trying to think about what this essay really is

User case scenario for interactive essay

okay so programing is really useful as it is forcing me to realise what it is i need to think about - the gaping holes in how i am trying to think about this essay is in fact very helpful in making me think about how i am conceptualising the ideas theoretically - like is it possible to think of multimodality as a continuum - the ans is no, is it possible to think of pace/speed as a continuum - yes but is it useful - ans is no! what is interactivity - and how can conceptualise it. so as i try and write this the whole thing falls apart: painful but most likely useful experience.

I am going to give a presentation in the lkl seminar room, for my ‘critical friends/colleagues’ – Diane, Caroline, Yishay, Gordon, Arthur.
The title of the presentation is ‘Designing representation on screen for learning: the semiotic resources of multimodality, pace and interaction’.

I explain to the group/audience that first of all I am going to sketch out the ideas in the essay and after that I will ask them to come up and play around with some of the ideas. The first part of the talk is linear and in my control – it has no interactive element.

I start the essay by visually ‘defining’ (filling up) the three semiotic resources - multimodality, speed/pace, interactivity through a series of examples of web pages – clips of dynamic texts. These are displayed on screen. I show that these three semiotic resources can be designed quite differently depending on the pedagogic purpose and audience of a text (getting away from the rhetoric that multimodal, fast pace, and interactive is ‘best’ and moving towards the idea of what is best fit for purpose.)

The multimodal section shows how the addition of mode is a kind of ‘modal selection’: image, writing, sound, movement, as singular modes – then in two mode combinations, then three mode and so on. That is different potentials for modal combinations. Alongside this would have the possibility for different configurations on screen - the proportion or relationship between modes. This could be expressed as a kind of grid like: modes in play by mode foregrounded…

(I think this relates to Sigrid Norris’s work – analyzing multimodal interaction – 2004). So in the modal combination could have image and writing – with a kind of sliding scale of image and writing foregrounded – showing e.g.s where the proportion of text in visual vs writing changes.

so each of the semiotic resources is filled in by 3 or 4 examples - which are open simultaneously on the screen so that the audience can make links comparisons across.

then move to think of exemplars of these three kinds of resources in one text as typologies
multimodal (lots modes), fast, interactive
multimodal (few modes), fast, interactive

at this point switch to collaborative presentation production,
I invite people to come up to the interactive white board that the essay is displayed on. This second part of the essay is not linear – it is branch like in that the person up at the screen moves away from my ‘examples’ of the semiotic resources to suggest others. in which we generate typology through talking, and linking to examples on line, drawing, scanning and incorporating possibilities into the presentation - as a kind of network of possibilities


Diane comes up and ‘turns up’ the multimodality – moving away from the idea of a written text, to a dynamic text. She turns down the pace, slowing down the presentation.
[to be continued]
still need to get right down on the level of the description think about:
the way that things are arranged on the space of display
What kind of structure does it have? An essay has a linear structure, webpage is semi linear – it branches out and off, or is it like a wiki
how will the essay structure avoid people getting lost in this thing?
Will people be able to draw lines and connections?