States that a video introducing a company to various audiences is a common genre of promotional material in Finland. Applies theories of both advertising and semiotics to analyze the first minute of a video produced for a Finnish company that manufactures log buildings and wraps its image around a concept of leisure. (PA)

Examined children's readings of wordless picture books to explore ways they assign meaning to visual signs and cues. Found that children used processes similar to those for reading print-based texts; constructing meaning using prior learning, attention to intertextual clues, multiple perspective taking, reliance upon story language and rituals;…

Analyzes two classroom episodes using a classroom mathematical practice together with students' diverse ways of contributing to its continual regeneration as the unit of analysis. Asserts that a classroom mathematical practice is composed of three interrelated types of norms: a normative purpose, normative standards of argumentation, and normative…

Applies Blumer's theory of symbolic interactionism to explore how normal children make meaning of their decision making world, both of their own acts and the labyrinthine world adults structure for them. Schema/narratives on friendship, sports, adults, and school reveal knowledge making strategies defined by immediate experiences and a capacity to…

Considers an interactive non-linear time approach, providing a personal reflection of one individual's learning time, reflective time, reconstructed meanings and personal reorganizations. Moves from experience as an English teacher to a reflective experience, to a current state of ongoing reorganization of the signs, indices, and symbols of what…

To support research indicating individuals with autism lack a theory of mind, an instructional videotape was created to make explicit principles and signs associated with belief-desire psychology that most children learn implicitly. Offered the videotape to children with autism to stimulate interest in other people, teach the analogy that thoughts…

Examines constructivism as an epistemological basis for the design and use of hypermedia systems in order to synergize the constructivist view of learning and the potentialities of hypermedia. Proposes a new conceptual framework for constructive hypermedia learning systems based on cognitive, semiotic, and social perspectives. (Contains 151…

This article reports research that attempts to characterize what is powerful about digital multimodal texts. Building from recent theoretical work on understanding the workings and implications of multimodal communication, the authors call for a continuing empirical investigation into the roles that digital multimodal texts play in real-world…

The article examines how infants are first permeated by culture. Building on Thibault (2000), semiogenesis is traced to the joint activity of primary intersubjectivity. Using an African example, analysis shows how--at 14 weeks--an infant already uses culturally specific indicators of "what a caregiver wants." Human predispositions and…

The paper draws on ethnographic data on children's game-playing in Khwezi Park outside Cape Town. This unsupervised, child-choreographed play is seen as a site of meaning-making and identity work where children draw on a range of resources and influences to take and make meaning. These resources for semiosis and interaction are multilingual and…

Makin and Jones Diaz (2002) suggest that young children's early literacy is most strongly supported when early childhood educators, children's families, and the wider community develop shared understandings about literacy--what counts, what is valued and validated, and whose voices are heard and whose voices are silent. Researchers such as Haas…

Background: Games centred approaches (GCA) such as TGfU, Game Sense, and Tactical Games are widely promoted as alternatives to traditional forms of teaching games within physical education. These approaches are promoted on the basis of their capacity to engage students in meaningful and enjoyable physical activity and to promote problem-solving…

This study aims to investigate the role of mediation in the learning process from a sociocultural perspective, activity theory in particular. This study was carried out in a primary English immersion school within the CCUEI Programs in Mainland China. Data were collected mainly through observations and interviews, which were then supplemented by…

Recent work integrating Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) with Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) forms a basis for systematizing action research in higher education. This basis strengthens what are often otherwise its methodological weaknesses, namely, the disconnection between analysis and subsequent plans for action and the…

The development of a 20-item semantic differential assessment instrument for measuring student attitudes toward the subject of chemistry is described (Attitude toward the Subject of Chemistry Inventory-ASCI). Instrument subscales and survey items pertain to interest and utility, anxiety, intellectual accessibility, emotional satisfaction, and…