A Multimodal Framework for Computer Mediated Learning: The Reshaping of Curriculum Knowledge and Learning

visually references ‘handwriting’ visually signals ‘individual’ (personal) aspects, such
as age, authenticity and personal status of the writing (typography is discussed briefly
later in the chapter). The video clip in each chapter brings the modes of speech, voice,
music, movement and gesture into play. The ‘Novel as CD-ROM’ also includes a
series of still image and written text screens each of which is filled with a still image,
and a block of writing.

In this chapter I focus on the Visual option of the ‘Novel as CD-ROM’, for two
reasons; first, it is the default option on the CD-ROM, and, second, it is the option
that the students whom I observed used.

The Novel as CD-ROM

In exploring the modal realisation of character in the CD-ROM as it appeared on
screen. I treat the ‘Novel as CD-ROM’ as a transformation of the printed novel. The
‘Novel as CD-ROM’ is the product of designer’s modal re-shaping of the ‘novel’
from the medium of the book to the medium of the CD-ROM. In that process the
entity character is transformed in significant ways.

Many novels, including OfMice and Men have been transformed into film. The move
from the mode of writing to the modes of image, speech, gesture, movement and so
on is the root difference in this transformation (Bluestone, 1973). The medium of
book and the medium of film have different properties including different origins,
resources for making meaning, relations to times and space, conventions, and
audiences. The resources of transformation in the move from the medium of the book
{Of Mice and Meri) to the medium of the CD-ROM differ from those of the move
from the book to the medium of film.

The medium of the CD-ROM has different properties to film. This difference allows
it to both transform and maintain the presence of the original text. The question of
what is maintained and what is changed in this transformation is addressed in the

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