attended Kress's talk on 'Meaning and learning: media, modes, texts and knowledge' today.
here are my notes:
mode: the means for represenation of meanings
media: the means for the dissemination of messages
today's multimodal world raises this issue (eg in Project Work): cut and paste - not knowledge, no evidence of understanding or learning
meaning making is work - it changes the subject, tool and object (resource) (eg, working in the garden) (again, our old friend Heisenberg)
the work takes place as a phenomenon's structure is made known to a person as he engages with it. therefore the work which results is not a copy nor a mutation. instead, it represents the application of principles to the phenomenon. therefore, it also represents the transformation of the phenomenon by the person who has engaged with it.
the result of semiotic work (meaning-making) produces signs (which are distinct from signages - these are produced by rote learning, where they superficially represent signs, but without the understanding that true sign-making would imply). thus, true signs are always new, even though some may resemble others.
a new theory of meaning thus arises, which regards sign-making as an activity though which existing subject matter is transformed through the work of the person who engages with it. what is produced is constantly new.
the result is that the subject itself is changed, etc.
learning refers to sign-making / meaning-making in the context of the formal or informal curriculum. it is therefore not a process of acquisition. in the past, knowledge was shaped by the author for an audience who he understood. present day textbooks, like websites, organise information into self-contained units where the sequencing is not very important. the idea behind this is that information is made available to the person, through different routes, and this information is shaped and transformed into knowledge for oneself.
dominant forms of media (presently, the screen) will colonise non-dominant forms (books).
the stuff on the internet becomes information through one's interest, which makes one focus (select) the stuff in particular ways, subsequently organising it into information, and this information is then transformed though integration and coherence into knowledge. one designs knowledge for oneself, nowadays.
so back to the issue of cut and paste in a multimodal world. the following questions might be helpful:
- coherence / integrity: does everything that is here, belong here?
- logic of arrangment: is everything that is here, in the place that it should be?
- cohesion: are the relationships between the elements clear?
in other words: has something actually been learned / produced (and not simply replicated)?
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