Abstract
This research paper examines how middle school students can initiate their own designs of meaning to facilitate multiliteracies experiences. The RIOT (random, intelligent and optimistic teenagers) Radio project was documented over a one-year period in a small Western Australian independent community school inspired by the Reggio Emilia educational philosophy. A class of fourteen young adolescents unanimously agreed that constructing a middle school radio studio and creating a variety of radio shows had been a project'filled with excitement, hard work and loads of fun'. Their teachers recognised the radio project as a way of integrating technology, media and popular culture to scaffold learning in authentic ways...