Blog Post for September 5, 2014

Multimodal text are forms of media that communicate multiple of the five modes of communication.  To review, the five modes of communication are linguistic, aural, spatial, gestural, and visual.

Today, I was challenged to find 12 text I have with me and identify different modes each has.

  1. Luggage Tag (S, V)
  2. Coffee Mug (L, S, V)
  3. Computer Charger (L, S)
  4. iClicker (L, A, S, V)
  5. Nike+ App (L, A, S, G, V)
  6. Pink Highlighter (L, S, V)
  7. Backpack (L, S, G, V)
  8. Necklace (S, V)
  9. Watch (L, A, S, G, V)
  10. Wallet (S, V)
  11. Sunglasses (S, V)
  12. Advanced Financial Accounting textbook (L, S, G, V)

 

I was surprised by the success I had finding unique texts with multimodal characteristics.

  • I noticed that 2 of the 12 text I listed displayed all 5 modes.  The Nike+ App on my phone displays text, responds to gestures, and speaks.  Ali’s watch also encompasses all 5 modes.  It has displays text, the hands move making gestures, and makes a ticking noises.
  • Across all of the texts I found that most included visual and spatial modes.  Most of the text I listed included words to communicate. Some text, for example my wallet and sunglasses, communicated differently brands without words.
  • All of the text that I located I found in my backpack during the beginning of class today.
  • The two text I found that are the most different are my necklace and my Advanced Financial Accounting textbooks.  The different texts are sharing very different types of information which contribute to how they are different.