The Cosmos Project: a journey to the stars

There seems to be some agreement that ‘science for all’ does not necessarily mean ‘one size fits all’ (Lynch, 2001). Teaching scientific disciplines in schools has been traditionally concerned with delivering science as a product with a main focus on its conceptual structure. In our research we propose to concentrate on science as a process, putting it in the societal context. We introduce the Cosmos project that aims to explore the use of narrative and performative languages, as well as new media technologies in relation to delivering complex scientific topics to pre-school children aged three to six. We created a theatrical piece and developed a set of new interactive preschool activities that enabled young learners to participate and contribute to their learning through physical engagement enhanced by modern technologies. This paper presents a critical discussion about the recent tendencies in teaching science to young learners; the rationale for the Cosmos project and its main research objectives. It will conclude with evaluation of the pre- and postperformance educational activities

Directional adposition use in English, Swedish and Finnish

Directional adpositions such as to the left of describe where a Figure is in relation to a Ground. English and Swedish directional adpositions refer to the location of a Figure in relation to a Ground, whether both are static or in motion. In contrast, the Finnish directional adpositions edellä (in front of) and jäljessä (behind) solely describe the location of a moving Figure in relation to a moving Ground (Nikanne, 2003). When using directional adpositions, a frame of reference must be assumed for interpreting the meaning of directional adpositions. For example, the meaning of to the left of in English can be based on a relative (speaker or listener based) reference frame or an intrinsic (object based) reference frame (Levinson, 1996). When a Figure and a Ground are both in motion, it is possible for a Figure to be described as being behind or in front of the Ground, even if neither have intrinsic features. As shown by Walker (in preparation), there are good reasons to assume that in the latter case a motion based reference frame is involved. This means that if Finnish speakers would use edellä (in front of) and jäljessä (behind) more frequently in situations where both the Figure and Ground are in motion, a difference in reference frame use between Finnish on one hand and English and Swedish on the other could be expected. We asked native English, Swedish and Finnish speakers’ to select adpositions from a language specific list to describe the location of a Figure relative to a Ground when both were shown to be moving on a computer screen. We were interested in any differences between Finnish, English and Swedish speakers. All languages showed a predominant use of directional spatial adpositions referring to the lexical concepts TO THE LEFT OF, TO THE RIGHT OF, ABOVE and BELOW. There were no differences between the languages in directional adpositions use or reference frame use, including reference frame use based on motion. We conclude that despite differences in the grammars of the languages involved, and potential differences in reference frame system use, the three languages investigated encode Figure location in relation to Ground location in a similar way when both are in motion. Levinson, S. C. (1996). Frames of reference and Molyneux’s question: Crosslingiuistic evidence. In P. Bloom, M.A. Peterson, L. Nadel & M.F. Garrett (Eds.) Language and Space (pp.109-170). Massachusetts: MIT Press. Nikanne, U. (2003). How Finnish postpositions see the axis system. In E. van der Zee & J. Slack (Eds.), Representing direction in language and space. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Walker, C. (in preparation). Motion encoding in language, the use of spatial locatives in a motion context. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Lincoln, Lincoln. United Kingdo

Kirjandushariduse digitaliseerumine kultuurilise autokommunikatsiooni kontekstis

Väitekirja elektrooniline versioon ei sisalda publikatsiooneVaatamata levinud arvamusele on noorte inimeste kirjanduselu aktiivsem kui kunagi varem. Kirjandusega suheldakse lihtsalt viisidel, mis ei pruugi alati laiemat tunnustamist leida. Digiajastul hõlmab kirjandusharidus erinevates meediumites loodud metatekstide mitmekesises võrgustikus navigeerimist ja nende pinnalt terviku integreerimist. Algtekstide esialgsel kujul lugemise asemel hangitakse selle kohta teadmisi nt ekraniseeringute, meemide, videomängude või isegi YouTube’i kommentaaride vahendusel. Verbaalsele, lineaarsele ja üksikautorluses trükiraamatule vastukaaluks on digitaalsed tekstid multimodaalsed, mittelineaarsed ja koosloomelised. Tekstide kvantitatiivsete ja kvalitatiivsete omaduste muutuste kõrval on digitaliseerumine kaasa toonud nihked ka kirjandusharidust puudutavates sotsiaalsetes suhetes - loojad ja vastuvõtjad segunevad, kõike teadvatest õpetajatest saavad juhendajad iseseisvas teadmiste omandamise protsessis. Sellist olukorda võib vaadelda kultuurilise plahvatushetkena, kuid käesolev töö keskendub vastasküljele -- pidevale muutusele. Väitekiri käsitleb kirjandushariduse muutumist erinevate nurkade alt. Esiteks vaadeldakse eelnimetatud metatekstide rakendatavust kirjanduse õpetamisel. Teiseks sünteesitakse Tartu-Moskva semiootikakoolkonna ning multimodaalsuse uuringuid analüüsimaks kirjandusharidust nii kultuurilise autokommunikatsiooni kontekstis kui läbi sotsiaalsete suhete prisma. Viimaseks pakutakse välja pedagoogilisi ja tehnoloogilisi lahendusi, et ületada formaalse kirjandushariduse ja igapäevaste digitaalsete praktikate vahelist lõhet. Väitekirjas lähenetakse uurimisküsimustele eksperimentaalselt ning töö aluseks olev empiiriline materjal pärineb autori osalusel valminud digitaalselt õppeplatvormilt Haridus Ekraanil ja selle kasutamiskogemustest.Despite the common concern, young people today are engaging with literature more than ever, albeit in the ways that are not always recognized. Literary education in the digital age implies navigating a heterogeneous world of metatexts in different media and integrating them into a coherent whole. Rather than reading the original versions of literary texts, people often gain information from elsewhere, i.e. by watching film adaptations, scrolling through memes, playing video games, or reading comments on Youtube. In contrast to printed books that are mostly verbal, linear and created by a single author, digital texts are becoming increasingly multimodal, non-linear and collaborative. Apart from a qualitative and quantitative change in the nature of texts, digitalization entails a shift in social relations: producers and consumers merge into prosumers, while teachers turn into knowledge facilitators rather than all-knowing others. While the current situation can be certainly considered as a moment of explosion, this work mostly focuses on its opposite – the stage of gradual development. The thesis explores the transformation of literary education from different angles. At first, it discusses the applicability of different forms of texts and practices to teaching literature, such as digital and film adaptations, games, and project development workshops. Secondly, it synthesizes the ideas of the Tartu-Moscow Semiotic School and the multimodal approach, in order to analyze literary education in the context of cultural autocommunication as well as through the prism of social relations. Finally, it suggests pedagogical and technological solutions for bridging the gap between formal literary education and vernacular digital practices. The thesis aims to answer research questions by means of experimentation rather than by a theoretical argument: the findings are based on the empirical material gathered while working on the Education on Screen project.https://www.ester.ee/record=b538322

Digital books in literary education: a semiotic approach to analysis

http://www.ester.ee/record=b4715970*es

Analyzing Digital Literacy Demands, Practices, and Discourses within a Library Computer Programming Club for Children

abstract: Among researchers, educators, and other stakeholders in literacy education, there has been a growing emphasis on developing literacy pedagogies that are more responsive to the ways young people experience literacy in their everyday lives, which often make use of digital media and other technologies for exchanging meaning. This dissertation project sought to explore the nature of these digital-age literacies in the context of children learning through and about new technologies. Conducting a year-long, multimethod observational study of an out-of-school library-based program designed to engage students in self-directed learning around the domain of computer programming, this project was framed around an analysis of digital-age literacies in design, discourse, and practice. To address each of these areas, the project developed a methodology grounded in interpretive, naturalistic, and participant-observation methodologies in collaboration with a local library Code Club in a metropolitan area of the Southwestern U.S between September 2016 and December 2017. Participants in the project included a total of 47 students aged 8-14, 3 librarians, and 3 parents. Data sources for the project included (1) artifactual data, such as the designed interfaces of the online platforms students regularly engaged with, (2) observational data such as protocol-based field notes taken during and after each Code Club meeting, and (3) interview data, collected during qualitative interviews with students, parents, and library facilitators outside the program. These data sources were analyzed through a multi-method interpretive framework, including the multimodal analysis of digital artifacts, qualitative coding, and discourse analysis. The findings of the project illustrate the multidimensional nature of digital-age literacy experiences as they are rendered “on the screen” at the content level, “behind the screen” at the procedural level, and “beyond the screen” at the contextual level. The project contributes to the literature on literacy education by taking an multi-method, interdisciplinary approach to expand analytical perspectives on digital media and literacy in a digital age, while also providing an empirical account of this approach in a community-embedded context of implementation.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Learning, Literacies and Technologies 201

Learning to Learn in a Digital Context: Language Learning Webtasks for an Autonomising “Wreading” Competence

In this paper we aim to analyse how language learning tasks can help students develop an autonomising wreading competence, i.e. a competence involving the ability to read online texts and to construct one’s own text by traversing sites. This competence involves different types of skills: technical skills of information elaboration and management, linguistic and semiotic skills, cognitive skills, and metacognitive skills. We consider, therefore, that the development of the wreading competence calls for a new approach to language learning, based on the joint development of autonomous learning and new literacies. Although new technologies provide quality resources and tools for teachers to design pedagogical environments which meet the principles of learner autonomy, ICT does not foster by itself autonomous learning (Villanueva, 2006). The promotion of learner autonomy requires carefully designed learning tasks aiming at a long-life learning process. The purpose of this paper is to put forward criteria for the design of language learning cybertasks that promote the development of new literacies applied to language learning autonom

Experimental Semiotics: A Review

In the last few years a new line of research has appeared in the literature. This line of research, which may be referred to as experimental semiotics (ES; Galantucci, 2009; Galantucci and Garrod, 2010), focuses on the experimental investigation of novel forms of human communication. In this review we will (a) situate ES in its conceptual context, (b) illustrate the main varieties of studies thus far conducted by experimental semioticians, (c) illustrate three main themes of investigation which have emerged within this line of research, and (d) consider implications of this work for cognitive neuroscience

Culture as education: From transmediality to transdisciplinary pedagogy

For the past three years, the Transmedia Research Group at the Department of Semiotics, University of Tartu, has been developing open access online materials for supporting the teaching of humanities-related subjects in Estonian- and Russianlanguage secondary schools. This paper maps the theoretical and conceptual starting points of these materials. The overarching goal of the educational platforms is to support cultural coherence and autocommunication by cultivating literacies necessary for holding meaningful dialogues with cultural heritage. To achieve the goal, the authors have been seeking ways of purposeful harnessing of transmedial, crossmedial and other tools offered by the contemporary digital communication space. We have started with an understanding of culture as education – a model which is grounded in cultural semiotics and highlights the role of cultural experience and cultural self-description in learning literacies. From these premises we proceed to explicating the value of a transdisciplinary pedagogy for methodical translation of the theoretical concepts into practical solutions in teaching and learning culture