Wilma worked as a Research Fellow with Professor Rose Luckin and Professor Carey Jewitt.

Thesis Title:

Lotman's Semiosphere: A systems thinking approach to students' meaning making with digital texts.

Research Summary:

My PhD†examines the relationship between technology and the contexts and cultures of the UK secondary school classroom as exemplified by students' meaning making practices with digital texts.

The research explores the impact of digital technologies on students' meaning making practices through the lens of semiosphere, a concept coined by the Russian semiotician Yuri Lotman as part of his work on the development of a semiotic theory of culture.

In this research, I apply a semiospheric lens to the analysis of students' meaning making practices in their understanding, negotiation, appropriation and dissemination of digital content across multiple contexts and cultures. The research uses a case study approach which focuses on the use of new media technologies (podcasting and wikis) in the secondary school ICT and Science classrooms. These case study examples are used to develop and elaborate a conceptual framework around the notion of 'semiosphere' and turn a semiospheric lens on the activity of knowledge construction in specific cultural settings. In doing so, the research seeks to illustrate how the semiospheric mapping of the contexts and cultures of the technology-mediated classroom facilitates a theory of 'explosive learning' by analysing the dynamic interactions of learners with the signs and sign systems 'in play' in and beyond the classroom as mediated by students' use of, and interactions with, digital technologies.

Research interests:

• Cultural Semiotics and Technology-Mediated Learning
• Participatory Design and Technology-Enhanced Learning
• Systems Thinking in Education
• Classroom Contexts and Cultures
• Qualitative Data Analysis

Past projects:

• Technology and Learning - Participatory Design Project
• Learner Generated Contexts
• LTU - ePortfolio evaluation
• Web 2.0 Technologies for Learning at Key Stages 3 and 4
• Learners in and out of school use of technologies
• NEXT-TELL

Teaching:

• Online MRes: Qualitative Data Analysis
• Online MRes: Researching The Field (Social Theory)

Editorial:

Editor: Qwerty: Journal of Technology and Culture - a journal of the Collaborative Knowledge Building Group

Lotman, J., Culture and Explosion (in press, 2009), (translated by W. Clark), Approaches to Applied Semiotics (Eds. Cobley, P. and Kull, K.), Mouton de Gruyter

Clark, W., Logan, K., Luckin, R., Mee, A., Oliver, M. Beyond Web 2.0: mapping the technology landscapes of young learners† Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 25(1): 56-69 (2009)

Luckin, R., Clark, W., Graber, R., Logan, K., Mee, A., Oliver, M. (in press)†'Do Web 2.0 tools really open the door to learning: practices, perceptions and profiles of 11-16 year old learners', Learning Media and Technology

Clark, W.,†Wiki as semiosphere: students' meaning making practices as authors and consumers of digital texts in the secondary school science classroom; DREAM Conference, Odense - Digital Content Creation: Creativity, Competence, Critique (Sept 2008)

Luckin, R., Clark,W., Graber, R., Logan, K., Mee, A., Oliver, M.† Learners' use of Web 2.0 technologies in and out of school in Key Stages 3 and 4; Becta (July 2008)

Clark, W.† Mapping the Syllabus: Multimodal Digital Mapping Tools; Reflecting Education, Vol 3(1) pp 43-60 (Nov 2007)

Lotman, J., On the Semiosphere (translated by W. Clark); Sign Systems Studies 33.1 (2005)