is 'good or bad mark making' and 'design' has been shown to increase pupil
motivation (Lachs, 1999; Sinker, 1999) and to improve the ‘quality of learning’.
Multimodal Learning
The multimodal character of technology-mediated learning, the ‘de-centring’ of
language, and the interaction of modes as they appear on the computer screen all raise
important questions for what it means to interact with the resources of new
technology and learning more generally.
Learning, especially school learning, is usually understood as a linguistic
accomplishment. Language (speech and writing) is seen as central to communication
in general and learning in particular. In part this is because language has been
considered the only fully articulate means of representation. It is considered
fundamental to thinking, and therefore to rationality, in which talk is a social mode of
thinking (Mercer, 2002). That is, everything that can be thought can be thought in
language, and everything that can be represented, can be represented in language.
From that theoretical perspective other forms of communication have been
characterised as either irrelevant or merely supportive of language.
Many commentators have, however, pointed out that visual communication in
learning is increasingly prevalent (Messaris, 1994; Sharples, 1998; Buckingham,
2000; Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996, 2001). I argue in this thesis that looking at
learning through a multimodal lens to account for all modes does not offer a ‘better’
view of the ‘same’ picture carried in language (speech and writing) - it offers a
different view.
Others have heralded the potential of new technologies to act as a tool to think with
that can effectively reshape learning, teaching, the classroom and ultimately the
school (Papert, 1993; Resnick, 1995). This literature suggests that new technologies
can offer models and metaphors that have a significant effect on how people think
32