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

notion of character as an entity produced by many people over time rather than the
stable authoritative voice of the author. Character is presented not as a stable (moral)
emblem but a fluid entity that demands to be read in a social-historical context
beyond the text. This suggests that the entity character is not the product of an
individual reading but the outcome of a collective social reading.

Even though my primary focus in this chapter has been on the construction of the
curriculum entity ‘character’ what is also very clear is that the practice of reading the
‘Novel as CD-ROM’ is reshaped in the move from page to screen. Amongst all the
uncertainty of what it is to engage in a meaningful way with new media in school
English it is clear that the expansion from novel to screen has implications for
traditional notions of literacy and learning. The students’ engagement with the CD-
ROM described in this paper suggests that the forms and practices of reading such
multimodal texts remain relatively open for the time being. ‘Reading’ or perhaps
more aptly ‘watching’ the ‘Novel as CD-ROM’ introduced new resources and
practices for navigating, constructing and understanding the entity character. In this
multimodal environment it is clear that to persist in thinking of learning English
primarily in terms of writing and speech is problematic. Doing so only serves to
highlight ‘the cultural chasm between adult and child, with the child clearly seated in
a visual world’ (Underwood, 1999:110).

‘ That the computer-screen has not always been occupied by the visual, in the same way that you can
write on a canvas, or paint on a clipboard does not undermine the visual character of the site. ‘Old’
technologies always occupy new technologies (as witnessed by the running boards on cars, the key
boards on computers). The question of whether or not these technologies are best suited to the spaces
they occupy is something that can only be resolved over time.

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