maker - a multimodal semiotic text, and a collection of meaning potentials. Students
work with these potentials to realise new meanings. The student’s material
expressions, signs, images, writing, gestures, and so on are interpreted as an
expression of their engagement with knowledge: one kind of evidence of what their
thinking and learning may have been like.
Multimodal Data Collection, Sampling and Transcription
The Schools and Lessons
The criteria used to select the schools for the study was the active use of computers in
teaching and learning. The literature on computer mediated learning and my
experience of research into school Science and English shows that computers are not
well integrated into all schools. For this reason only schools known to be actively
using computers were approached. (The Information and Communication Technology
P.G.C.E. tutors at the Institute of Education supplied this information.) Five
secondary schools were recommended and contacted.
The head teacher of Science, and English was contacted in each school and invited to
participate in the study. All responded to the invitation positively although not all
could provide access to teachers working with new technologies. The data is collected
from three schools all of which are state schools and one of which is a Specialised
Technology School. The teachers who took part in the study volunteered themselves.
The aim of the thesis is to observe the use of new technology ‘as it happens’ in the
school, for this reason I did not stipulate the year group, curricular content, and the
type of computer application to be used in the case of school English and Science.
The data discussed in Chapter Five of the thesis is from ‘The Playground Project’ a
European Union research project1. The Playground Project data was collected from an
ɪ The playground project is a research project directed by Professor Noss and Professor Hoyles at the
Institute of Education, University of London. I was involved on an informal basis with the project and
contributed to discussion of the semiotic design of the interface for the applications used. On this basis
the directors agreed to allow me access to the project data.
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