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

omitted, such as, ‘work up a stake’, ‘blow their stake’, ‘poundin’ their tail’, and
‘blowin’ in our jack’. George’s forms of expression are softened, ‘for all anyone
gives a damn’, for example, is changed to, ‘for all anyone cares’. All the references to
money in George’s speech are also removed. The character Lennie’s lack of
confidence is omitted, for example, “Go on now, George! No, you. I forget some a’
the things” in the original novel is omitted in the ‘Novel as CD-ROM’.

These transformations of the dialogue have a number of consequences for subsequent
readings of the ‘Novel as CD-ROM’. First, the position of ranch workers is
individualised. Their failure to settle in a community is decontextualised from the
social and historical context of the story. Loneliness, rather than poverty and the need
to move to find work, is the cause of failure. The role of money in the inability of
workers to realise their dreams is removed, and instead this is associated solely with
their having nothing to look forward to. Second, the re-presentation of the characters
Lennie and George’s plans for their future as ‘a little house and a couple of acres’
contrasts with their more elaborate plans in the original dialogue of the novel. These
plans included a house and keeping pigs, cows, chickens, rabbits, and a vegetable
patch. This change serves to suggest that their hopes are in the realm of an
achievable reality, rather than a dream or hope which sustains them in their current
existence. And finally the dialogue is adapted to appeal to a contemporary audience
in an educational context.

The changes in dialogue are not a consequence of change in the medium in and of
itself: classic books are often reproduced for children with such changes, such as the
Dickens for Children series. What is interesting, however, is that while the dialogue
in the video clip is changed the original novel is reproduced faithfully in the written
mode in the ‘Novel as CD-ROM’. It appears that it is fine to read ‘gives a damn’ but
it is not to hear ‘gives a damn’ spoken on the video clip. In addition to the need to
make writing ‘authentic’ as compared with spoken dialogue these transformations are
evidence of the designers’ perception of the greater intensity of the mode of speech

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