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

5. Mathematics and the Multimodal Construction of

‘Rule’ and ‘Bounce’ on Screen

Introduction

Toontalk is a computer programming application for children (age four years old and
over) to build computer games. Toontalk makes available a range of representational
and communicative modes including still image, gesture, gaze, body posture, speech,
sound-effect, writing, and new configurations of the elements of these.

In part one of this chapter I ask how the range of representational modes made
available in Toontalk shape the potentials for learning. I show that the semiotic
potentials made available via a multimodal text, such as Toontalk, contribute to the
shaping of what students can ‘do with it’ - how they can ‘design meaning’. In order to
understand the rule building practices that students engage with in Toontalk, a better
understanding of the kinds of meaning-making resources that the application provides
is required. There is a need to understand what it is that students are working with
and how these multimodal resources might contribute to the shaping of the learner,
the learning environment, and what it is that is to be learnt. The multimodal analysis
of the application presented in Part One centre on the impact of modes on the
mathematical entities rule, condition and action and the subjectivity of the user.

In the second part of the chapter I explore the role of these representational modes in
the process of game design and game construction. Computer based applications are
frequently discussed as being effective tools for learning. However, the question
remains of how the move from traditional technologies of teaching and learning to
computer based technologies actually reshape the practices of learning. The analysis
focuses on two students’ construction of a game in Toontalk, in particular
programming a bullet to ‘bounce’ and the emergence of ‘bounce’ as a mathematical

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