Meaning Making of the 21st Century

Taking a theory-laden class on Lev Vygotsky has produced in me a tendency to think about thought and language and semiotic implications in a practical sense, as a teacher. As a graduate student in the process of working on my candidacy paper and trying to situate myself within the community of educational researchers interested in my general area (technology and English/writing education), I am reading a lot about multi-modal strategies of presenting information. A natural dialectical relationship in my studies, right? A discussion came up in class today about how speech and words, via alphabetized language, act as a super mediator between thought and language. To Vygotsky, the most basic unit of analysis was the word.

Taking this into account, how then do we accommodate for the new media movement and the idea of multi-modal communications, i.e. music, art work, media, and visual arts, as ways of making meaning. Are the creatively constructed visual representations students produce any less effective at conveying thought? What about the issue of interpretation? Or assessment? Is it easier to “grade” an expository paper for spelling, mechanics, and content than it is to grade a web site or other multimedia project that includes elements like visuals and non-linear hypertext? How much meaning can we see in the latter, where implicit representation overshadows what can be more explicitly expressed in words? For our 21st century learners, is the word the most basic unit of meaning?

To my devote followers, I apologize for the delay! Maybe see you Saturday, but dinner soon?