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

solving. As the modes for representing bounce increase, the entity became
increasingly complex.

The multimodal affordances and design of Toontalk required the students to engage
with specific kinds of imaginative work. The students’ interaction with these
multimodal resources brings forth new ideas for the game design, the process of
engaging with these applications reshapes the students’ notion (and genre) of game.

The expressions of ‘movement’ made available via writing in the initial design of
the game are not immediately transferable in the move from page to screen. The
availability of movement as a resource in Toontalk offers new potentials for
representation. The modal affordances of Toontalk require the ambiguities afforded
by image and writing to be resolved: How will the object move? What direction will
it move in? How fast will it move? Under what conditions will it move? What
object ‘has’ the bounce? Through the process of addressing these questions that are
raised by the demands of the Toontalk system the concept of bounce is transformed
from an everyday to a mathematical concept.

The multimodal resources of Toontalk serve to highlight (make salient), to specify
the entity ‘bounce’ in mathematical terms (that is it is specified in relation to the
angle of movement, direction, and agency). The affordances of the system demand
that essentially mathematical questions and problems be solved in order for the
game to be built, that is, in order for the narrative of the game to cohere. Through
the design of the modes in Toontalk, mathematics is naturalised within the Toontalk
and the students are engaged in the process of mathematics via game building.

The multimodal character of Toontalk and the semiotic features of the screen as
compared with the page bring about changes in the practices of game and
mathematics. The user’s task is to select and order the elements of bounce that are

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