Discussion of how the nature and use of visual and verbal meaning-making systems vary across formats. Focuses on a comparative study of CD-ROMs and printed books dealing with scientific concepts in upper primary grades. Topics include linguistic and visual semiosis; the use of images; and meanings in images. (Author/LRW)

A study of the ways science students transformed their teacher's description of cells suggests that learning is multimodal, arising from the interaction of visual, verbal, and linguistic communication. It demonstrates that learning is a process of selection, adaptation, and transformation of information across communication systems. (Author/SK)

Examines arguments that language comes from innate, abstract knowledge of universal grammar that signers use to create new grammatical features. (12 references) (CK)

Discusses the use of analog drawing in an undergraduate interdisciplinary arts course. States that analog drawing uses lines as representation of portraits, problems, or emotions. Explains how analog drawing was used to depict social issues and reports on the interpretations of student drawings. (CMK)

Investigates students' writing based on theories of learning. Considers thinking as something that is built in the process of interactions and confrontations with the thoughts of others. Investigation is based on qualitative analysis of 24 student dissertations written by social workers training to become managers of community services in two…

Examines the process involved in doing a literature search and in writing a master's dissertation, as well as the progress made with regard to a new research field undertaken during doctoral research. The first undertaking was initiated with interests but no fixed subject while the second started with a subject but little or no knowledge of the…

Reports on graduate students' perspectives of their learning experience using NUD.IST--computer-aided qualitative data analysis software--to make use of narrative data. Students' comments gathered from inside classes, class assignments, and course evaluations are highlighted (Author/VWL)

Discusses using visual representations of children to help pre- and in-service teachers reconsider the ways they, as adults, relate to children. Focuses on historical depictions of children, images of children from today, and the photographs Anne Geddes. (CMK)

Focuses on three devices (plan, analysis, and context) with which one can consider electronic mail. States that the inequality in "message contexts" (social, mental, and physical) is the problem in electronic mail communication. Offers implications for using semiotics with visual culture in education. (CMK)

This article explores the effects of certain discourses as they relate to sexual harassment in a Swedish higher education setting. Using a semiological perspective, the author analyzes notions of existence, range, prevention, and stability in order to demonstrate the way they aim at signifying a limited and, from a bureaucratic point of view,…

In multilingual Europe, visual discourse may function as a cross-culturally strategic form of communication, thanks in part to its perceptual and iconic availability. In this regard, we offer a social semiotic critique of a range of visual resources deployed in the official promotional texts of 30 of the 43 cities either nominated or competing for…

Some "drag-to-fit" solutions given by student teachers to three geometric construction problems in a dynamic geometry environment (DGE) are analysed. The responses of a group of experienced mathematics teachers to the question whether or not such solutions can be considered "legitimate" are then discussed. This raises fundamental questions…

In a discussion of the role of language in education, education is viewed as a semiotic apprenticeship, or opportunity to gain the cultural tools and practices for meaning-making in construction of knowledge. This process occurs through guided participation in discipline-based forms of inquiry. In this enterprise, language is seen as having a…

Designed to help practitioners become more familiar with the underpinnings, currents, pros and cons, and research studies produced by the critical-thinking movement in the United States, this special collection offers eight digests and three FAST (Focused Access to Selected Topics) annotated bibliographies concerning critical thinking at all…

An investigation of structural aspects of television messages focused on the interaction between structure and content in the creation of meaning. A preliminary study using quantitative data analyzed 137 television news stories from the commercial networks on the fighting in El Salvador to determine how structural elements were used by…