Abstract:

This research reports on the findings from a PhD study, which explores the use of multimodal screencasts to teach disciplinary knowledge in a higher education context. It extends an Inquiry Graphics (IG) analytical framework (Lackovic, 2020) to examine screencasts crafted by lecturers to explain threshold or core concepts within their discipline. Approaching the research from a Peircean semiotic tradition, the study adopts an Edusemiotic perspective, which is the study of signs in an educational context.

Qualitative interviews were conducted with lecturers using video elicitation as a method of inquiry, while the IG framework provided an opportunity to explore the underlying assumptions about how content is presented within the screencast. Following this, a Multimodal Inquiry (MMI) framework was developed to explore graphic-pictorial, linguistic, aural, and spatial-design modes and to analyse the semiotic organisation of the screencasts. An in-depth analysis of a selection of screencasts examined the semiotic weighting of modes for their meaning-making potential and the potential for transduction across different modes.

An awareness of the semiotic dimensions of each mode was revealed using the IG analysis activity with lecturers, while the MMI provided a framework to analyse the semiotic purpose of the graphic- pictorial elements, which emerged primarily as unprobed representations of the chosen concept. Specific linguistic choices were revealed in the conceptualisation of the concept, while prosodic features of the voice, along with music in some cases, were often used intentionally by the lecturer to communicate the desired message. The enactment of software features in the design of the screencast indicated lecturers’ embodied cognition of multimedia design principles and their digital fluency.

This presentation will provide an insight into how the MMI framework might be used as a teaching tool to unpack the plurality of representations of disciplinary concepts, and develop students' critical media literacy.

Keywords:

Multimodality, inquiry graphics, semiotics, critical media literacy, teaching.