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

visual representations bridge the potential (conceptual) gap between the students’
everyday knowledge on the one hand and their experience of the phenomena
displayed in the screen within the screen and the scientific explanation (and terms)
offered by the written elements of the ‘frame’ on the other. This, I want to argue,
brings about a shift in the representation of the curriculum from one of a focus on
discrete states to one of focus on the transition of ‘states of matter’. This curriculum
shift is represented both in the written ‘captions’ offered by the keys and in the
representations on the ‘screen within the screen’.

The move from the facilities of the page to the facilities of the screen brings with it
the potential to ‘overlay’ images and to represent the movement of the ‘particles’. As
I mentioned earlier, the shift in the facilities of the medium and the introduction of
the resources of the mode of movement change the curriculum focus from the
conceptual representation of discreet ‘states of matter’ to the dynamic construction of
the transformations between ‘states of matter’. The conceptual image of discrete
‘states of matter’ becomes one part of a detailed dynamic representation of the
process of change from one state to another.

The CD-ROM offers the students the potential to observe this process of
transformation from two different theoretical perspectives that are realised in two
different multimodal representations. First, as it is the default option, there is a
traditional scientifically framed view of ‘solid’, ‘liquid’ and ‘gas’ in the ‘everyday’
world via the ‘Hide Particles’ viewing option. This is a realisation of the everyday
view of ‘states of matter’ in which the ‘everyday’ is the naturalised view of the
phenomena. The second option has to be actively selected by the student; the ‘View
Particles’ option shows the arrangement and movement of the ‘particles’ in each
state.

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