Abstract
The relationship between sign systems and the meaning potentials and affordances of multimodal technologies has received increasing attention in research on digital technology use in education. Students constantly adhere to and engage with semiotic shifts in sign systems when they work with digital technologies for learning purposes. This study explores students’ use of digital technologies in Swedish schools. We trace the way semiotic activity systems and cognitive processes are transformed and realized when students engage with shifts in sign systems into various meaning-making strategies. Methodologically, the study is based on a data set of video recordings, interviews, and observations of classroom practice in three primary schools. An analysis that draws on quantitative ethnography was applied to process and analyse the data. The main findings revealed that sign systems prompted by the technologies and the social space compete to some extent for students’ attention, and that technology design is monotonously rendering lower levels of mediation. These findings show that various sign system prompts need to be balanced and streamlined to support students in their meaning-making. This article conveys the importance of understanding sign systems, as they are the most common resources for technology-assisted learning, and change the prerequisites for meaning-making.
Highlights
Digital technologies are commonly used for teaching and learning purposes in schools. many students are digitally proficient and use digital technologies on a daily basis, they are challenged when encountering technologies aimed to assist learning activities in the classroom, because different hardware and software configurations change the conditions for meaning-making [1]
We focus on how the semiotic shifts varied the semiotic activity system among the three students
We have explored how students’ meaning-making was transformed through their interpretations of and engagement with the symbolic sign system prompts available in the social space and through composite interfaces
Summary
Digital technologies are commonly used for teaching and learning purposes in schools. many students are digitally proficient and use digital technologies on a daily basis, they are challenged when encountering technologies aimed to assist learning activities in the classroom, because different hardware and software configurations change the conditions for meaning-making [1]. A sign is visualized with abstract connotations for developing thinking, and it must be interpreted based on those connotations This means that the tools’ and signs’ roles merge through symbolic signs in physically or virtually manifested representations [26,27] and relate to what Vygotsky [24] called “higher psychological function, or higher behaviour as referring to the combination of tool and sign in psychological activity” where the “internalization of culturally produced sign systems brings about behavioural transformations and forms the bridge between early and later forms of individual development” This means that the tools’ and signs’ roles merge through symbolic signs in physically or virtually manifested representations [26,27] and relate to what Vygotsky [24] called “higher psychological function, or higher behaviour as referring to the combination of tool and sign in psychological activity” where the “internalization of culturally produced sign systems brings about behavioural transformations and forms the bridge between early and later forms of individual development” (p. 7)
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