[Holiday notes] Some text for the rationale

This text could appear in the dissemination rationale introduction:

Within this section I offer a rationale for the form taken in representation of information and ideas within this dissertation. It is a requirement of the Dissertation (as outlined in the course dissertation with link) that 'direct citation from the handbook'. For the purpose of my own work however, it is necessary to discard the term 'dissemination', with its emphasis on one way communication of ideas (see for instance the work of //// within the field of Communication Studies), and to look for an alternative way of recognising how the audience is encouraged to interact with the assembled information and ideas. Dissemination promotes a communicational hierarchy between author and reader whether information is sent and received, without provision for responding to what has been received. This hierarchy can be flattened when information is communicated in a digital multimodal way. As /// suggests, digital multimodal texts invite the reader to interact with the presented information. The notion of hierarchical power relations is further depriveliged by the suggestion that the reader of digital texts can be a coauthor of meaning (citation) and she selects her own path through the non-linear assemblage of represented ideas and information (citation). Although my own dissertation proposes a path for the reader, she is nevertheless free to move between the component parts whilst enjoying the freedom to draw her own conclusions about the meaning of the assembled images, sound, video and hyperlinks. 


Rather than focusing on the dissemination of information, my dissertation is instead concerned with the representation of ideas for the reader to consider... A concluding line needed here to link to title of section - look back at notes from last meeting with Sian.


This section meanwhile could follow a little after and pertains to the idea of originality. I like this bit as it brings in the literature in a gentle way:

As outlined in the literature review, a key theme within the discussion of multimodality is that digital communicational technology enables the representation of information across a growing range of modes and using an wide range of tools. Within the digital classroom - and in particular programmes that are delivered online - students would seem to have the opportunity to present information in imaginative, original ways, drawing on  a growing range of digital tools and spaces. Rather than assuming the accepted form of the conventional essay, the student might take control of the digital means of production to create an artefact 
that is more inventive and personal in its form than simply rendering words on page or screen. The varied collection of work gathered on the course gallery of the MSc in Digital Education testifies to this, as traditional textual forms sit alongside work composed and dispayed in video, hypertext essay and Second Life: in some cases the work is (virtual) world away from traditional essay. My own dissertation provides an appropriate and useful opportunity to explore whether the form of the artefact can be entirely original: the layout, photography, sound and image are the product of my attempts to exploit digital tools my disposal (a list of which can be viewed in the acknowledgements section). Admittedly, while I am responsible for the assemblage of words, I am cannot claim responsibility for their meaning (even if someone says that words are empty vessels). Similarly, while the choice of type is my own, I did not design the typeface, although even that is possible for the student with sufficient digital design schools and accompanying time. Similarly, although I have created the structure and layout of this website, I didn't author the code, although again, a more technically able student would be able to do so.