Applying Semiotic Theory to Educational Technology by Denis Hlynka

The paper talks about the new changes in Educational Technology and the way Semiotics movement in education. It highlights some of the dimensions of applying semiotic techniques for reading texts.

Since the educational technology is described as a "systematic approach" to teaching and learning, and involved with communication, signs, codes, and meaning, semiotics studies fit within the educational technology endeavor.

Curriculum theory is used in education and now educational technology and semiotics has a potential to add to the field. Curriculum has three paradigms which is useful in locating what is taking place in educational praxis.

AECT's definition of Educational technology: a complex process involving people, procedures, ideas, devices, and organization for analyzing problems, and devising, implementing, evaluating, and managing solutions to those problems. So far, the role of technologies is to implement someone else's objectives.

Educational technology is not locked into technological paradigm. It also includes practical paradigm whereas semiotics falls within the critical paradigm.

Semiotic questions in educational technology

1. The concept of signs. Nature of interaction between signifier and signified (Saussure), interpretant (Pierce) provide starting points for and examination of and within educational products.

2. Structure of educational media as constructed "text". Just like literature, poetry, and film which use variety of methodologies, educational media and technology need to use new techniques to explicate underlying structure.

3. The role of the reader. The reader is in the triadic relationship among the author, the text, and the reader.

4. The Rhizome. The rhizomatic metaphor of Umberto Eco provides a useful extension and/or alternative to the cognitive view of learning.

5. Sytagmatic and paradigmatic analysis. Examines the texts in terms of horizontal and vertical dimensions.

The case of the limp French fries. This is an example of how a story can be interpreted differently by different cultures and people.

Limp fries may be considered a failure in some business; however, some people add ketchup (Americans), or gravy (Winnipeg, Manitoba) or white vinegar (Canadians) to make it limpy.

As readers of a text, story, or a presentation, we carry our culture, education and background and deconstruct (Derrida, 1976) the text in order to break the apparent meaning and reverse its meaning. By identifying a problem,  we bring a series of binary oppositions: limp/crispy, bad/good, unacceptable/acceptable.

The implications for curriculum and educational technology. We are not only allowed but encouraged to ask "Why?" "Post modern turn" no longer allows discontinuous, linear view of how things work. The traditional subject is de-centered.

While we are trying to uncover the structural ambiguity in any text, we use the author-text-reader paradigm.

1. The author/ text is the text generated and understood by the author.

2. The readers / text is the text is generated by the reader in his search to make sense of the author/text.

RO is you as reader of this presentation, here and now.

A1 represents the author of this presentation.

R1 represents the reader of the limp French fries

A2 represents the instructional developer as author

R2 represents the instructional developer as reader of the situation

P represents the situation, as read by the instructional developer.

While computers copy a file in a  floppy disc, similar reading an writing process occur. But the computers read and write everything literally. Humans read selectively. Semiotics brings out the very human characteristics and the constructed characteristics of message and meaning analysis.

As educational technology becomes more sophisticated, we need to familiarize ourselves with the complex relation of text to author to reader. As educational technologists we are all three.

 

ERIC Abstract: When education (teaching and/or learning) is considered to be an art, then it seems obvious that the methods of artistic inquiry would be appropriate analysis techniques. Such analysis seems to be rare or non-existent in educational technology. Semiotics, the theory of signs, provides one such set of methodologies for examining text. This presentation uses a variety of semiotic critical methods to explore the products and processes of educational technology as text. Semiotics is often divided into syntactic, semantics and pragmatics, and semiotic criticism can be based on just one or two of these divisions, or it can include all three. Syntactic criticism focuses on the structure of the work. These structures can be assessed simply in terms of the evolution of structural form (and the possibility of revolutionary change in form), or the forms can be evaluated in relation to the use of the work. Semantic criticism stresses meaning manifest in the work. While semantics are normally applied to textual materials, critics have also used semantics as a formal approach to visual literacy concepts. Pragmatics link antecedents (causes), features of the work, and results. Such inquiry can address unintended or unanticipated effects a work might have on its audience.