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

the object to produce an outcome. The outcome (goal) of the students working to
construct ‘character’, for example, is the production of their GCSE English
coursework.

Tool is used to refer to anything that mediates the subject’s action upon objects, and
these tools can be either physical technical tools or mental conceptual tools
(Vygotsky, 1986). The computer like all other technologies∕tools that have been
introduced into people’s activities (the pen, the typewriter, the printing press, etc.)
have the ability to transform and reorganise how people deal with intellectual and
practical problems and act as aids to thinking. For instance, learning multiplication
and calculation with a pen and paper is different than learning these on a computer,
and without either it is a different thing again (Saijo, 1999). The calculator
incorporates sophisticated knowledge about math operations such as multiplication
and division, notational systems including the use of zero and decimals, and how to
perform certain frequently used functions, like percentages and square root. When
pupils press the buttons on a calculator they are literally operating with conceptual
tools that have been developed over thousands of years. The physical and mental
conceptual tools incorporated into new technologies prompt the question of how
changing the tools (semiotic resources) available to learners or the ways that these
tools (resources) are shared and used can re-mediate their interactions. The
sociocultural concept of tools is compatible with a social semiotic view of the
semiotic resources of modes, their materiality, and affordance. The concept of
activity system is useful to consider the framework of relations that semiotic
mediation is embedded within∕creates in relation to learning.

The bottom elements in the diagram of activity system (Figure 2.1) place the
individual subject (in this case the student, teacher or designer) in a wider community
and map the essential elements of the social relations necessary to activity. In the
examples discussed in this thesis the students (subjects) are part of a class, members
of a school and social communities. Within the activity system there is a division of

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