Using digital media for composing multimodal texts

In this chapter, we highlight some digital media tools that can be used when implementing the teaching and learning cycle. Although we focus on the use of technology as a cognitive tool for skill development, we acknowledge the role of technology as a cultural medium used in students' everyday literacy practices for presentation of self, social alliance and many more purposes (e.g. Black, 2009; Buckingham, 2008; Guzzetti & Gamboa, 2005; Marsh & Singleton, 2009; Sefton-Green, 2006). Specifically, we attend to digital media that are characterized by the range of authoring technologies which enable children these days to become both consumers and producers of their own multimodal and multimedia texts (Buckingham, 2008; Lankshear & Knobel, 2010; Reid, Burn & Parker, 2002; Willett, Bum & Buckingham, 2005).