive results, VT was viewed by some students as technologically demanding, causing them to only read peer posts without responding. It is suggested that orientation training sessions and trial threads be made available to ease the students into VT. Aspects of tutorial group size and instructor support should also be considered for future online course delivery.

While digital multimodal composing, underpinned by a critical literacies approach, provides opportunities for students to make informed semiotic choices and voice concerns about social issues, there is limited research exploring how digital multimodal composing is employed to interrogate and challenge the entanglements of language, immigration status and power. This article explores how 23 primary-aged English as an Additional Language (EAL) students (Years 3-6) engaged in digital multimodal composing, in the context of an after-school multiliteracies programme in one Australian school. Conceptualising critical literacies as a bridge to access and transform codes of power, the article explores how the participating students selected and used different semiotic resources for their digital texts while challenging and redefining dominant discourses based on their lived experiences and interests. The study found that both students and pre-service teachers found value in students having access to digital technologies and experimenting with a range of multimodal and multilingual resources to create digital texts, which reflected cultural and linguistic identities. The findings illustrate how the creation of digital multimodal and multilingual texts allows for opportunities for students to reposition themselves as knowledgeable and active meaning-makers with strategic support from teachers and peers.

There is currently a lack of systematic study examining the integration of verbal-visual elements in science textbooks. In particular, few research has investigated how different types of visual representations (e.g. photograph, diagram, table) vary across the major written genres of science (e.g. information report, explanation). Based on the perspective of social semiotics, this paper aims to understand the co-dependency between visual representations and written genres by analysing a corpus of multimodal texts from a major Australian textbook series. Quantitative and qualitative analyses reveal a number of interesting patterns in terms of how several types of representations tend to appear with certain genres, as well as possible reasons for this co-dependency. In particular, the analysis accounts for why and how: (a) photographs and tables are used to support information report, (b) diagrams and photographs for explanation, and (c) diagrams and tables for experimental account. This study provides empirical evidence to support the importance of analysing multimodal genre for science teaching and learning as well as science education research.

This research investigates a cohort of bilingual Chinese teachers' use of a multimodal approach in their Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) teaching. The data include the participants' CFL teaching practices and their reflections on multimodal teaching as recorded in their theses and a focus group discussion. The theoretical underpinning of this paper is based on Paivio's dual coding theory (DCT) and Kress's social-semiotic theory (SST). This research found that the teachers' multimodal use in CFL teaching demonstrated their research-informed committed endeavour in designing content specific activities to achieve pedagogical purposes, utilizing some digital technologies as a resource. The uniqueness of the written form of the Chinese language availed these teachers the opportunity to engage the multiple modes and advance their own understanding of multimodality as a concept. This research also found the teachers' meaning making through the multimodality did not always equate to that of their students' due to their social and cultural differences.

At a time when "difference" is being actively diluted in the service of standardisation and conservative views of nationhood, stories about difference, and their semiotic and multimodal elements, provide rich grounds for critical engagement. This is especially the case with stories about highly visible cultural symbols, such as the hijab, worn in many school classrooms in countries like Australia. In this paper, we explore the use of critical analysis of multimodal elements as matters with which to think about cultural difference, through the picture book, "The Proudest Blue" - a story of Hijab and family" by Ibtihaj Muhammad with art by Hatem Aly, 2020. This story presents to young people the notion of being strong in cultural difference via the symbol of the hijab. Our analysis draws on Cappello et al.'s 2019) Critical Multimodal Literacy approach to explore four dimensions: communicating with multimodal tools; re-storying, representing and redesigning; acknowledging and shifting power relationships and leveraging multimodal resources to critique and transform socio-political realities. We identify the range of multimodal tools the author and illustrator put to use to re-story and critique common misconceptions about the wearing of the hijab as a religious symbol. Making links between multimodal composition and critical analysis is a powerful way to affirm the significance of children's literature that addresses difference, a term often conflated with diversity which references dominant norms. It can also inspire children to story their own matters in ways that critique notions of cultural homogeneity.

Immersive virtual reality (VR) technology is becoming widespread in education, yet research of VR technologies for students' multimodal communication is an emerging area of research in writing and literacies scholarship. Likewise, the significance of new ways of embodied meaning making in VR environments is undertheorized--a gap that requires attention given the potential for broadened use of the sensorium in multimodal language and literacy learning. This classroom research investigated multimodal composition using the virtual paint program Google Tilt Brush™ with 47 elementary school students (ages 10-11 years) using a head-mounted display and motion sensors. Multimodal analysis of video, screen capture, and think-aloud data attended to sensory-motor affordances and constraints for embodiment. Modal constraints were the immateriality of the virtual text, virtual disembodiment, and somatosensory mismatch between the virtual and physical worlds. Potentials for new forms of embodied multimodal representation in VR involved extensive bodily, haptic, and locomotive movement. The findings are significant given that research of embodied cognition points to sensorimotor action as the basis for language and communication.

This paper argues that meaning-making with multimodal representations in science learning is always contextualized within a genre and, conversely, what constitutes an ongoing genre also depends on a multimodal coordination of speech, gesture, diagrams, symbols, and material objects. In social semiotics, a genre is a culturally evolved way of doing things with language (including non-verbal representations). Genre provides a useful lens to understand how a community's cultural norms and practices shape the use of language in various human activities. Despite this understanding, researchers have seldom considered the role of scientific genres (e.g., experimental account, information report, explanation) to understand how students in science classrooms make meanings as they use and construct multimodal representations. This study is based on an enactment of a drawing-to-learn approach in a primary school classroom in Australia, with data generated from classroom videos and students' artifacts. Using multimodal discourse analysis informed by social semiotics, we analyze how the semantic variations in students' representations correspond to the recurring genres they were enacting. We found a general pattern in the use and creation of representations across different scientific genres that support the theory of a mutual contextualization between genre and representation construction.

Establishment of online communities in distance education has been linked to improved engagement, retention, and learning outcomes. This study investigates how online community building was fostered in the text-based Discussion Board (DB) and multimodal VoiceThread (VT) in one of the postgraduate units offered by Open Universities Australia. Specifically, it delves into how social presence -- encompassing affective, cohesive, and interactive indicators in the Community of Inquiry (CoI) -- was facilitated on both platforms. Findings show that VT multimodal postings triggered more instances of social presence than DB postings across all three indicators. VT communication also bolstered a continuous and inclusive discourse by bringing participants closer by addressing members' names and mentioning posts made by others. It is concluded that multimodality afforded by VT can be more advantageous for online collaboration and engagement. Suggestions for course design to establish stronger social presence and for evaluation of multimodal platforms are also offered.

Language learners often require appropriate scaffolding to engage in digital multimodal composing to maximise its potential for learning. This illuminates the need for pre-service teachers to be ready for these experiences both on teaching placements and at the beginning of their careers. However, little is known about their readiness for digital multimodal composing in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms. Drawing on a case study of an after-school program for primary school English as an Additional Language (EAL) students, facilitated by four pre-service teachers, this article explores their perspectives on engaging EAL students in digital multimodal composing. The study found that pre-service teachers recognised that digital multimodal composing is valuable for language learners; however, they struggled to name more specific literacy benefits afforded by digital multimodal composing. For all participants in this study, students' engagement with digital interfaces stood out as the main challenge but they had limited concerns about other aspects of digital multimodal composing. While they effectively scaffolded students' learning in relation to the challenges that they recognised using more general pedagogical approaches, other dimensions of digital multimodal composing were often left unattended. The article concludes with a number of implications for preparation of teachers working with language learners.

Television, like other media, can work as a platform for promoting learning. This article illustrates the value of multimodal discourse analysis for evaluating the potential of a children's television show as a vehicle for fostering knowledge and skills in a specific subject area. Drawing on social semiotic principles and systemic functional genre theory, we examine the use of language and other modes in "Teacup Travels" -- a show designed to introduce young viewers to historical artefacts. The analysis demonstrates that both story structure and particular semiotic resources contribute to how these objects are represented, and thus shape the TV programme's potential to engage children in learning about the past. Our findings suggest that multimodal storytelling strategies used in "Teacup Travels" encourage some aspects of children's historical consciousness and thinking, while backgrounding others.

Reporting on a qualitative study, informed by Australian Government Indigenous education and literacy policies, this article unveils early career teacher reflections about infusing Aboriginal perspectives in the English curriculum using multimodal texts. Forging a praxis between the Aboriginal practice of yarning (Bessarab & Ng'andu, 2010) and Freire's (1974, 1996) frameworks for conscientisation and teachers as facilitators, the project overlays the work of Ladson-Billings (1995) and Foster, Halliday, Baize &Chisholm (2020), to unravel how culturally responsive pedagogy manifests in early career primary school teaching. We discuss teacher starting points and challenges to be culturally responsive educators, who use appropriate Aboriginal texts in classrooms. Results suggest that yarning is useful for meeting English curriculum outcomes and for collaboratively developing decolonising knowledge, which can impact multiple stakeholders. Recommendations for future research include co-designed projects to support teacher education through multimodal texts and yarning practices with Aboriginal Elders.

Multimodal discourse analysis (MMDA) has been instrumental in the evolution of English curriculum and pedagogy. However, it is unusual for educators to direct the tools of multimodal inquiry to their own text productions. In the context of prioritising accessibility within the new Queensland Certificate of Education in Queensland, which has increased standardisation requirements and placed pressure on schools to prepare students for high-stakes assessments in Year 12, three English Heads of Department (HoDs) and two academics worked together to analyse samples of their Year 10 summative task designs. The aim was to 'make the familiar strange'. When they analysed the design of assessment task sheets, HoDs were able to identify barriers for students negotiating the reading pathway. Results demonstrate that task sheets have multiple demands within their composition that provide cues for how teachers and school leaders can design tasks that prioritise the interests of the learner.

This study examines whether the Internet of Toys (IoToys) (de)limits children's make-believe play and whether the functionality and manipulatives offered by the IoToys serve as motivational pleasure (tactile, virtual and visual) for children to engage in make-believe play. Combining Piagetian and Vygotskian ideas of play as a unity of cognition and social context, we consider IoToys as a motivational conduit for children's symbolic actions that leads to make-believe play. Qualitative methodology was employed using observations of young children at home when interacting with IoToys (total n = 10 families) from England (n = 5 families) and Australia (n = 5 families). Data showed that children's interaction does not limit the development of their make-believe play as they engage in imitation schemata and create imaginative situations within and beyond the intended pre-programmed functions of the IoToy. To conclude, it is argued that instead of differentiating virtual and physical play, we should (re)think play with multimodal playscape lenses.

This article reports on an exploratory mixed-methods study that investigated how the creation of multimodal digital texts, using tablets, and open-ended creative apps contributed to the literacy learning of five-year-old children in two schools in low socioeconomic areas in Western Australia. Participating teachers learned about seven exemplar learning activities designed to engage children in multimodal text creation using tablets, primarily to improve literacy. Teachers used exemplars to guide their literacy planning and practice over three school terms. Pre- and post-test scores suggest that aspects of participating children's reading had improved. Teachers also reported some improvements in children's oral language and writing, as well as reading.

Higher education institutions increasingly expect students to work effectively and critically with multiple modes, semiotic resources and digital tools. However, assessment practices are often insufficient to capture how multimodal artefacts represent disciplinary knowledge in complex ways. This study explores and theorises the design and assessment of students' digitally mediated multimodal work, and it offers insight into how to effectively communicate expectations and evaluate student learning in a digital age. We propose a framework for multimodal assessment that takes account of criticality, creativity, the holistic nature of these assignments and the importance of valuing multimodality.

While literacy research in the area of multimodality includes a range of communication modes, the combination of the visual and verbal modes is arguably the most common multimodal text form used in classroom contexts from posters, charts and information texts to picture books and graphic novels. Assessment of students' understanding of visual and verbal modes as well as their combined meanings is a growing area of literacy research. Using data drawn from a larger case study, this article focusses on 11 middle years students (Grade 6) as they read then discussed a range of features from the award-winning picture book "The Watertower" by Gary Crew and Steve Woolman. This picture book includes visual and verbal intersections, where the meanings of each mode may be equivalent to each other, augment each other or at times apparently offer divergent or contradictory meanings. With a focus on assessing students' multimodal knowledge, comprehension and visual metalanguage, the study utilized assessment strategies which included discussion, questioning and a visual text making activity. The findings are discussed in terms of the suggested guidance for planning effective multimodal assessment strategies in the classroom.

This paper arises from research undertaken by educational semioticians and science educators investigating the use of student generated digital artefacts as assessment tasks in pre-service science teacher education. Part of a broader shift toward student-generated media in tertiary science, the use of such tasks is driven by the need to deepen pre-service primary teachers' understandings of content and to foster enthusiasm for teaching science. However, the tasks are challenging as students must demonstrate both content and meta-semiotic knowledge in these brief digital standalone presentations. In the paper, we draw on artefacts, interviews and assessment practices to demonstrate these challenges. We identify what have emerged as key semiotic understandings necessary to complete a successful response to the task, arguing that these include multimodal understandings as well as knowledge of disciplinary specific representational practices. We describe an intervention informed by functional social semiotics and scaffolded literacy approaches with key features including use of an exemplar text for deconstruction and an explicit instructional sequence with a tailored assessment rubric. The paper reports both theoretical and practical insights and seeks to contribute to emerging analytical frameworks as well as multimodal literacy assessment.

While recent literacy research shows an increasing uptake in multimodal literacies, there remains a disjunction between multimodal literacy teaching and assessment. This paper offers a critical review of assessment in the context of teaching multimodal literacies and begins by reviewing the notion of literacy and reframing assessment in educational contexts. In our review, assessing multimodal literacies is often located in studies of multimedia compositions as extensions of writing. Assessing multimodal literacies tends to take the form of rubrics and teachers' lack of knowledge in this domain of professional practice leads them to assessment criteria for writing as their point of reference. Research in higher education shows an emerging interest in engaging students in establishing criteria for assessing multimodal literacies. Elsewhere in English as an additional language/dialect and second language education, an embrace of multimodal tasks offers non-linguistic modes that can influence, engage and in some cases enhance students' multimodal communicative competence. Yet, researchers suggest multimodal literacies tasks are generally less valued for assessing literacies in these contexts. This article highlights the opportunities and challenges of assessing multimodal literacies and extends the ongoing debates for further research in closing the gap between teaching and assessing multimodal literacies.

This paper presents the findings from a case study which explores how students engage with learning materials mediated through 360-degree panoramic videos. The case study extends findings from a project which developed an online platform for viewing and annotating 360-degree videos, and for providing data analytics (heatmaps, viewpoint tracking and area of interest displays) to map student engagement with video content. In this case, information obtained from the data analytics forms the basis for the analysis which, taking a social semiotic perspective, explores (a) what multimodal resources in the video-recorded classroom activity function to attract and hold students' attention, and (b) what multimodal resources students employ when interacting with the 360-degree videos and for which purpose, taking the context into account. The findings indicate that for students to engage meaningfully with educational content requires familiarity with the demands of 360 video technology, which for some users can prove distracting, or even disabling.

Several studies have been undertaken to develop instruments to measure English teachers' TPACK, but few studies have measured English teachers' TPACK to develop meaningful relationships among technology, content, and pedagogy in the context whereby literacy should be associated with a range of semiotic modes beyond the written language. The interactions with a wider range of texts across modes, media and contexts point to the need for an instrument that can measure English teachers' TPACK in the context of teaching multimodal literacies. In this study, we investigated what factors and items were necessary for examining pre-service teachers' TPACK in multimodal literacy teaching. The proposed TPACK instrument was validated with 220 pre-service teachers across three institutions in Indonesia, China, and Australia. The study shows that the proposed eight-factor instrument generally expressed acceptable validity and reliability and was appropriate for assessing pre-service teachers' TPACK for multimodal literacies. Implications and further research are discussed with the aim of equipping pre-service teachers with the capabilities to integrate content, pedagogy, technology and understand the complex interdependence of contextually bound factors that influence their classroom readiness in teaching multimodal literacies.

Visual arts and other modes and media of communication are vital to Indigenous People, yet multimodal forms of representation, such as those prioritised in the arts, are often poorly understood and excluded from Indigenous education. This article describes cross-cultural, participatory community research enacted with an Indigenous school in Australia. Indigenous elementary students were taught by Indigenous community leaders to engage in visual arts through paintings and other forms of artistic representation (e.g. dances, rap video). These artistic expressions were coherent with Indigenous ways of learning and communicating. The multidimensionality of Indigenous students' paintings was analysed, and the significance explained in relation to the language of transgenerational Indigenous Lore. The results demonstrate how Indigenous visual arts enabled powerful representations of transgenerational knowledge and understandings. The findings also provide generative illustrations of a culturally informed and responsive multimodal literacy pedagogy, highlighting the need to respect the multimodal dimensions of representation that have cultural meanings for Indigenous identity and education practices. The article challenges Western, privileged forms of literacy, while highlighting the need to respect visual arts as language in the English curriculum for equitable and culturally responsive education for Indigenous students.

Literate practice in the arts encompasses both aesthetics and creativity. It is also multimodal in nature and often collaborative. This article presents data collected from a small multi-age school, with children from Prep to Year 7, during their preparation for an end-of-year show. The children had studied the topics of conservation and sustainability through the work of author Graeme Base and in particular his children's book "The Sign of the Seahorse" (1992). Using a mentoring and collaborative approach the children worked together to present the story through drama, dance and song. This research highlights the importance of expressing knowledge and meaning through multiple modes--not just using language. It demonstrates that creative and collaborative expression can be a powerful tool for learning and understanding story.

Background: The health and economic burden of antimicrobial resistance (in Australia is significant. Interventions that help guide and improve appropriate prescribing for acute respiratory tract infections in the community represent an opportunity to slow the spread of resistant bacteria. Clinicians who work in primary care are potentially the most influential health care professionals to address the problem of antimicrobial resistance, because this is where most antibiotics are prescribed. Methods: A cluster randomised trial was conducted comparing two parallel groups of 27 urban general practices in Queensland, Australia: 13 intervention and 14 control practices, with 56 and 54 general practitioners (GPs), respectively. This study evaluated an integrated, multifaceted evidence-based package of interventions implemented over a 6-month period. The evaluation included quantitative and qualitative components, and an economic analysis. Results: A multimodal package of interventions resulted in a reduction of 3.81 prescriptions per GP per month. This equates to 1280.16 prescriptions for the 56 GPs in the intervention practices over the 6-month period. The cost per prescription avoided was A$148. The qualitative feedback showed that the interventions were well received by the GPs and did not impact on consultation time. Providing GPs with a choice of tools might enhance their uptake and support for antimicrobial stewardship in the community. Conclusions: A multimodal package of interventions to enhance rational prescribing of antibiotics is effective, feasible and acceptable in general practice. Investment in antimicrobial stewardship strategies in primary care may ultimately provide the important returns for public health into the future. Clinicians who work in primary care are potentially the most influential health care professionals to address the problem of antimicrobial resistance, because this is where most antibiotics are prescribed. We demonstrated that the implementation of a multimodal package of interventions for acute respiratory tract infections in general practice resulted in a reduction of prescriptions and were well received. Providing GPs with a choice of tools might enhance their uptake and support for antimicrobial stewardship in the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Curriculum guidelines, including the emergent Australian curriculum (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA], 2009-10), indicate expectations that teachers will support their students' interpretation and creation of multimodal texts. However, English curriculum guidelines are yet to advise on a detailed metalanguage to support teacher and student discussion of the meaning-making dimensions of multimodal texts. Theoretical work on the development of multimodal metalanguage is in its early stages, lacking ready application for use in diverse classroom contexts. This article reports on research into applications of a framework designed to help teachers add depth and breadth to teaching and learning about multimodal meanings through development of a metalanguage (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000). While application of this framework in middle-years classrooms was initially found to be problematic, working in collaboration with teachers this framework was adapted and enriched for classroom use. This resulted in a refined framework which can be used in classrooms for stimulating metalanguage to describe multimodal texts. (Contains 6 tables and 5 footnotes.)

The data reported in this paper are part of a larger case study with children from 2 to 12 years of age, that took place over 4 years. The data reported here pertains to children in the age range 4-8 years of age in Australia. The children were from low socio-economic schools in one Australian state. The study was concerned with providing empirical evidence about learning ecologies in which teachers designed multimodal experiences to support young children to become literate in the 21st century. Using a participant observation methodology, both the pedagogical strategies and learning experiences of young children were documented in the form of narratives of early childhood practices. The aim was to consider the potential for "new learning" [Kalantzis, M., & Cope, W. W. (2012). "New learning: elements of a science of education" (2nd ed.). Melbourne: Cambridge University Press] with new technologies, and to support teachers to use tablets to transform their pedagogies and practices in the early years. The approach taken was to use the theoretical constructs of "new learning" and a "pedagogy of multiliteracies" [New London Group (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies. "Harvard Educational Review," 60, 66-92] as the focus for designing the new learning ecologies. In this way, we moved away from an emphasis on digital childhoods to create contexts for multimodal learning in the 21st-century childhoods. In doing this, the documented learning stories have multimodality as a uniting element, and digital technologies are viewed as being complimentary to other resources, rather than alternatives, or in competition with, traditional modalities. The paper illustrates the ways in which these multimodal learning ecologies can work to support emergent literacy which is viewed as a foundational skill needed by all children in order to thrive in their learning.

Purpose: This study aims to seek to demonstrate how explicit teaching of SFL metalinguistic and multimodal "grammars" enhanced 8-9-year-old children's deeper understanding and production of multimodal texts through critique of the construction of mini-documentaries about animals: the information, language of narration, composition of scenes and resources to engage the viewer. It also seeks to demonstrate how a knowledge of metalinguistic and multimodal "grammars" contributes to students achieving both content knowledge and understanding of the resources of semiotic modes. Design/methodology/approach: A design-based approach was used with the teacher and author working closely together to implement a unit of work on mini-documentaries, including explicit teaching of the metalanguage of information reports, mini-documentary narration (aka script) and multimodal resources deployed to scaffold students' creating their own mini-documentaries. Findings: The students' mini-documentaries demonstrate how knowledge of SFL written and multimodal SFL-informed "grammars" assisted students to learn how meaning was created through selection of resources from the written, visual, sound and gestural modes and apply this knowledge to creating multimodal texts demonstrating their understandings of the topic and how to make meaning in a multimodal mini-documentary. Research limitations/implications: The research is limited to the outcomes from one group of students in one class. Generalisation to other contexts is not possible. Further studies are required to support the results from this research. Practical implications: The linguistic and multimodal SFL-informed grammars can be applied by educators to critique multimodal texts in a range of mediums and scaffold students' production of multimodal texts. They can also inform assessment criteria and expand students' conception of what is literate practice. Originality/value: Knowledge of a linguistic and multimodal metalanguage can provide students with the tools to enhance their critical language awareness and critical multimodal awareness.

Supported by ever-evolving digital tools and online spaces, we argue that multiliteracies can be used to close the gap between teacher-directed, individual, and assessment-driven learning, and authentic, shared, and purpose-driven learning. This is particularly evident through multimodal composition and collaboration in primary classrooms. Over two decades ago, the New London Group argued that all meaning-making is multimodal. By representing their knowledge through multiple modes and for local and global audiences, students can express their identity, exercise agency, and foster a sense of authoring through multimodal production.

Introduction: Altered neuromuscular control of the scapula and humeral head is a typical feature of multidirectional instability (MDI) of the glenohumeral joint, suggesting a central component to this condition. A previous randomised controlled trial showed MDI patients participating in the Watson Instability Program 1 (WIP1) had significantly improved clinical outcomes compared with a general shoulder strength programme. The aim of this paper is to outline a multimodal MRI protocol to identify potential ameliorative effects of the WIP1 on the brain., Methods and Analysis: Thirty female participants aged 18-35 years with right-sided atraumatic MDI and 30 matched controls will be recruited. MDI patients will participate in 24 weeks of the WIP1, involving prescription and progression of a home exercise programme. Multimodal MRI scans will be collected from both groups at baseline and in MDI patients at follow-up. Potential brain changes (primary outcome 1) in MDI patients will be probed using region-of-interest (ROI) and whole-brain approaches. ROIs will depict areas of functional alteration in MDI patients during executed and imagined shoulder movements (MDI vs controls at baseline), then examining the effects of the 24-week WIP1 intervention (baseline vs follow-up in MDI patients only). Whole-brain analyses will examine baseline versus follow-up voxel-wise measures in MDI patients only. Outcome measures used to assess WIP1 efficacy will include the Western Ontario Shoulder Index and the Melbourne Instability Shoulder Score (primary outcomes 2 and 3). Secondary outcomes will include the Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia, Short Form Orebro, Global Rating of Change Score, muscle strength, scapular upward rotation, programme compliance and adverse events., Discussion: This trial will establish if the WIP1 is associated with brain changes in MDI., Ethics and Dissemination: Participant confidentiality will be maintained with publication of results. Swinburne Human Research Ethics Committee (Ref: 20202806-5692)., Trial Registration Number: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trial Registry (ACTRN12621001207808)., Competing Interests: Competing interests: The Melbourne Shoulder Group provided funding for this study, where LW and SB are directors and where RL, SAW, SL and BK provide physiotherapy services. Swinburne University provided funding for this study, where CG, AT, OC and MH are employed. Melbourne Orthopaedic Group provided funds for this study where GH and SB practise orthopaedic surgery. Shoulder and Elbow Physiotherapists Australasia provided funding for this study, where SB is the president (unpaid) and a member and where TP, RL, SAW and LW are members. LW, SB, RL, TP and SAW were involved in the development of the rehabilitation programme that was tested in this study., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

This paper investigates the use of multimodal representations to assess biological understanding in the final senior secondary school public examination in New South Wales, Australia. The investigation emanates from a larger Australian study concerned with the impact of disciplinary and technological innovations on science pedagogy, particularly in molecular genetics where much knowledge is represented in modalities other than, or in conjunction with, language and traditional print-based texts and visuals. The availability of digital technologies and their affordances for the learning and teaching of senior high school Biology now makes it realistic for examiners to include multimodal representations in assessment tasks. A qualitative analysis of final-year Biology examination papers from 2001 to 2013 identified and classified the multimodal representations included in this written external examination. Findings indicate that despite the ready availability of multimodal, multimedia representations in classroom learning and curriculum materials, and evidence of students' engagement with ICT, the high-stakes examinations make little use of such resources. A consequence of this mismatch between curriculum outcomes and assessment tools is that students may be disadvantaged because their in-depth knowledge and understanding of biological concepts is not effectively demonstrated through traditional pen-and-paper tests. A move towards a range of alternative assessment formats is one way to ensure that assessment aligns with multimodal learning in the classroom.

Students can now digitally construct their own representations of scientific concepts using a variety of modes including writing, diagrams, 2-D and 3-D models, images or speech, all of which communicate meaning. In this study, final-year chemistry students studying a pharmacology subject created a ''blended media'' digital product as an assignment to summarize an independently prepared technical literature review on a current research topic in pharmacology for a non-expert audience. A blended media is a simplified way for students to combine a variety of modes to complement a narration to explain a concept to others. In this study, the students learned how to create a blended media during a one-hour workshop, and used the technique to create the representation as an assessment task. The research question that guided the study was, ''What are the students' perceptions of making a digital product such as blended media and how did these shape their multimodal awareness?'' We draw from theoretical perspectives in multimodalities, representations and meaning making. Data included interviews at three points of the semester, the literature review and the digital media product. We present three case studies with volunteering students, who demonstrated a strong awareness of effective communications techniques as they attended to the audience. Making a blended media is a creative way for chemistry students to summarize complex scientific information and as a task may help to focus their multimodal awareness and developing communications skills.

This study reports on the responses to a survey of 55 upper primary school teachers, conducted prior to their classes engaging in a substantial unit of work in multimodal composition. The survey was designed to ascertain the extent to which the teachers were already familiar with, and had already embedded in their teaching, a metalanguage of multimodal composition. The project from which the data was drawn and its underlying theoretical perspective are described. While the teachers' overall attention to a relevant metalanguage is identified as quite low, it is the differential attention that is paid to the more general elements of text construction practices, together with the prior professional learning associated with this material, which raises concerns about preparedness for multimodal authoring teaching more generally. Schools, school systems and teachers themselves are advised to take urgent and systemic action to ensure the satisfactory implementation of multimodal authoring as literacy practice. Recommendations for further research are presented.

Introduction: The relationship of acute right heart dysfunction (RHD) with long-term cardiopulmonary dysfunction and its' associated morbidity has not been clearly elucidated. We propose a prospective, observational study to assess the natural history of acute RHD using a combination of imaging, functional and qualitative assessment methods, including the recently described combination of simultaneous maximal effort cardiopulmonary exercise testing and stress echocardiography., Methods and Analysis: We propose a single-centre study of patients ≥18 years admitted to either the intensive care or respiratory close observation units with RHD on transthoracic echocardiography (TTE). Participants will undergo a repeat TTE ~72 hours after the initial study, with a final TTE performed prior to discharge in patients who have a prolonged (>1 week) stay. Inpatient clinical, biochemical and therapeutic indices will be collected contemporaneously. At ~6 months postdischarge, participants will undergo evaluation with validated symptom assessment tools (Dyspnoea-12 and PAH-SYMPACT Questionnaires) and a combined maximal effort cardiopulmonary exercise test and stress echocardiogram. This study is an observational, hypothesis-generating study with a recruitment target of 100 patients established based on typical admission rates of the relevant hospital departments. Measures of central tendency and dispersion will be used to describe the cohort. Inferential statistics will be used to compare the two a priori defined groups of those whose RHD had resolved prior to hospital discharge and those whose dysfunction persisted at time of discharge., Ethics and Dissemination: This study has received ethics approval from the local ethics committee (Nepean and Blue Mountains Local Health District approval, project 2021/ETH12111). Written informed consent will be sought from all patients prior to recruitment. The results will be submitted for publication in a relevant peer-reviewed journal and presented at an appropriate national/international conference., Study Registration: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry, ANZCTR12623000309684., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2023. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

This research describes some of the salient features of Indigenous ways of working with multimodal literacies in digital contexts of use that emerged within an Indigenous school community with the oversight of Aboriginal Elders. This is significant because the use of multimodal literacy practices among a growing number of Indigenous school community groups has not been an emphasis of multimodal literacy research to date. Furthermore, authentic examples of Indigenous multimodal texts are often difficult to locate within Euro-centric educational systems of postcolonial countries. The research was conducted over a full year with students from middle and upper primary (aged 8.5-12.5 years) in an Indigenous Independent school in South-East Queensland, Australia. The project applied participatory research methods in which the research agenda was negotiated with the cultural community. Indigenous ways of multimodal literacy practices emerged as transgenerational, multimodal, placed, and collective. The findings have implications for teachers and researchers to re-envisage Indigenous ways of multimodal literacy practices in the digital age.

English is an already crowded curriculum and the incursion of multimodal literature puts it under increased pressure. How do teachers and students learn to understand and deploy tools of analysis that shed light on verbiage and images without becoming entangled in a complex and crowded analytical language? Is it possible to develop a metalanguage that relates meanings made in one mode to those in another--to enrich literary interpretation without overwhelming students' appreciation of literary texts? An adequate response to this question calls for an epistemological stance and metalanguage that accepts "polysemy" (multiple meanings); that reads choices as "motivated" by higher order concerns; and that is "relational" in its approach to analysis. This paper explores the potential of systemic functional semiotics (SFS) for addressing such requirements. Drawing on data collected in the final year of an Australian Research Council project (DP110104309), it considers three principles of SFS informing the metalanguages used by two secondary teachers in their work with students on literary picture books and fiction films. Halliday's principle of metafunctions (three major kinds of meaning) enabled the teachers to explore different meaning frames in interpreting images and language; the principle of system (contrasting options for meaning in a given semiotic environment) allowed them to open up the idea of choice for students in analysing texts; and the principle of stratification made relations between meaning, function and form easier to unpack in classroom discourse. The affordances of such intellectual tools in SFS are observed in students' oral and written responses to literary picture books and in teachers' accounts of what they taught and what they learned from their classroom interventions. The paper interleaves reflections on each aspect of SFS with interview accounts of how the metalanguage was used to enhance literary interpretation of selected students. The final section of the paper highlights implications of this case study work and possibilities for future research into the relationship between metalanguage and processes of metasemiosis in literary interpretation. It turns on the question of whether the analogic power of concepts like metafunctions, system and stratification gives students portals to literary meaning that enrich (without crowding) interpretive work on multimodal texts.

Multimodal texts are now part of the curriculum for school English, but they are by their nature inherently complex, and pose many challenges for the classroom. Not least is finding a way to manage the technical complexity of accounting for these texts, as well as finding a way to move students beyond simple observation and description to critical analysis. In this paper, I show a strategy from a tertiary-level course which addresses both these problems. Using two Australian Defence Force recruiting videos from different eras, analysis is based on a social-semiotic model for multimodal texts, albeit a version of it which is "good enough" for the task at hand. By drawing on Hasan's notions of "verbal art", I show the steps that help to move students beyond description, towards critical analysis. While the tertiary context is different to that of schooling, the strategies can be applied at any teaching level.

Two classrooms of diverse 5-year-old children were set the task of exploring ways of realising music invention through the semiotic import of composing resources. In both a rural and an inner-urban setting in Australia, children demonstrated syncretism in bilingual practices in communication. Visual multimodal analysis demonstrated how children were enabled to import music modes or conceptual elements of music within the overriding mode of music during music improvisation. By giving status to these minority literacies through music invention, children imported semiotic resources as elements of music (music modes) and cultural meanings across borders and contexts. These case studies investigated new ways of engaging diverse students beginning school. They explored the interconnectedness of cultures increasingly circumscribed in realities of classroom music and literacy. Conceptual understanding was established across modes of linguistics and music in both a rural and an inner-urban setting in Australia. Using social semiotic multimodal theory, the studies documented ways children create literacy forms through transmodal redesign of situated practices in music invention. Two focal composing activities, one from each setting, were selected as thematic cases. The first demonstrated how conceptual understanding was established across modes from linguistic (picture book literacy) to audio (music invention) and the second, from audio to verbal linguistics, through children's music invention. The pedagogical implications of a conceptual framework, the Space of Music Dialogue, were demonstrated in this study. Through this multimodal framework, educators can explore the full extent of student voices in classrooms and evaluate their growth in conceptual understanding in music and linguistics.