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Learning, Media and Technology

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Children’s digital multimodal composing:


implications for learning and teaching

Fei Victor Lim & Weimin Toh

To cite this article: Fei Victor Lim & Weimin Toh (2020) Children’s digital multimodal composing:
implications for learning and teaching, Learning, Media and Technology, 45:4, 422-432, DOI:
10.1080/17439884.2020.1823410

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2020.1823410

Published online: 23 Sep 2020.

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LEARNING, MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY
2020, VOL. 45, NO. 4, 422–432
https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2020.1823410

Children’s digital multimodal composing: implications for learning


and teaching
Fei Victor Lim and Weimin Toh
National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY


This paper explores the implications of children’s out-of-school digital Received 10 August 2019
multimodal composing practices on learning and teaching in the formal Accepted 13 August 2020
educational context. It adopts a case study approach where publicly
KEYWORDS
accessible YouTube video productions of three children around the digital learning; multimodal
world are examined. Applying a multimodal discourse analysis approach, authoring; multimodal
we analyse the children’s videos and discuss what they suggest about compositions; multiliteracies;
the children’s literacies and skills. We argue that children’s digital remix culture
multimodal composing practices demonstrate their creativity, critical
thinking, and a semiotic awareness. Following the case studies, we
discuss how the educators can respond to students’ out-of-school
literacy activities by creating the ‘third space’ for learning in schools.

Introduction
Children today are growing up in a world that offers them unprecedented ways of expressing their
ideas and identities. Kress (1995, 12) has observed that ‘what we make available to the child is a cen-
tral factor in what the child will and can do’. In today’s communication landscape, children have easy
access to semiotic technologies (van Leeuwen and Djonov 2018) that open up new realms of mean-
ing-making. While there have been much work done by researchers in advancing the field of digital
literacies (e.g., Burn 2016; Burn and Kress 2018; Belshaw 2014; Hafner and Miller 2019; Mills and
Unsworth 2018; Potter 2018), a present research agenda is to identify ways in which ‘education sys-
tems can engage with how meanings are made and circulated in the digital age and how they shape
our experience of the world’ (Williamson, Potter, and Eynon 2019, 89).
There is a growing number of children who are active prosumers (Ritzer and Jurgenson 2010;
Duncum 2011) on social media, who not just view but also respond by liking and commenting
on others’ posts as well as creating their own multimedia posts (Duncum 2013; Yarosh et al.
2016). On video platforms, such as YouTube, there is a small but increasing number of children
who produce videos and upload them on their own channels. Children’s digital multimodal compos-
ing is dependent on their situated literacies (Thomas 2012; Anderson 2013; Hafner and Ho 2020). In
this paper, we examine three case studies of children’s digital multimodal composing on YouTube
and discuss the literacies that these children demonstrate in their production of the video artefacts.
In light of these findings, we propose ways in which teaching and learning in schools can keep pace
with the children’s out-of-school literacy activities. Our paper aims to discuss the two questions: (1)
What literacies do children demonstrate in their digital multimodal composing practices on You-
Tube? (2) How can schools harness the third space to make connections with students’ out-of-school
literacy activities?

CONTACT Fei Victor Lim victor.lim@nie.edu.sg


© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
LEARNING, MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY 423

Digital multimodal composing


Digital multimodal composing, as a form of user-generated content (Burgess and Green 2009), is a
way for the child to creatively express ideas and identities through making a digital artefact (Yarosh
et al. 2016). A feature in digital multimodal composing practices is the notion of ‘remix’ – where
aspects of an existing artefact are appropriated, blended, meshed, and represented in novel ways
to communicate new meanings in a digital multimodal composition (Reilly 2010). Manovich
(2013) posits remix as a metaphor for the generalised amalgamation and digitalisation of culture
(Campanelli 2010). Today, many forms of cultural and lifestyle artefacts such as user-generated
media are characterised by remixes, fusions, collages, and mashups (Campanelli 2015).
Knobel (2017) defines remix as the practice of taking existing cultural artefacts and recombining
them into new types of creative blends and products. Remix is evident in children’s digital multimo-
dal composing practices (Erstad, Gilje, and de Lange 2007; Gilje 2011), such as fan compositions in
online communities (Stedman 2012), political video remix (Dubisar and Palmeri 2010), and fan par-
ody videos (Liu 2010). The focus on everyday creativity as a social practice can inform the classroom
integration of digital technologies and new literacies (Knobel 2017).
The remix practices evident from children’s digital multimodal artefacts suggest that they demon-
strate creativity, critical thinking and semiotic awareness, in these out-of-school literacy activities. In
our paper, creativity is observed from the multi-perspectives communicated by children in their role-
playing (Zhou, Chen, and Luo 2014), and their production of original ideas (Jajnke, Haertel, and
Wildt 2017) in the form of externally recognised creative products and outcomes (Hargrove and
Nietfeld 2015). Critical thinking is observed from the children’s ability to select, evaluate, and inte-
grate information (Beyer 1995). Semiotic awareness (Towndrow, Nelson, and Mohamad Yusuf 2013;
Lim In press) is an aspect of multimodal literacy (Jewitt and Kress 2003; O’Halloran and Lim 2011;
van Leeuwen 2017) which refers to an understanding of how the affordances of semiotic modes and
semiotic technologies (van Leeuwen and Djonov 2018) invite and insist upon different ways of
meaning-making (Kress 2010). In digital multimodal composing practices, creativity, critical think-
ing and semiotic awareness are expressed through the remix creator’s ability to select, extract, and
evaluate relevant semiotic modes from cultural artefacts and combine these semiotic modes, such
as music, visuals, verbal, gestures, into a coherent whole to express a narrative and identity, as
well as to engage the audience for various purposes (Puccio and Gonzalez 2004).
Pahl and Rowsell (2005), following Bhabha’s (2004) conceptualisation of the ‘third space’, explain
that children’s home meaning-making activities represent the ‘first space’ and that school literacy
activities represent the ‘second space’. The ‘third space’ brings together home and school literacies
and is where ‘students can connect up out-of-school with their school literacies’ (Pahl and Rowsell
2005, 66). Potter and McDougall (2017, 2019) describe the ‘third space’ that is ‘within the spatial and
the material, the virtual and the lived experience of the child’ (Potter and McDougall 2017, 49). The
third space involves the bridging of literacy tools and practices between in-school and out-of-school
contexts (Gutierrez 2008). This ‘third space’ includes co-curricular activities, such as the media lit-
eracy groups and infocomm clubs, and also after-school enrichment programmes on coding and
digital making. Through these platforms, teachers capitalise the ‘funds of knowledge’ (Moll et al.
1992) that the child brings to the classroom and recognise the different types of learning for students.
The third space can also occur within the classroom (see for example, Flessner 2014; Schuck, Maher,
and Perry 2016) when the teacher designs learning experiences that connect with students’ out-of-
school practices. YouTube can be critically considered as a platform for demonstrating third space
literacies that influence practices in the second space (Potter and McDougall 2017) when students
exercise agency in the digital multimodal composing practice and sharing their artefacts for peers’
comments (Brook 2011).
It is of value to study the digital multimodal composing practices of children in out-of-school con-
texts, that is the first space, so that educators can better understand the growing phenomenon of digi-
tal remix practices and recognise and value the different ways in which children express their ideas
424 F. V. LIM AND W. TOH

and identities. Through availing opportunities for digital multimodal composing practices in
schools, educators can create a third space where students’ home literacies bridge their school learn-
ing. In this paper, we discuss three case studies of children’s digital multimodal composing practices
at home and identify the literacies they each demonstrate.

Case study approach


This paper adopts a qualitative case study approach method (Baxter and Jack 2008) through a con-
venient sampling and content analysis of the videos produced by three children. Our approach fol-
lows from Hattingh’s (2017) netnography research and Patterson’s (2018) method in analysing the
educational experience of individuals on YouTube videos. The qualitative content analysis identifies
the meanings from the content in the selected videos and builds up a corpus for further study (Char-
maz 2006).
Hattingh (2017) employed a netnography research approach to conduct an investigation on the
appropriateness of YouTube as an informal learning platform for pre-teens. Netnography is based on
the principles of ethnography in an online environment (Kozinets 2002). The principles are
informed from Kinloch and Pedro’s (2014) concept of Projects in Humanisation. They include view-
ing the video, transcribing portions of the videos, re-viewing the videos allowing the data to talk to
the analyst, and eventually also talking back to the data (Patterson 2018). In our study, we also strike
a balance between an emic and etic perspective in the analysis. We used thick, rich and deep descrip-
tions (Cunliffe 2010) and preserved the subjects’ voices by performing a holistic multimodal dis-
course analysis of all semiotic resources to reduce researcher’s selectivity from the focus on
preconceived aspects of the product. We also acknowledge that multiple interpretations may exist
and that our analysis is but one possible way of interpretation (O’Halloran and Lim 2014).
In relation to the ethics of using YouTube videos as research data, some researchers reported hav-
ing obtained permission from the video creators (e.g., Frobenius 2014; Harley and Fitzpatrick 2009)
whereas others did not as the data were in the public domain (e.g., Berger 2012; Caron et al. 2017;
Laurier 2016; Misoch 2014). In this paper, we follow Patterson’s (2018, 4) argument that the You-
Tube platform is a ‘site of public discourse’ and that the use of publicly available information as
research data, without the need for explicit consent from the video creators, is acceptable (Hattingh
2017). In this paper, only the description and our analyses of the videos are presented. Screenshots of
the video stills are not shown and the videos are referenced in the footnote, with the link to the orig-
inal video provided.

Case studies
Rationale for choice of videos
Our selection of YouTube videos is based on the condition that the children are self-directed in the
digital multimodal composing practices. The second condition is that the video analysed must be
fairly typical of the entire collection of videos that the child has on his channel. The third condition
is that the videos offer themselves for a rich analysis with the presence of ‘remixes’ as a feature.

The case of MattyB


Matthew David Morris, better known as MattyB or MattyBRaps, describes himself as an American
rapper. He is well-known for posting remix videos of popular music on YouTube. MattyB has
released numerous covers and remixes of mainstream music since he was seven. One of his popular
remixes is Psy’s Gangnam Style,1 which was uploaded to YouTube when he was nine years old. In his
interpretation, MattyB combined Psy’s dance moves, rhythm, and music of the original song with his
own lyrics, setting, and narrative to produce a creative production in collaboration with others.
LEARNING, MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY 425

There is recontextualization of meaning (van Leeuwen 2008) where the original lyrics were changed
to fit the change of setting from Korea (e.g., Gangnam) to America (e.g., New York).
The original lyrics in Korean narrated the story of how the character portrayed by Psy was a rich
Oppa from Gangnam in Seoul. The narrative was a commentary on Korean society where middle-
age men flaunted their wealth to attract a young spouse. In contrast, MattyB’s remix of Psy’s Gang-
nam Style was a light-hearted take on himself. The lyrics and visuals in the video complemented to
communicate the story of a child who was ‘powerful’ and challenging to control despite the attempts
by several women to take care of him.
At the beginning of the video, we see that MattyB’s clothing, gestures, and movements did not fit
into the setting of the park. MattyB wore a school uniform but danced wildly in dissonance with what
a student would do. These semiotic choices served to characterise him as a rebellious child who did
not conform to societal rules and expectations. This was followed by a wide-angle shot that intro-
duced the six women, a singing group made of six sisters known as Cimorelli, standing on a bridge,
whose gaze, gestures, and movements indicated their exasperated reaction to his unruly behaviour.
The next shot shows MattyB wearing a green tuxedo and he crossed the street at the zebra crossing
with the sound of a car honking at him. On the one hand, MattyB’s choice of wearing the school
uniform in the park construed the image of an uncontrollable child. His choice of wearing the
green tuxedo in the New York streets on the other hand reformed (Law forthcoming) the meaning
communicated. The green tuxedo indexed his character as one who possessed power (Owyong 2009)
and style (reinforced by the language ‘Gangnam Style’ used in the lyrics).
At 1:07, the video cuts back to the park setting shown at the beginning. However, Cimorelli mem-
bers were tstanding on the bridge directly above MattyB in his school uniform. This non-chronologi-
cal arrangement of the edited shots has an intial (dis)orientating effect on the viewers. Gradually, as
we continue to watch the video, we start to see a repeated pattern created by the use of parallel editing
where the visuals show Cimorelli continuously watching and chasing after MattyB to several places
in New York but to no avail (specified by MattyB’s use of the lyrics ‘can’t persuade me’ at 1:25). The
turning point of the video came after MattyB met another American, Perez Hilton, on the streets at
1:40, who appeared to share his non-conformative behaviour. One of the women in Cimorelli then
mentioned that, ‘I kinda want to learn the dance’ as ‘it looks legit’. From 2:26 onward, Cimorelli and
Perez Hilton joined with MattyB in the dance so the video ended with the women giving in to the
child and dancing with him in the style of Gangnam Style.
From the analysis of the video, MattyB demonstrated his creativity and critical thinking, particu-
larly in remixing the amalgamation of available materials and ideas (Gauntlett 2011) into a new arte-
fact. Creativity was expressed through configuring and reconfiguring relationships between images,
verbal text, music, and movement in original and recycled texts (Maybin 2015) through forming and
reforming patterns (Law forthcoming). The configurations, forming, and reforming of recurring pat-
terns were used in MattyB’s video to showcase MattyB’s rapping and dance movements.
In collaborating with others in making this video, MattyB had to make decisions on whether to
incorporate instances of popular culture as a whole (e.g., a song recording) or as a part (e.g., dance
movements, rhythm, and music remixed with other content such as lyrics, setting, and narrative) to
engage the target audience. MattyB creatively remixed Psy’s dance movements, rhythm, and music
with his own content to target a broad audience who would most likely have heard of Psy’s Gangnam
Style. MattyB’s video shows that he possessed a semiotic awareness to make apt choices to engage the
viewers.

The case of Aldz


Aldz is a 10-year-old boy from Singapore. In this YouTube video2 titled, ‘When I fail my exam … ’,
he performed a dual character role of himself as well as his conscience interrogating him on why he
was playing with the smartphone when he should be doing his homework. Aldz used a shot-reverse-
shot to portray the dual roles performed by himself. His conscience was distinguished from his
426 F. V. LIM AND W. TOH

real-life persona by the blue shirt that was placed on top of his conscience’s head. His conscience was
also blaming him for failing his tests due to his playing of too many mobile games on the smart-
phone. His conscience proceeded to confiscate all his digital devices to destroy them by throwing
them onto the ground. This was when the video’s colour turned to black and white to symbolise
the negative emotions that Aldz felt. At the same time, the songs ‘The Sound of Silence’ and
‘Mad World’ were remixed into the video to further depict his negative emotions and internal tur-
moil experienced as a result of the confiscation and destruction of his smartphones by his conscience
throwing them onto the ground. The video ended with a negative tone as the intertitle, ‘R.I.P phones
2000-2019’ appeared superimposed onto a black and white background, accompanied by the
depressing song, ‘Mad World’.
When Aldz created and uploaded his video onto YouTube, he demonstrated his creativity and
semiotic awareness in editing a video to communicate to the audience. Everyday creativity is
found in user-generated YouTube videos and is defined as an ‘interaction among aptitude, process,
and (sociocultural) environment by which an individual creates a perceptible product [e.g., YouTube
video] that is both novel and useful as defined within a social context’ (Kaufman and Beghetto 2009,
90). By producing the video, Aldz communicates his fear of failing his tests creatively and in a way
that engages with the viewers.
Aldz also expressed multiple perspectives through the different roles he took in the video. There is
also allusion to schema from popular culture that used the same character in films to take on multiple
roles to connect with the audience. For instance, in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the film crea-
tors used a shot-reverse-shot camera technique3 to externalise Gollum’s internal struggle. Based on
their shared experience, Aldz and the audience could have a common schematic understanding of
film’s editing techniques to represent a character’s psychological turmoil. Aldz demonstrated an
awareness of how various semiotic modes and semiotic technologies offer different ways of mean-
ing-making when he searched, selected, critically evaluated (Bawden 2001), and remixed relevant
extracts from popular culture music into his own video to communicate his emotions. In represent-
ing his emotions through colours and black and white images along with the use of appropriate pop-
ular culture music, a semiotic awareness is demonstrated.

The case of Jake Mitchell


Jake Mitchell is a YouTuber from Hereford, England. Jake started making videos when he was eight
by editing pictures together to tell a story on his father’s computer. Mitchell created a short film titled
‘Nerf War spy film’ on YouTube4 when he was 11. Mitchell was both the scriptwriter and editor of
the video. He filmed the video in his house and the narrative shows Mitchell working together with
his friend to kill their fictitious enemy who was an alien life form.
Mitchell expressed his creativity through remixing different types of music to increase the dra-
matic action of the narrative. He incorporated the Mission Impossible music at the 30 s mark of
the video to emphasise the suspense of the rising action in the plot as the two children protagonists
searched for their enemies in the backyard of the house. When one of the children sighted the target
at 60 s into the video, Mitchell integrated the Star Wars Imperial March music to accentuate the
conflict of the upcoming battle. Mitchell combined music with camera angles for other narrative
effects. He combined the Star Wars Imperial March music with a low angle shot to heighten the
sense of mystery and power of the antagonist when he climbed down the stairs. He also combined
different camera techniques for the audience to take the perspectives of the characters. For instance,
he combined a point-of-view shot with a low angle shot for us to understand what the character felt
when he was in a position of lower power.
Critical thinking was evident as Mitchell searched for and selected relevant content such as music,
and evaluated them (Bawden 2001) for integration in the final product of the YouTube video. Semio-
tic awareness was expressed as Mitchell strategically remixed popular culture music from Mission
Impossible and Star Wars into the video to highlight the increasing tension and plot development
LEARNING, MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY 427

in the narrative. The imagination of the child was expressed through the use of simple props to rep-
resent futuristic weapons. Semiotic awareness of how different semiotic modes and semiotic technol-
ogies express meanings differently was evident in the choices Michell made to remix the pictures and
create the video.

Discussion
Children’s literacies in their digital multimodal composing practices
From the case studies of the children’s out-of-school literacy activities, there is evidence of children
demonstrating their creativity, critical thinking, and a semiotic awareness. The children demon-
strated their criticality in their ability to adopt multiple perspectives to communicate their emotions
effectively to the audience (e.g., Aldz). The children demonstrated their creativity through their
resourcefulness when they made full use of limited resources to create an original YouTube remix
video (e.g., Jake Mitchell).
In the making of YouTube remix videos, the children demonstrated critical thinking when they
analysed, evaluated, and extracted relevant portions of digital text from various sources to integrate
or remix the different components into a coherent whole to engage the audience. For instance, Mat-
tyB adapted and recontexualised Psy’s Gangnam Style’s dance movements, rhythm, and lyrics to fit
the New York setting to create his brand identity (Chen 2013) for promotional and entertainment
purposes.
The children also demonstrated semiotic awareness as they integrated different semiotic modes to
express their ideas and identities coherently. Awareness of the affordances of semiotic technologies
for different ways of meaning-making is also evident when the children used the tools available to
them and made apt choices in their video productions. The children’s digital multimodal composing
practices were enabled by video editing software and uploaded on the YouTube social media plat-
form for sharing with others. YouTube presents a digital space where children are able to share
their videos with a wider audience for recognition as well as to receive validation and feedback
for their work. The ability to self-publish their artefacts and have these available in the public domain
brings a sense of realism and adds significance to their authoring practices. While there may be
cyberwellness considerations to be mindful of, and guidance from adults should be given, children
are motivated to give their best in creating a piece of work that they are proud of, with the meaning-
making resources they have at their disposal.

Harnessing the third space


Many scholars, such as Skerrett (2010, 82), have argued for the need for educators to help their stu-
dents engage responsibly with the ‘literacies of technology’ and to ‘value and use adolescents’ litera-
cies as high status, appropriate tools for deeper in- and out-of-school learning’ as the ultimate goal of
teaching and learning in the third space. The pedagogical implications of students’ out-of-school lit-
eracy activities on teaching and learning in the school context are discussed in terms of the changes
required in the curriculum as well as strategically exploiting the possibilities presented in the ‘third
space’.
MattyB’s digital multimodal composing practices in the first space can present an opportunity for
educators to guide students to think critically about media power (Burwell 2013). In the classroom
context, the discussion and analysis of remix videos can allow students to appreciate the sophisti-
cated visual techniques and editing skills used to bring new interpretations to well-known texts.
The socially constructed nature of gender roles can be made explicit through students’ reflections
in the classroom by focusing on the semiotic features of film and television, including dialogue,
music, visual imagery, framing, and point of view. Educators can also use various text genres in class-
room contexts to develop students’ critical thinking and interpretative ability. An instance of a text
428 F. V. LIM AND W. TOH

genre is the crossover, a type of fan production that demonstrates the critical and creative potential of
its creators. The creators of the crossover bring together characters from different narratives or trans-
plant one character into the world of another. When reflecting on the differences between the fan
production and the original source, students are able to acquire the ability to read against the
grain of a work and make intellectually interesting juxtapositions that reveal new insights into a text.
Aldz’s digital multimodal composing practices in the first space demonstrate how YouTube as a
semiotic technology affords different semiotic and material resources for digital composition (Gilje
2010) that can be used to integrate children’s out-of-school literacies into the classroom curriculum.
Educators can explore how the multimodal composing processes (Liang and Lim 2020) of designing
(planning or conceptualising), composing (creating or acting), and presenting (sharing or showing)
can contribute to more student-centred learning in the ‘third space’ when semiotic technologies are
integrated into the classroom for students.
Mitchell’s digital multimodal composing practices invite educators to explore how the advance-
ment of technology and the ready availability of digital devices, editing software, and Web 2.0 can
facilitate students’ learning activities through collaborative creation of the multimodal artefact,
such as the remix video, in online affinity spaces (Gee 2017). In creating a third space, educators
could consider how they can integrate children’s multimodal composing activities from outside
the classroom into the classroom curriculum (e.g., multimodal composing of artefacts) to connect
with students’ funds of knowledge (Barton and Tan 2009) and interests, to engage students in
their personalised learning (Johnson and Johnson 2016). This could require a shift from a tea-
cher-centred classroom to a more student-centred classroom that can foster children’s (self-directed)
learning of new literacies such as creativity, critical thinking, semiotic awareness, and digital skills.

Conclusion
Today’s digital age brings with it new ways of meaning-making, where even children can have easy
access to semiotic technologies (van Leeuwen 2008; Zhao, Djonov, and van Leeuwen 2014) such as
YouTube; there, they can perform their identities and present their ideas through digital multimodal
composing practices. When educators use this semiotic technology in the classroom, YouTube can
serve as a third space that mediates the literacy activities between home and school.
While the examples identified in this article are of a small select group of children who have the
support, know-how and environment to harness these digital semiotic resources, they represent the
possibilities of what children are capable of, when given the opportunities to do so. These children
are forerunners in ushering an era where digital multimodal composing practices will become
increasingly common. The challenge for education systems is how to respond and engage with
new forms of out-of-school literacy practices which children increasingly participate in (Weninger
2019; Lim 2021).
Our article builds on earlier work and adds to the ongoing conversations on how we can identify
children’s learning from digital multimodal composing practices. From the case studies, we have high-
lighted examples of how children’s digital multimodal composing practices in the first space showcase
their creativity, critical thinking, and a semiotic awareness in their meaning-making. These are the
literacies that are commonly identified in curricular goals of many education systems as well. We
join other scholars in advancing the argument that schools and educators should bridge the discon-
nect between children’s home literacy activities and what students are learning in school. This, we
argue in this article, can be achieved by creating a third space where the two meet, and where chil-
dren’s new ways of meaning-making in the digital age are recognised, valued, and nurtured.

Notes
1. https://tinyurl.com/dmauthor1
2. https://tinyurl.com/dmauthor2
LEARNING, MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY 429

3. https://tinyurl.com/dmauthor2a
4. https://tinyurl.com/dmauthor3

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding
This work was supported by National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Start Up
Grant for New Assistant Professors: [grant number SUG-NAP 4/18 VLF].

Notes on contributors
Fei Victor Lim is Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Sin-
gapore. He has published widely on multiliteracies, multimodal discourse analyses, and digital learning. He is inter-
ested in how and what we should teach learners in today’s digital and multimodal age. He is author of the book
“Designing Learning with Embodied Teaching: Perspectives from Multimodality” published in the Routledge Studies
in Multimodality.
Weimin Toh is Research Associate at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singa-
pore. His main research areas are social semiotics, multimodal discourse analysis, game studies, narratology, and game
based learning.

ORCID
Fei Victor Lim http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3046-1011
Weimin Toh http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6468-227X

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