J.L.Lemke Online Office

Current Research Projects

Current Research Projects - Science Education & Learning Technologies


I3W: Investigating Interactive Immersive Worlds (NSF Proposal 2005)

What can interactive immersive gameworlds and users' experiences in them tell us about learning with multimedia, critical multimedia literacies, learning across multiple timescales, and the design of effective educational learning environments?

Games, Transmedia Franchises, & the New Cultural Order (Valencia Critical Discourse Analysis conference 2004)

“Critical Analysis across Media: Games, Franchises, and the New Cultural Order.” In Labarta Postigo, M. (Ed.) Approaches to Critical Discourse Analysis. Valencia: University of Valencia. (CDROM edition). 2005.

“Place, Pace, and Meaning: Multimedia chronotopes.” In  Norris, Sigrid & Jones, Rodney (Eds.), Discourse in Action: Introducing Mediated Discourse Analysis. pp. 110-122. Routledge. 2005. 

“Towards Critical Multimedia Literacy: Technology, Research, and Politics.” To appear in McKenna, M., Reinking, D., Labbo, L. & Kieffer, R., Eds., Handbook of Literacy & Technology, v2.0. pp. 3-14. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.  

“Video Epistemology In-and-Outside the Box: Traversing Attentional Spaces.” To appear in Goldman-Segall, R. & Pea, R., Eds., Video Research in the Learning Sciences. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.  
 

TRAVERSALS: Emergent meaning and new attentional cultures

How are we learning to make meaning along trajectories of experience that move relatively rapidly from one text, site, situation, social group, institutional context, genre, and medium to another?  How can we study meaning-making along traversals through multimedia virtual worlds such as digital games? What are the implications of these new modes of meaning for the design of advanced multimedia learning technologies for science education?


MSD: Multiscale Dynamics and Systemic Reform
 
Links

How can we use the principles of complex systems analysis to guide our understanding of systemic change in educational organizations? How do processes which take place across multiple timescales and multiple organizational scales, from brief classroom episodes to years-long district-wide reform efforts interact with one another? What are the conditions for scalable and sustainable renewal of science education and for particular innovative practices?

"Across the Scales of Time: Artifacts, Activities, and Meanings in Ecosocial SystemsMind, Culture, and Activity 7 (4): 273-290. 2000.  

"Opening Up Closure: Semiotics Across Scales." In J. Chandler and G. van de Vijver, Eds. Closure: Emergent Organizations and their Dynamics (Volume 901: Annals of the NYAS). New York: New York Academy of Science Press. pp. 100-111. March, 2000.

"Material Sign Processes and Ecosocial Organization." In P.B. Andersen, C. Emmeche, and N.O. Finnemann-Nielsen, Eds. Downward Causation: Self-organization in Biology, Psychology, and Society. Aarhus University Press (Denmark). pp. 181-213. 2000.

Modeling Change: The Dynamics of Place, Time, and Identity - Keynote at the Penn Ethnography in Education Research Forum, 2003

"Complexity and Educational Change" - AERA 2002

Lemke, J.L. and N. Sabelli. “Complex Systems and Educational Change: Towards a New Research Agenda.” To appear in Educational Theory and Philosophy.

 
MDL: Multimedia Design for Learning
Links

How can we use the principles of multimedia semiotics and discourse analysis to help design interactive media that promote deep learning, productive collaboration, and affective engagement? How do people learn differently with combinations of textual, graphical, and interactive media? How can interactive media be more effectively integrated into wider school- , community-, and life-based learning activities?

“Towards Critical Multimedia Literacy: Technology, Research, and Politics.” To appear in McKenna, M., Reinking, D., Labbo, L. & Kieffer, R., Eds., Handbook of Literacy & Technology, v2.0. pp. 3-14. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.  

"Multimedia Genres for Scientific Education and Science Literacy." In M. J. Schleppegrell & C. Colombi, Eds., Developing Advanced Literacy in First and Second Languages. Erlbaum. pp.21-44. 2002.

"Multiplying Meaning: Visual and Verbal Semiotics in Scientific Text" in J.R. Martin & R. Veel, Eds., Reading Science. London: Routledge. (pp.87-113). 1998.

"Metamedia Literacy: Transforming Meanings And Media" In D. Reinking, L. Labbo, M. McKenna, & R. Kiefer (Eds.), Handbook of Literacy and Technology: Transformations in a Post-Typographic World. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. (pp.283-301). 1998.

This project has been merged into I3W: Investigating Interactive Immersive Worlds (above)
See also work in Critical Multimedia Literacy for science learning below.

 

Current Research Projects – Language, Literacy, and Culture

CML: Critical Multimedia Literacy
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jaylemke/multimed.htm

How can we extend critical literacy and research methods of critical discourse analysis to new media, particularly multimedia simulations and interactive-immersive worlds? To digital games and to the transmedia franchises that interlink texts, films, games, music, and even clothing and merchandise? What does education need to know about popular culture, youth culture, and mass media commercial culture and their quasi-educational messages and agendas? How can we do good research on these issues?

What should teachers and students know about how to critically interpret and thoughtfully create multimedia genres that combine text with visual images and other media? Which aspects of CML are specific to the genres of particular subject area domains and which are generally applicable across the curriculum? How do multimedia materials embody ideologies and culture- and gender- bias? 

Research Interests and Work in Progress

Older Projects