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A social semiotic account of (mobile) learning

A social semiotic account of (mobile) learning. AERA - San Diego, 13-17 April 2009 Elisabetta Adami - University of Verona Gunther Kress - Institute of Education London. Questions motivating the study. to what extent can a theory of communication explain (conceptions of) learning?

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A social semiotic account of (mobile) learning

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  1. A social semiotic account of (mobile) learning AERA - San Diego, 13-17 April 2009 Elisabetta Adami - University of Verona Gunther Kress - Institute of Education London

  2. Questions motivating the study • to what extent can a theory of communication explain (conceptions of) learning? • to what extent can a theory of meaning (-making) underpin conceptions of learning? • to what extent do mobile devices reconfigure (conditions of) learning?

  3. Assumptions • Learning: the transformative engagement with an aspect of the world which is the focus of attention of an individual; on the basis of principles brought by her or him to that engagement; leading to a transformation of the individual’s semiotic/conceptual resources • Affordances = representational constraints and possibilities, types of representations fostered and hindered by a given medium, both materially and socially (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996/2006). • The affordances of any technology shape ways in which we communicate and in which we make meaning about ourselves and the world -> affordances shape the way we learn • Medium Affordances -> background/foregrounded skills for its use

  4. Social semiotic analysis of Smartphones • Affordances of: • Hardware design • Software design • Functionalities • Habitus • Skills • Implications for education

  5. Hardware/Software design • Primacy: Visual output • Navigational over textual input • Menu-based semiotics • Content generation and text creation: Representation-as-selection • (inter)activity = navigation/selection among options

  6. Functionalities: Imaging • Immediacy, real-time, quantity • Representing (everyday) reality by capturing and selecting it becomes a ‘naturalized’ activity • every fact achieves further significance • the environment is lived so as to capture/represent it • life-world is turned into an artefact to be (re)used

  7. Functionalities: Web browsing • Mobility: interpersonal connectivity + information access • Less strategic planning  more tactical thought • Intolerance to fixity / stability • Environment is supplemented with online info: • Blurring of online/offline worlds • Life Experiencing: informed activity (no need of risk-taking) • Learning = grabbing reliable info about your environment

  8. Functionalities: e-mail • Features of mobile Web browsing • merging sites and times of information/relations/activities • merging online/offline environments • Trend to ‘representation-as-selection’: • selected artefacts rather than texts created in writing • a new textual genre: mobile emails

  9. Functionalities: GPS positioning • ‘Live’ contextualization of the self in the discursive representation of geography • Displacement of the self • Geographical record of ‘a life’ • Movement -> representation/artefact

  10. Functionalities: Lifeblog • a multimodal chronological representation of the whole activity with the device • a multimodal diaryautomatically recorded and assembled while using the device • life turns into a visual artefact which can be (re)used

  11. Multi-functionalities • Immediacy and real-time • Adaptation and flexibility (from other devices) • The more functionalities, the more likely their use in their default settings (‘templates’) • Personalization is index of expertise (interest)

  12. Skills fostered • Representation as selection + recontextualization • Adaptation and flexibility • ‘how-to’ (processes) over ‘what’ (contents) • (local/operational) tactics over (global)strategies • Real-time multi-tasking synergy over fine-grained focus

  13. Learning how-to access, select, capture, use in real-time global/collective info/events for local/individual aims/activities

  14. Implications for education • Foregrounded skills: • Selection + Re-contextualization • How-to • Real-time tactical and multi-tasking thinking • Navigational aids in the era of the ideology of choice • style - as the politics of choice • aesthetics - as the politics of style • ethics - as the politics of value and evaluation • Background skills: • Strategic/global planning • Text-creation from scratch • Architecture building (rather than navigation among options) • Focus on contents, on accuracy and reflection • Life = risk-taking, exploration, ephemeral experiencing

  15. Conclusions • Can social semiotics – by exploring changes in representation and communication – explain changes in habitus of learning? a merely rhetorical question… !

  16. Thank you! A social semiotic account of (mobile) learning AERA - San Diego, 14-17 April 2009 Elisabetta Adami - University of Verona Gunther Kress - Institute of Education, London

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