Networking constructionism and social
semiotics in order to investigate students’ bodily engagement with tasks in three-dimensional
space
Giorgos Psycharis, G.Psycharis@math.uoa.gr
Department of Mathematics, University of Athens, Greece
Candia Morgan, C.Morgan@ioe.ac.uk
Institute of Education, University of London, UK
Abstract
In this paper we aim to address the
problem of fragmentation of theoretical frameworks within the field of
mathematics education with technology while exploring the potential of turtle
metaphor for students’ meaningful engagement with angle in three-dimensional (3d)
space. We developed cross-case analyses of two experiments: the one took place
in the Greek context under a constructionist theoretical perspective and the
other one was conducted in the UK context under a social semiotic perspective.
The analysis indicates that the aforementioned method enhances our efficiency
to capture tacit aspects of theoretical frames which nevertheless have an
important bearing on analyses and knowledge emerging from the research
experiments.
Keywords
Turtle metaphor, angle, 3d space, constructionism,
social semiotics.
Introduction
The study of 3d objects (e.g.
angles, 3d shapes) is known to be an obstacle for many students beginning to
study 3d geometry. This is an area of mathematics in which students' informal
ways of experiencing shape and motion within the three-dimensional world around
them are excluded by the current teaching approaches in schools. Common
approaches within the school curriculum provide relatively limited forms of
experience, often relying almost exclusively on paper-based 2d representations
of 3d objects. In particular, we note issues identified by research in relation
to identification and operation with angles (Clements & Battista, 1992) and
coordination of the various facets of the angle embedded in the physical
contexts of corner, turn and slope (Mitchelmore & White, 2000). The
development of new modes of representation within specially designed
technological tools has generated further interest in the area of 3d geometry. As
for angle, one of the prime affordances of such tools is the multiple linked
representations designed to make different aspects of angular relations more
accessible and meaningful to students. For instance, Logo-based computational
settings integrate dynamic aspects of angle as turn with symbolic registers
provided by Logo within a differential geometrical system (Papert, 1980). Existing
research suggests that interaction with 2d Logo-based computational environments
can be a fruitful context to challenge students’ intuitions and ideas about
angle as turn come into play through the turtle metaphor (Magina & Hoyles,
1997, Kynigos, 1997). More specifically, these studies seemed to adopt a
body-syntonic approach to mathematics learning according to which construction
of mathematical meaning could be considered as interrelated with students’
sense and knowledge about their own bodies (Papert, 1980). This connection to
personal bodily knowledge is operationalised through ‘playing turtle’, either
literally by walking along a path or metaphorically in the imagination. In the
research reported in this paper the students worked with a digital medium
called MaLT (MachineLab Turtleworlds) which integrates a 3D Turtle Geometry,
driven by a specially designed version of Logo with variation tools for dynamic
manipulation of graphically represented mathematical objects (Kynigos et al.,
2009).
Our main research aim was to explore the
potential of MaLT as a context to investigate students’ construction of
meanings for angle in relation to 3d geometry. However, extension of Logo to 3d
space, which is close to our physical experience of the world, raises new
issues related to the extent to which the ‘playing turtle’ metaphor can be
adaptable and relevant in this context. Thus, it can be seen as an opportunity to
reconsider the role of bodily engagement in mathematics teaching and learning,
taking into account the recent research interest in the use of gestures in
mathematics education. Much of this has focused on the gestures used by
students, analysing the contribution made by gesture to learning and
mathematical meaning making (e.g. Radford, 2009). In considering gestures used
by teachers, studies have shown teachers and students making shared use of
gestures initiated by student communication efforts (Arzarello et al., 2009;
Maschietto & Bartolini Bussi, 2009) and teachers using deictic gestures as
mediating resources (Bjuland et al., 2009). Taking into account that bodily
engagement in general and gesture in particular constitute an interesting
characteristic when considering learnability of mathematics, here we report
research aiming at shedding light on the potential of turtle metaphor through
the use of MaLT to facilitate students’ meaningful engagement with angle in 3d
space. Yet, it seems difficult to really appreciate this potential, since it is
needed to take into account the visions provided by specific theoretical frameworks
in technology enhanced mathematics, and because of the fragmented character of
these frameworks (Artigue, 2009).
Our aim in this paper is to combat
fragmentation, trying to connect visions based on different theoretical
perspectives. We have chosen the metaphor of networking theoretical frameworks
and the idea of combining and coordinating frameworks “for the sake of a
practical problem” (Prediger et al., 2008 p.172). We draw on data from an
experimental teaching programme, conducted as part of the ReMath project (Representing
Mathematics with Digital Media, European Commission FP 6, IST4-26751). More in particular, we reflect on the
role played by theoretical frames in two teaching experiments designed and
implemented with MaLT by two research teams working in different national and
didactic contexts under different theoretical orientations. The first one was
conducted in the Greek context by the University of
Athens Educational Technology Lab (ETL) project partners under a constructionist theoretical perspective. The second one
took place in the UK context by the Institute of Education (IoE) project
partners through a social semiotic approach. The question we aim to tackle is:
what new insight about the potential of turtle metaphor through the use of MaLT
might be gained from contrasting different research studies carried out by
researchers working in different research and didactic contexts under different
theoretical perspectives? As a way to combine/coordinate the two frameworks we were
engaged in the task of developing cross-case analyses of the conducted pairs of
experiments, i.e. a unified associative/comparative description of two studies by
way of constructionism and social semiotics. We introduce briefly the main
ideas of the two frameworks and then we report on the teaching experiments. In
the analysis, we first highlight the elements of an analysis from each
theoretical perspective. Then, due to space availability, we demonstrate a
comparative commentary on the two analyses only from a constructionist point of
view.
Constructionism and multimodal social
semiotics
The main theoretical framework adopted by
the ETL team is constructionism (Papert, 1980, Harel & Papert, 1991). A fundamental construct of ETL’s constructionist perspective is situated
abstraction (Noss & Hoyles, 1996) that addresses the nature of concepts
and the way in which they are formed. According to this theoretical tool, abstraction is
seen as a process of layering meanings on each other, rather than as a way of
replacing one kind of meaning (concrete, referential) with another (abstract,
decontextualised). The idea is that students could web their own thinking by
communicating with and through the computational tools and shaping them to fit
their own purposes, including the need to communicate with others. In the ETL
view, situated abstraction can be seen as a physical/intellectual context
providing new resources for the learners to (re)think-in-progress while
exploiting the available tools to move the focus of their attention onto new
objects and relationships within the setting, while maintaining their
connections with existing ones (Noss et al., 1997). ETL used MaLT as a means to
engage students in making connections between static and dynamic contexts for
experiencing angle in 3d space.
The primary theoretical framework adopted
by the IoE team is multimodal social semiotics (Kress et al., 2001). Although
originating in linguistics, this theoretical framework challenges the primacy
of language as a means of communication and meaning making, highlighting the
different potentials for meaning offered by different modes of communication and
various available semiotic systems (O'Halloran, 2005). Multi-modal and
multi-semiotic environments allow participants many opportunities for making
meanings with the representations available to them and choices about the most
apt representations to employ in order to communicate their desired meanings.
As for mathematical communication, IoE team adopts a perspective which recognises
the multimodal nature of communication and the importance of studying the
contributions made by different modes of communication and representation. Kress
et al.’s (2001) multimodal analysis of communication in science classrooms
shows teachers and students making use of a “complex ensemble” of modes,
including gesture alongside speech, writing, images, etc. In this vein, IoE
team views learning mathematics as learning to participate in specialised
mathematical forms of discourse which includes recognition of how the
specialised discourse is distinct from others, including the everyday. The
objective guiding the IoE research was to investigate the meanings students
made for angle in relation to 3d geometry through their semiotic activity in
the context of working with multiple modalities of resources.
The computer environment

|
Figure 1: A rectangle in MaLT. |
MaLT (Kynigos
et al., 2009) is a programmable environment designed to extend Turtle Geometry
to 3d. It consists of three interconnected components (see Figure 1): the Turtle
Scene (TS), the Logo Editor (LE) and the Variation Tools. The available version
of Logo provides an extension of Logo commands in 3d space including two new
types of turtle turns: ‘UPPITCH/DOWNPITCH n degrees’ (‘up/dp n’) which pitches
the turtle’s nose up and down on a plane perpendicular to the one defined by
right-left turns and ‘LEFTROLL/RIGHTROLL n degrees’ (‘lr/rr n’) which moves the
turtle around its own axis. MaLT provides variation tools which afford dynamic
manipulation of variable values. Figure 1 shows the Uni-dimensional Variation Tool
(1dVT) whose main part consists of ‘number-line’-like sliders (see Figure 1),
each corresponding to one of the variables used in a Logo procedure.
Methodology
The study was
conducted as part of a programme of ‘cross-experimentation’ (Artigue, 2009) in
which the designers of the software (in this case ETL) and another ‘alien’
research team (in this case the IoE team) designed and conducted separate teaching
experiments in their local contexts.
The ETL experiment
took place in a secondary school with one class of twenty 7th grade
students (13 year-old) and one experimenting teacher who acted also as a
researcher. The class had eighteen teaching sessions in all with the
experimenting teacher over two months. The pedagogical plan aimed at engaging
students in knowledge building activity with some degree of autonomy
independently of the standard curriculum and, indeed, deliberately by-passing
traditional teaching approaches. Task 1 engaged students in developing their 3d sense of motion (i.e. simulating the take-off
and the landing of an aircraft in MaLT with
the use of a concrete model of an aeroplane). In the
next three tasks angle was approached through the simulation of 3d geometrical objects which involve turning often encountered in everyday
physical angle situations. In particular, in task 2
students were asked to construct rectangles in at least two different planes of
the TS simulating the windows of a virtual room. In tasks 3 and 4 students were
asked to develop or to correct parametric procedures so as to simulate the
opening and closing of a door (task 3) and a revolving door (task 4). In classroom observation a participant
observation methodology was adopted.
The main corpus of data included video-recorded observational data,
researchers’ observational notes as well as the sorting and archiving of the
corpus of students’ work on and off computer. In
analyzing the data we looked for episodes where meanings related to the
visualisation and conceptualisation of the notion of angle in the simulated 3d
geometrical space were expressed by the students. In most cases (e.g. episodes
involving actors’ bodily engagement), we base our analysis on the joint study
of the transcribed interactions with the available video recordings.
The IoE experiment was conducted in a state
secondary school in London with a Year 8 class (aged 12-13 years). The students
had no previous experience with MaLT or other forms of Logo. The IoE
pedagogical plan was designed to engage students with representations of 3d
shape through designing and constructing a virtual building that would be of
use to the school or wider community (e.g. a sports hall). The IoE tasks were
similar to those developed by ETL but there were three distinct contextual differences:
(a) the IoE team used a range of both traditional and innovative
representations (e.g. students’ use of multilink to reconstruct buildings from
isometric drawings or to construct buildings through the use of plans and
elevations); (b) the educational goals of the tasks remained clearly within the
standard curriculum; (c) the students involved were marginalised within the
school and broader educational system and had many difficulties – both social
and mathematical – engaging with the planned activities. A sequence of nine
lessons was taught collaboratively by the class teacher, the researchers and a
student teacher attached to the class. In each lesson a video record was made,
focusing on the teacher or researcher during whole class interaction and on a
selected student or group of students during individual or group tasks. The
video aimed to capture gestures and the various visual and physical resources
available, including the computer screen when in use. Episodes in which use of
multiple semiotic modes was evident were selected for transcription (see Morgan
& Alshwaikh, 2011 for more details).
Bodily engagement through gestures
One common
theme of the two analyses concerned the students’ and/or teachers’/researchers’
use of gestures that emerged during the implementation of tasks in the
classroom. One significant type of gesture was a set of stereotyped hand and
arm movements, often associated with use of the terms turn, pitch and roll and the associated Logo instructions (see Figure 2). They may
be considered iconic gestures (Roth, 2001), in that each bears a visual
resemblance to the anticipated trajectory of an object moving in 3d space.
ETL analysis: Gestures scaffolding meaning
generation for angle in 3d space
Bodily
engagement in the Athens experiment was related to the students' informal or
spontaneous use of iconic gestures. It thus constituted one aspect of the ETL
analysis which emerged as a coherent part of the students’ construction of
meanings for angle in 3d space interrelated with their attempts to describe the
turtle’s navigation as well as to conceptualise the role of 2d representations
in forming angular relationships in 3d space. In the next episode the students’
use of gestures appeared as part of their struggle to understand the ways by
which the combination of the new turning commands in the Logo language could
affect the manipulation of a 2d geometrical figure so as to construct the
simulation of a door. We note that the episode took place before students were
asked by the researchers to construct a door simulation which constitutes one
activity of the ETL pedagogical plan (task 3). Initially Group B students constructed
a rectangle with three variables on the horizontal ‘ground plane’ (Table 1,
Procedure 1). Having recognised the way in which the up(90) command affected
the position and the orientation of the turtle, they inserted the command
up(90) at the beginning of the respective procedure and constructed the same rectangle
on the ‘screen plane’ which -in mathematical terms- is perpendicular to the
‘ground plane’ (Table 1, Procedure 2).
to rect :a :b :c
fd(:a)
rt(:c)
fd(:b)
rt(:c)
fd(:a)
rt(:c)
fd(:b)
rt(:c)
end |
to rect :a :b :c
up(90)
fd(:a)
rt(:c)
fd(:b)
rt(:c)
fd(:a)
rt(:c)
fd(:b)
rt(:c)
end |
to rect :a :b :c :d
up(:d)
fd(:a)
rt(:c)
fd(:b)
rt(:c)
fd(:a)
rt(:c)
fd(:b)
rt(:c)
end |
Procedure 1 |
Procedure 2 |
Procedure 3 |
Table 1: Logo procedures
for rectangles. |
When trying to concretise the new position
of the rectangle in 3d space one student used her hands so as to mimic the
movement of the turtle from the surface to the ‘screen plane’ (Figure 3).
R: What happened to the turtle with up(90)?
S1: [Whole rt arm horizontal P0, hand moves up PUP 90°] It [i.e. the
turtle] took it [i.e. the rectangle] that way.
R: If we put 45, what would have happened?
S1: [rt hand moves up PUP 45°] It [i.e. the rectangle] would be
nearly in the middle.
R: If we put 50;
S1: Ok, not in the middle. [rt hand moves up PUP a bit more] A bit
more than that.
The dynamic character of student’s bodily
engagement in the simulation challenged both of them to try to visualize it on
the screen. S1’s iconic gesture here signified the actual
move of the recrangle in 3d space. At that time, this kind of gesture seemed to provide a basis for S1 to make sense of the type
of turtle move in 3d space, to consider it as varied and to link it to the
relevant Logo command (uppitch). So, S1 afterwards had the idea to replace the
value 90 in the command up(90) (Table 1, Procedure 2) with a new variable :d to
see what would happen. Then, dragging on the slider of the variable (:d) in
1dVT had the effect of the figure dynamically moving upwards – downwards
visualising in that way the dynamic move of the rectangle in different planesas
well as the preceding uppitch-downpitch gestures made by S1.

|
Figure
3 |
S1: [Moving the slider (:d)] Look! If we move it [i.e. the slider
(:d)] upwards it [i.e. the rectangle] raises ... If we move it [i.e. the
slider] downwards it descends.
In the evolution of the episode the
students had the idea to insert in the procedure a roll command so as to
simulate the continuous move of a door. The sequence of what happened next is
as follows. Initially one of the students substituted the command up(:d)
(Procedure 3) with one of the roll commands (rr :d). Moving the slider (:d)
then she realized that the direction of the axis of rotation was perpendicular
to the screen plane (‘it turns as a wheel’ she said) (Fig. 4, on the
left).
|

|
Figure
4: A ‘rolling’ rectangle (left) and a video-cassette as ‘rectangle’ (right). |
At this phase students continued to ‘play
turtle’ to identify the type and the sequence of the turtle turns which would
result in the desired simulation. In doing so, they faced difficulties in
imagining -and thus mimicking- in which way the turtle ‘moves’ the rectangle in
different positions and directions in 3d space. They found efficient to
rehearse the move of the rectangle with the use of a concrete 3d object, in
this case a video-cassette, so as to visualise the change of planes of the
rectangle as a result of the change of the initial position of the turtle in 3d
space (Fig. 4, on the right). So, students realized that initially the
rectangle needs to be raised up and then turned (‘rolled’) on the right.
Modifying accordingly the Procedure 3 students used one more variable in the
command rr(:e) that was inserted after the initial command up(:d). They
subsequently achieved to simulate the ‘opening-closing’ door (Fig. 1) by
dragging the slider (:e) on the 1dVT after selecting the value 90 for :d.
The above
episodes indicate the conceptualisation of angle as a spatial visualisation entity
interrelated with move through different planes ‘inside’ the TS. We see a dynamic aspect in students’ bodily engagement in these
episodes. While ‘playing turtle’ with the use of hands and/or the cassette, the
students defined the dynamic manipulation of the rectangle by using position
and heading of the turtle which seemed to ‘coincide’ with the rectangle (i.e.
the turtle appears in some way to ‘carry’ the rectangle). Actually, the students oscillated between two frames of reference:
(a) the world frame: defined in terms of the fixed directions ‘up’ and ‘down’
and (b) the vehicle frame: typically associated with the orientation of a
moving entity, here the turtle. In the initial construction on the ‘ground
plane’ the vehicle frame of reference coincides with the world frame of
reference. In other words, the ‘up’ in relation to the turtle’s position
coincides with the ‘up’ of the simulated 3d space. Thus the students’ gestures
at that time integrated both iconic and deictic features: they command the
turtle to move ‘upwards’ to the ‘screen plane’ and indicated this through S1’s gesture
showing also the ‘up’ direction in the everyday world. Here the desired drawing
concerning the transition of the designed rectangle to the ‘screen plane’ coincides
to the required type of turtle turn. At the same time, the students enacted
certain situated abstractions concerning the position of the rectangle in 3d
space in relation to the turtle’s continuous turning and finally they were able
to express these dynamic movements/turns with the use of variables. Thus,
students were able to coordinate turtle’s/rectangle’s turning in the 3d space with
the formal (Logo) notation and the dynamic manipulation provided by the
available tools. We highlight the episodes in order to show the evolution of students’
purposeful use of the available tools as situated in a larger process of abstracting
angle as a spatial visualization concept within the setting by making connections
between existing and emergent views of angle in 3d space.
IoE analysis: Imag(in)ing 3d movement
with gesture
As we started to view the video data
collected during the London experiment, it was noticeable that the teachers and
researchers made extensive use of iconic gestures in an apparent attempt to
support students’ planning and execution of constructions. This set of gestures
constituted a new semiotic system, linked with, but not identical to, both the
linguistic description of movement and the symbolic system of Logo. Students
also made use of these and other gestures to support their communication about
turtle movement. Although the students used ‘these’ gestures to indicate that
their hand and arm movements resembled those used by the teachers/researchers,
we believe, as will become apparent, that the students made use of them in
different ways, thus construing different meanings.
Episode
1: In the introductory session with MaLT, one of the research team
introduced the notion of turtle movement using a toy aeroplane (i.e. simulation
of the plane taking off). While navigating the aeroplane, the teacher
accompanied the physical movement of the hand/aeroplane with a verbal
description, using and stressing the terms pitch, roll and turn in synchrony
with the associated gestures. In a later lesson, recognising that some students
were still having difficulty distinguishing between these different kinds of
turn, the class teacher used her arm and hand to act out the role of the turtle
drawing a ‘door’ under instruction from the class while a researcher entered
the Logo instructions into a computer, displaying the resulting turtle path on
a large screen. The teacher was careful to follow the conventions of the
gesture system in order to emphasise the relative nature of turtle movement.
Thus, for example, she turned her hand in a down pitch gesture when given the
instruction to go down, even though this resulted in her hand pointing
horizontally as in Figure 5. This resulted in conflict for students between
their intended outcome and the visual feedback provided, leading to rapid
self-correction of the Logo instructions.
Episode 2. Student T, having constructed one
rectangular wall, was trying to construct a second wall perpendicular to the
first. She explained what she was trying to draw using language and gesture.
1 |
here |
whole rt arm vertical P0, palm facing away from
body, moves up in direction of fingers |

|
2 |
turn here |
TR, arm moved in direction of fingers (maintaining
TR position) |

|
3 |
turn here |
attempt to move rt hand TR again (too difficult?) |

|
4 |
|
switch to lt hand, arm horizontal pointing rt, hand
PDN (fingers pointing down) |

|
5 |
turn here |
moves forearm clockwise, hand still PDN (fingers
pointing left) |

|
6 |
but I want it to come forward |
turns arm (awkwardly) so that, hand still in PDN
position, fingers point towards body |
|
Table 2: T imagines a wall.
The switch (lines 3-4) between use of right and left hands appears
to be a response to the physical difficulty of achieving the desired position
with the right hand. We consider what remains the same and what is changed with
this switch of hand. The switch allows T to maintain the direction in which the
fingers are pointing (down). This may be taken to represent the turtle heading
within the vertical plane parallel to the screen. However, in switching arms,
she changes the relationship between arm and hand from a turn gesture to
a pitch gesture. We use turn and pitch within the
conventions set up by the teachers/researchers and the Logo language, not to suggest
that T associates her gestures with these terms. On the contrary, she does not
appear to attach any significance to the distinction, focusing solely on the
position of her hand and the direction in which her fingers are pointing in
order to describe the intended turtle movement. While she is to some extent
‘playing turtle’ with her hand, she is defining the turtle’s movements by using
position and heading at the corners of her imaginary wall rather than by using
turn and distance as required by the Logo language. The use of the turn and
pitch gestures is thus not supporting her move into using Logo code and may
indeed have made her communication with teachers/researchers less effective.
In considering
the difference between the ways in which teachers/researchers and students were
using the ‘same’ gestures, we distinguish between the two notions of imaging and imagining. We define imaging as using an iconic gesture to
create an image of the construction of the turtle path. The movement of the
hand mimics the movement of the turtle: the forearm is held parallel to the
current heading of the turtle and the hand is moved to define the next heading.
Thus the gesture indicating ‘up pitch’ is always relative to the current
heading of the turtle. In episode 1, the teacher/researcher gestures were
imaging the process of construction of the turtle path. In contrast, in episode
2 student T used apparently similar hand movements to construct a very
different effect. For her, the relationship between forearm and hand did not
appear to have significance, as she was willing to substitute a pitch down
gesture with her left hand for a turn right gesture with her right hand. We
characterise her use of gesture as imagining, referring to her mental
image of the desired outcome of turtle drawing. Such use appears to have both
iconic and deictic characteristics. In this episode, as in several other
episodes of student gesture within the data set, the gesture points to the
desired direction of movement in order to draw the desired outcome, rather than
mimicking the required type of turn. Thus, for example, a movement in the ‘up’
direction (within the plane of the screen) might be indicated by use of the
spoken word up accompanied by a ‘pitch down’ gesture. While it might appear at
first sight that students adopted the specialised gestures employed by the
teachers/researchers, the students’ use and interpretation of these gestures
may be closer to the resources of everyday discourse than to those of the MaLT microworld
(Morgan & Alshwaikh, in press). The extra leap of imagination required to
‘play turtle’ as if in control of an acrobatic aircraft or perhaps in deep
water with highly developed underwater manoeuvrability may be too great for
genuine body syntonicity.
Commentary on the two analyses from a constructionist
perspective
Comparing the ways in which both teams
analysed the students' use and interpretation of gestures to support their
communication about turtle movement reveals distinct differences. IoE interest
in gesture arose from concerns about the ways in which students might make use
of new semiotic resources offered to them by teachers/researchers and about the
coordination of different semiotic systems. The IoE analysis highlighted differences
in the meanings associated with the gestures by teachers/researchers and the
students while ‘playing turtle’. Teachers and
researchers used specialised hand gestures to communicate with students about
3d movement. Students used the ‘same’ gestures but to communicate different
meanings in relation to turtle movement. Whereas the imaging by
teachers/researchers mimicked turtle movement in a kind of ‘playing turtle’
action, student use of gesture to imagine the outcome of the movement
seems closer to deixis, pointing in the direction of movement from a viewpoint
outside the turtle. Thus, IoE researchers focused on
the relationships between the formal set of gestures related to Logo terms as
used by teachers/researchers and by students while the relevance and importance
of students' informal or spontaneous use of gesture has not been a focus of
their attention in their study. Although it is apparent from the IoE analysis
that the student engaging in the task did generate meanings about the notion of
angle in 3d space, IoE chose to focus on the distance –actual and conceptual-
between the students and teacher/researcher use of hand gestures and that the
‘playing turtle’ metaphor did not easily transfer into 3d context.
The ETL team’s interest in gesture emerged
as part of the teams’ research focus on the students’ use of the available
representations of MaLT to construct meanings for angle in 3d space. Under this
perspective the ETL team aimed to address the relevance and importance of
students' informal and/or spontaneous use of gesture as part of their attempts
to achieve their goals in the given setting (e.g. simulating the
opening-closing of a door). Thus, the team focused on how the available
representations in MaLT served as a resourse for the students to challenge
their engagement with the tasks –which involved the use of their bodies or
other objects- to construct meanings for angle in 3d space. The meaning
generation process in both the IoE and ETL experiment is perceived by ETL as
being in close relation to the students’ hand gestures which most of the times
were mimicking turtle movement in a kind of ‘playing turtle’ action. From the
ETL perspective the episode 2 provided by the IoE team would have beeen
analysed as part of the students’ attempts to conceptualise angle through a specific
geometrical construction (i.e. vertical ‘walls’). For analysing the same
episode, the ETL team would have been interested in identifying what was
visualised on the screen and in which ways gesturing affected the subsquent
students’ experimentation to complete or explore the current geometrical
construction with the available tools as well as meaning generation for angle.
Conclusion
At the level of networking constructionism
and social semiotics, the above comparative description of two analyses shows
how such a process may reveal tacit aspects of theoretical frames which
nevertheless have an important bearing on analyses and knowledge emerging from
the respective research experiments. How for instance the two teams differing
perceptions of the students’ active engagement in gesturing influenced the
resulting analyses concerning meaning generation. A general overview of the commentary
reveals that while the constructionist approach of ETL seems to illustrate the
students’ abstractions providing insight into the mutual shaping of
student/computer interaction (involving communication between the
participants), the social semiotics perspective of IoE seems to illustrate the
complexity of communication patterns that may affect the construction of meaning.
This brings evidence that by combining constructionism with social semiotics,
cross-analysis captures more efficiently the potential of MaLT as compared to
the use of a single framework specific to a particular experiment. This is
clearly a first step towards coordinating these approaches in order to get an
integrated framework to analyse the potential of turtle metaphor into 3d context.
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