Identifying different registers of digital literacy in virtual learning environments

Internet and Higher Education 15 (2012) 237–246

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Internet and Higher Education

Identifying different registers of digital literacy in virtual learning environments

Ola Knutsson a, Mona Blåsjö b, Stina Hållsten c,⁎, Petter Karlström a

a Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University, Forum 100, SE-164 40 Kista, Swedenb Department of Scandinavian Languages, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Swedenc Department of Communication, Media and IT, Södertörn University, SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden

⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of CommunicUniversity, SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden. Tel.: +46 8 6

E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Hållsten).

1096-7516/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. Alldoi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2011.11.002

a b s t r a c t
a r t i c l e i n f o
Available online 9 November 2011

Keywords:Digital literacySocial semioticsSystemic functional linguisticsVirtual learning environments

In this paper social semiotics, and systemic functional linguistics in particular, are used in order to identifyregisters of digital literacy in the use of virtual learning environments. The framework of social semioticsprovides means to systemize and discuss digital literacy as a linguistic and semiotic issue. The followingresearch question was investigated in the paper: What different registers of digital literacy could be identifiedwhen students and teachers communicate and interact in a VLE?The research question was answered by, initially, an application of social semiotics to virtual learning envi-ronments, and its relation to the knowledge domains of everyday, specialized and reflexive digital literacy.This application was then further developed, using an analysis of a course specific use of a virtual learningenvironment in a case study. The study identified discrepancies between the digital literacies of teachers,designers and students. These discrepancies mean that a shared semiotic register was sometimes difficultto maintain. The conclusion is that the designers and teachers as co-designers of virtual learning environ-ments need a better understanding of everyday digital literacy in order to design more sufficient learningenvironments. The paper shows that digital literacy must be considered as a situated practice, and that itconcerns functional and communicative competencies rather than acquiring a set of technical skills.

© 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Digital technologies have changed the acts of reading and writingto learn in profound ways. Indeed the rapid generalization of technol-ogy comes to influence all areas of life and has already changed theways people express themselves and communicate with each other.When it comes to the use of virtual learning environments in educa-tion, the new media landscape matters in at least two importantways: 1) It can be assumed that most, if not all, students come intocontact with digital tools such as social media at home as well as intheir educational context. 2) Virtual learning environments (VLEs)are in use by many educational institutions and include featuresthat resemble everyday social media. Since no students are blankslates, they will definitely bring some of their means of expressionfrom their everyday use of social media into the schooling context.Hence, it is important to investigate the interrelations between every-day use of social media and the digital literacies present in academicactivity within a VLE. In this paper, the aim is to discuss the conceptof digital literacy from a social semiotic perspective. Since the emer-gence of the concept of digital literacy many aspects of it have beenstudied (cf. Belisle, 2006; Buckingham, 2006). However, we find thatsemiotic and linguistic aspects in current understandings of digital

ation, Media and IT, Södertörn08 4222.

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literacy have been overlooked. This paper contributes by connectingdigital literacy with its linguistic roots. The social-semiotic approach(see e.g. Van Leeuwen, 2005) and Systemic Functional Linguistics(SFL, see e.g. Halliday, 1978) as a particular analytical frameworkhave been chosen to analyze how students and teachers of a universitycourse unfold their digital literacy and make meaning in a VLE. Thistheoretical framework is used in the paper in order to investigatethe following question: What different registers of digital literacycould be identified when students and teachers communicate andinteract in a VLE?

2. Approaching digital literacy

Literacy is a much discussed subject matter. In its most common-sensical interpretation, literacy means the ability to encode and de-code written words and sentences. However, the term is frequentlyexpanded to include other aspects of communication. In an expandedview, there are sociolinguistic aspects of literacy such as being literatein specific social domains (Barton, 2006; Ivanič, 1998; Lea & Street,1998), and multimodal aspects such as being able to decode andencode a wider array of media than merely writing (Gee, 2007;Lankshear & Knobel, 2006; Unsworth, 2008).

Furthermore, it is commonplace to speak of other kinds of literacy,such as “musical literacy”, “computer literacy”, “mathematical literacy”and so on. This metaphorical expansion of the term has been criticizedto conflate too many various areas of human conduct, to the point

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238 O. Knutsson et al. / Internet and Higher Education 15 (2012) 237–246

of rendering the term “literacy” meaningless (Kress, 2003, pp. 23–24).“Digital literacy” is one of the problematic literacies because it could in-clude any conceivable computer skill or any activity that takes placewith a digital tool.

Martin (2006) defines digital literacy as consisting of three stages orlevels. The first stage concerns the user's digital competence necessaryfor carrying out tasks in her digital life context. This is the fundamentfor all of the user's digital activities. The second stage consists of a num-ber of digital usages, which are necessary tasks and processes in orderto belong to a community, and consists both of digital competenceand knowledge belonging to the specific domain. The third and mostadvanced stage, involves what Martin (2006) calls digital transforma-tion, and takes place when the digital usages have been developedand includes innovation and creativity. Martin further claims thatthere is no straight progression between the stages, and that digital lit-eracy is an ongoing process advanced by technological development.

Martin's three-stagemodel of digital literacy aligns well with a viewon literacies and knowledge proposed by Macken-Horarik (1996). Alanguage user needs her everyday language as a platform to participatein more specialized and reflexive (transformational) domains. Whenchildren come to school, they bring commonsense or everyday knowl-edge coupled with a linguistic register (potentials for linguistic expres-sion, i.e. a “repertoir” to draw from) that can capture this kind ofknowledge. The everyday domain, for children, includes primarilyhome and family matters: “Learning in these contexts comes about by‘doing’ alongside ‘significant others’ — that is to say, through a pedagogyof participation.” (Macken-Horarik, 1996:238). Participants in an every-day domain take a private role in a close group. School is supposed tosupport the students into a discipline or specialized knowledge domain,connected to the registers of the school subjects. Specialized domainsare more decontextualized (cf. Säljö, 1994) and learnt to a greaterextent from reading and explicit teaching, “a pedagogy of instruction”(Macken-Horarik, 1996:239). Participants in a specialized domaintake on a more objective and distanced role. Gradually, school is sup-posed to support students into a critical or reflexive knowledge domainwith a register that can challenge reality. In the reflexive domain, sev-eral differing points of views are met, and the participants' role is oneof mediating between these. A prerequisite for the students to reachthis domain is “a pedagogy with a dialectic view” (Macken-Horarik,1996:240) using open discussions and a variety of media and modes,not just textbooks.

One of the main contributions put forward by Macken-Horarikis the one of visualizing the connections between a certain type ofknowledge and a certain type of register. Traditionally (or accordingto a “skills discourse”, Ivanič, 2004), knowledge and language usewere regarded as separate, so that there was no specific problem fora literate person to shape new knowledge into language. Also, in thetraditional view, knowledge was regarded as separate from context;the intellectual skills of the individual were the only factor relevantfor deciding if s/he can learn something or not. In contrast, accordingto Macken-Horarik (1996) and a “social practices discourse” (Ivanič,2004), all learning and literacy development is dependent on contextand on the individual belonging to different social groups. To learne.g. science, the student has to enter a scientific community of somekind and simultaneously develop a scientific register. Discipline spe-cific knowledge requires a discipline specific register and vice versa.Although Macken-Horarik does not explicitly cite Vygotsky in thisissue, there is a connection between the everyday domain andVygotsky's (1986) notion of spontaneous (vs. scientific) concepts.Spontaneous concepts are learnt bottom-up from hands-on expe-rience, as opposed to scientific concepts, which are learnt top-downfrom explicit teaching or other intellectual practices.

Recent studies have reported on use of VLEs in terms of scaffoldingknowledge (Arnseth & Säljö, 2005), learner attitudes and satisfaction(Davoli, Monari, & Severinsson Eklundh, 2008; Naveh, Tubin, &Pliskin, 2010), positive and negative experiences in VLEs (Kear,

Woodthorpe, Robertson, & Hutchison, 2010), and teachers' roleswithin VLEs (Dysthe, 2003). For instance Arnseth and Säljö (2005)showed how a VLE design, meant to support students' understandingof epistemic categories or scientific concepts, did not really reach itsgoals, since the students did not have access to or experience fromactual scientific practices. Dysthe (2003) analyzes how digital discus-sions show (or not show) how the participants construct their knowl-edge within a specific academic field. She also displays that theteachers keep their function as an authority in spite of the opportuni-ties to create a more equal discussion climate.

These studies have highlighted main opportunities, issues andchanges introduced by VLEs. However, a discussion concerning digitalliteracy may provide additional insights regarding the interplay ofeveryday use of digital media and academic use, and how studentsand teachers make meaning in a VLE.

In this paper digital literacy is considered to have permeateddomain specific literacies because of the digital tools people use thataffect their literacy practices. Therefore, Macken-Horarik's frameworkserves as a starting point for framing digital literacy in VLE use.

3. A social-semiotic framework

While traditional semiotics, generally speaking, tended to regardmeaning of certain signs as fixed, social semiotics stresses the relationbetween social context and meaning. The meaning of a sign is notexactly the same interpreted in a Western cultural setting as in thatof another setting, or the same sign in the Middle Ages as today.Similarly, the same sign in a computer interface design does notalways mean the same to the same user, as choosing OK or Enterhas somewhat different meanings in different situations (cf. DeSouza, 2005). Instead of speaking of an arbitrary relation betweensign and meaning, as traditional semioticians, social semioticiansstate that the connection between sign and meaning is motivatedfrom the language user's point of view.

Many social-semiotic analyses deal with visual meaning-making(e.g. Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006; Rowley-Jolivet, 2004), while a fewalso analyze objects like furniture (Björkvall, 2009) and modalitiessuch as music (Caldwell, 2010). However, a main idea is that meaningis made out of several modes or modalities, such as writing andsound, at the same time, in the same text. This is the basis for theconcept of multimodality (Burn, 2008; Jewitt, 2009; Kress & VanLeeuwen, 2006). Overall, social semiotics is grounded in the work ofM.A.K. Halliday (1978, 2006).

3.1. Systemic-functional linguistics

Halliday (1978, 2006) is also the founder of Systemic-FunctionalLinguistics (SFL), which is a broad approach to the language systemand language use. A fundamental idea in SFL is that language use isrealized not only by vocabulary and grammar, but also by contextualaspects. Language users do not have total access to the entire lan-guage system, but due to social factors, they have access to differentlanguage use or registers, i.e. certain selections of semiotic resources,for instance an academic register or an everyday register. A registeris the meanings and forms that a certain context makes possible oraccessible (Halliday, 1978:31).

The contextual aspects are analytically divided in Field (what theinteraction is about), Tenor (the relationship between the interac-tors) and Mode (the type of communication). Field is understood asthe activity or area which the interaction is covering, such as thefield of sport or mathematics. Field limits the frames of focus andthe way people interact about something. Speaking about a personwithin the field of medicine or the field of everyday social life entailsquite different focus and linguistic registers. Often fields are mixed ina certain act of communication, such as colleagues interacting in botha professional and a private field. The relationships realized in Tenor

Table 1The four strata in SFL.

Stratum

Context Register: Field, Tenor, ModeSemantics Meaning incl. pragmaticsLexico-grammar Syntactic organization of words into utterancesPhonology/graphology Sounds and letters, signs

239O. Knutsson et al. / Internet and Higher Education 15 (2012) 237–246

may for instance be the one between a writer and her readers. Theparticipants have different roles, related also to the text or situationitself. If the writer and a reader meet in another situation, they willhave different roles and will communicate in an entirely differentway. Ways of communicating constitute the third aspect, Mode.Modes can on the most general level be written or spoken communi-cation, but may be divided into more fine-grained ones such asmonolog/dialog or synchronous/asynchronous communication. Modescan, of course, also be mixed, in multimodal texts. The concept ofMode also includes the physical channel of the communication, suchas television or newspaper (Halliday, 2006; Martin, 2010).

Field, Tenor and Mode are the contextual aspects, and context isone of the four strata in the SFL approach. The contextual stratumforms the basis for what can be communicated by whom in whatmanner, which is realized in the next stratum: the semantics ormeaning. The semantics, in turn, is realized in the stratum of lexico-grammar, that is words and sentences, and the lexico-grammar isrealized in the stratum of ‘phonology’, or that which is materialized,such as sounds and letters in verbal language (Table 1).

Realization here stands for expression or shape; this is perhapsmost obvious concerning the two latter strata. Meaning cannot beunderstood if not expressed through signs such as words or sounds.However, the same relationship is assumed between the context stra-tum and the semantics stratum, so that the semantics expresses – orrealizes – the context (Martin, 2010). For the purpose and scope ofthis paper, the stratum emphasized is the contextual.

4. Social-semiotic analysis of virtual learning environments

While Macken-Horarik's (1996) original contribution concerneddevelopment of writing to learn within a subject area, a framework(see Table 2) developed from Macken-Horarik's work is proposedto function as an analytical tool for VLEs. To this end, the conceptsof everyday knowledge domain, specialized knowledge domain andreflexive knowledge domain are applied. The concept of everydaydomain, as applied here, refers to what is done and learnt in private

Table 2Digital literacy regarding VLEs.

Everyday digital literacy Specialized d

Field1. Activity Everyday domestic use of computers

and internet.Using a VLE

2. Knowledge for participation Rules of conduct and social norms inonline communication.

Social compcommunicatcontext.

3. Knowledge of semiotic resources Core signs and concepts related tocomputer use and internet.

Signs and te

Tenor Personal everyday online social roles. Formal (expeducationalTeachers havinformal role

Mode Online communication. Academic accommunicateducational c

and public life, such as using e-mail for correspondence with friendsand authorities, and shopping on the Internet. The everyday is a genericcategory that consists of a multitude of individual backgrounds and ex-periences. It differs from specialized and reflexive domains in that thelatter two represent more specific social groups that have more mani-fest rules of conduct and expression that one has to abide to. The spe-cialized domain deals with knowledge necessary to take part in auniversity course using a VLE. The reflexive domain concerns criticalknowledge of several other VLEs and digital environments, and howto use and change those environments.

Differences between the domains are of qualitative nature and donot necessary represent a progression (Macken-Horarik, Devereux,Trimingham-Jack, & Wilson, 2006; Martin, 2006). There is alwaysinterplay within the domains, and they are not disjunctive. It is alsoimportant to note that the analysis concerns both students andteachers and partly designers.

The analysis interconnects the knowledge domains with the con-textual aspects Field, Tenor and Mode. In order to adapt the conceptsto VLEs, the concept of Field is divided into three sub-aspects:

Activity — how is the interactive system used?Knowledge for participation — what kind of knowledge or compe-tencies are required to participate in the activities?Knowledge of semiotic resources — knowledge of what kind of se-miotic resources is relevant for participating?

Presented below (Table 2) is the framework chosen for analyzingdigital literacies in VLEs in general. The table is preliminarily filledwith a conceptual analysis based on the theoretical development asoutlined above. In a subsequent case study (see below), the proposedframework will be refined.

Each column in Table 2 constitutes a register of digital literacy. Theeveryday column describes the register of learners' and teachers' dig-ital literacy required to cope with everyday digital life outside the ed-ucational context. Examples of tasks/activities are: using e-mail forcommunication, participating in different forms of social media, andusing tools for searching and writing texts. This requires a commonunderstanding of different (interface-related) words and concepts,partly in English, and knowledge on how to behave online. The partic-ipants act in open or closed communities, and they can be consumer–producers of information, taking part of communities as core or pe-ripheral participants. The channel for communication is multimodalor monomodal and the communication can be synchronous or asyn-chronous online (‘monomodal’ here means e.g. parts of the systemsbeing dominated by traditional modes of writing).

igital literacy Reflexive digital literacy

in an educational context. Adapting one's system environment to personalpreference and compare it with other systems.

etence relevant toing in a VLE in an educational

Critical knowledge of own and others' onlinesocial roles.

rminology used in the VLE. Ability to separate and merge different signs andterminologies used in a variety of systems.

ert) roles provided bycontext and VLE.

Multiple roles attributable to students' and teachers'general digital literacy and understanding of theparticular system.e to chose between different

s (co-designer, technical, social)

cepted modes ofion given by theontext and the VLE.

Making choices between modes of communicationin a system, and challenging the system's defaultsand assumptions.


The specialized column shows a register that learners have to takecontrol over in order to participate in a course that relies (partly ormostly) on using a VLE. The learners and teachers need technicalcompetence relevant for using a VLE for educational purposes. Theyalso need social competence in order to communicate using digitaltools. The learners and teachers need to understand the conceptsused in the VLE, including icons and words used on interface widgets,interactions steps, and online help.

The reflexive column includes knowledge of several VLEs andother digital environments. The reflexive register involves technicalcompetencies in order to change different VLEs and other systems,and to compare them with other VLEs and other systems. Learnersand teachers may also have critical knowledge of their own andothers' social roles and deep understanding of how to act and behaveonline. Moreover, they may have the ability to merge and separatedifferent terminologies used in a variety of systems, including forexample to understand that term X used in VLE A has more or lessthe same meaning as term Y used in VLE B.

5. The case study: the criminology distance course

A case study was conducted in 2010 on a distance course in crim-inology, at a Swedish university. The course used a VLE called Mondo,which is the VLE to be used in campus-wide and distance coursesaccording to local university directive.

5.1. Setting

All course activities were offered through Mondo, including videoclips from lectures and other web-based materials, chat functions anddiscussion forums. Apart from traditional face-to-face lectures everysecond month (which were not compulsory), the course was given

Table 3Adapting Table 2 after the Mondo case study.

Everyday digital literacy Specialized digita

Field1. Activity Everyday e-mailing, online reading,

listening to music, reading social blogs,using social networks platforms (suchas Facebook), and online shopping.

Using Mondo forcriminology distasubmitting assign

2. Knowledge forparticipation

Rules of conduct and social norms inonline communication.

Shared knowledgcommunication iLearning throughthe practice as suand Mondo use w

3. Knowledge ofsemiotic resources

Core signs and concepts related tocomputer use and internet.

The specific Monsubject specific, e(type of assessmeoutcome etc). Sofrom the everydaTeachers’ adoptio

Tenor Mainly consumers of content.Participant in online social activitiesin mainly open communities.Commenting on blogs, e-mail and socialmedia: communication between peers.

Formal (expert) rteachers, organizadministrator, stuInformal roles:teachers acting aauthorities in thestudents’ work.Teachers as code

Mode Multimodal and monomodal synchronousand asynchronous online communication.Everyday register incl. personal perspective,use of emoticons in writing.

Teachers and sturegisters accordinimpersonal, subjeBoth traditional amode and other mTeachers using bainformational and

through the VLE. The course relied on a large amount of written ma-terial, such as tutorials, course guidelines and instructions for specificassignments.

Mondo includes a wide range of writing and communication tools,both synchronous and asynchronous, which the teachers must befamiliar with for planning and sometimes designing a specific courseormodule.Mondo offers a course template, but the teachers can chooseto set up their own course design from a list of 25 different tools. Eitherthey can use the terminology fromMondo or she can rename the tools.

The teachers were around 30–40 years old, and had conducted thedistance course for several years. According to the interviews, theywere interested in continuously developing the use of the VLE, notonly as an administrative but also as a pedagogical communicationtool. The students within the case study were between 18 and around50, and had different previous experiences both on academic studiesand use of VLEs. Some of the students took the criminology course inparallel with other studies (law, sociology, physics) or were profes-sional policemen, soldiers, or social workers. One group of studentsstudied criminology from prison. Some students took the course justfor personal interest. No one of the interviewed students planned tocontinue with criminology studies, but according to the teachersthere was interest among the group for an advanced course.

5.2. Data

The material for the study consisted of Mondo's user interface, theinteraction between students and teachers, and the way Mondo hadbeen adapted to the specific course. The particular data collectedwere the students and the teachers' activities in Mondo representedas texts in the chat rooms and forums, course oriented texts such aswritten instructions, interviews with teachers and students and aquestionnaire addressed to the students. Data from the Main chat

l literacy Reflexive digital literacy

participating in thence course (e.g. navigating,ments, using tools).

Adapting Mondo to personal preference.Understanding of the technical possibilitiesand limitations of Mondo.

e of social norms forn Mondo.explicit guidance towardsch (netiquette, communicationithin the course).

Challenging the modes of communication,and ability to choose mode of communication,for example suggesting to move discussionfrom group chat room to Facebook.

do signs and terminology incl.ducational specific terminologynts, curriculum, learningme terminology recontextualizedy domain (chat, blog, forum)n of Mondo to the course.

Awareness of recontextualization of signsand concepts (cf. personal blogs andcourse-specific blog)

oles provided by theation and Mondo (teacher,dent, guest).

s equals in the chat, and asforums, when assessing

signers of Mondo.

Multiple roles attributable to students’and teachers’ general digital literacy andunderstanding of Mondo. Critical knowledgeof own and others’ social roles within Mondo,partly due to different digital literacy.

dents using appropriateg to situation (e.g. personal,ct oriented, private).ccepted academic writtenodes (video lectures).ckground images forsocial purposes.

Teachers and students making choices betweenmodes of communication in Mondo, andchallenging Mondo's defaults and assumptions.Students challenging their teacher's choicesof tools.


room, the Group chat room, and the Criminology Café (see below) con-sisted of the total amount of postings during a full semester: 99 mes-sages in the Main chat room, 5 in the Criminology Café and 39 in theGroup chat room. Additional text material consisted of teachers' courseguidelines concerning the first module of the course, and students'answers on the course evaluation questionnaire after the first module.

Since the focus of the paper concerns the contextual stratumwithin the VLE, the main linguistic data used was the chat room dia-logs, as these contained the major part of discussing Mondo tools andasking questions about the assignments. In order to get richer dataconcerning the context and use of Mondo, a questionnaire and inter-views were used. The interviews consisted of semi-structured inter-views with two teachers and five students, on previous experiencesof digital media, writing in the VLE as well as writing academicallyin general. The questionnaire contained 15 questions concerningboth everyday digital literacy, and experiences of learning to useMondo. The questionnaire was designed as a web-based surveywith both yes/no and open questions. The questionnaire was distrib-uted to 115 students, out of which 24 answered.

5.3. Findings

Below, results from the case study will be presented, starting withthe adapted design of Mondo, followed by findings related to the cellsin Table 2, after which this analysis is further developed into Table 3.

5.3.1. Teachers' adaption of MondoThe Mondo site for the course had two parallel parts, one main

page for all students and additional pages for each study group (outof which one is studied). This division of Mondo was made byteachers. The main pages contained fifteen tools (see below) andthe group pages eight tools (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. The Mondo

The Mondo tool most developed by the teachers of the course wasthe Forum. The Forum was used for two different purposes simulta-neously, under two parallel labels: in one case it was renamed intothe Criminology Café and, in another case, under the name Forum,used as a container for the assignments called the Study blog andthe Learning dialogue. Since the Study blog and the Learning dialoguewere hosted under the “umbrella” of the Forum, students had to learnthe language and structure of Mondo in order to find them.

The two assignments based on the Study blog and the Learningdialogue were designed as follows: first, the student was supposed toopen the Forum for each assignment. The Study blog always includedthe same three headlines (“This I find interesting from the literature”,“This I find difficult to understand”, “This I would like to discuss further”).Every studentwas supposed to publish one blog post each and respond toat least one peer student's blog post. In the Learning dialogue the teacherpresented two or three questions from the literature, for the study groupto discuss (except for the first assignment, aimed to get the studentsfamiliarized with Mondo and present themselves to each other). In con-clusion, to be able to participate the students needed specific knowledgeconcerning several aspects: how to navigate in the Mondo (how to usethe forum tool in particular), the interpretation of the course specificconcepts ‘study blog’ and ‘learning dialogue’, and the specific (academic)demands on how to comment and discuss literature.

Parallel with the assignments, the students were offered differenttools for a more informal, less content-oriented communication withteachers and peer students: they were able to chat with their studygroup in the Group chat room, communicate with their teachersthrough, and participate in discussions in the Criminology Café.There was also a chat room open for the whole course, the Mainchat room, which was used for all kinds of questions and discussions(more vividly than the chat function used by the studied group).The students were also allowed to send ordinary e-mails to theteachers.

user interface.


5.3.2. Everyday digital literacyConcerning the results on everyday digital literacy and the contex-

tual aspect of Field, the questionnaire and the interviews showedthat the participants did not regard everyday digital literacy as some-thing relying on specific knowledge. However, data regarding Fieldis limited to the respondents' own opinions, and not the actual use(through observation). The aspect of Tenor, the roles and relations,within the everyday use of digital (social) media can be seen asbased on equal status and, with users participating as producers, per-sonal and non-hierarchical. The respondents answered that they readblogs, listened tomusic, shopped, andwhile participatingmore active,wrote e-mails to peers and commented on friends' blogs. The Modeof communication within the everyday digital literacy context wasboth monomodal and multimodal, synchronous and asynchronous.The respondents reported to have experienced freedom to use amore speech-like linguistic mode although interacting in a writtenmedium.

5.3.3. Specialized digital literacyThe interviews with the teachers indicated that they were rather

active Mondo-users, having frequent contact with the system de-signers in order to develop the course design. The communicationwith the students in the chat rooms also showed that the teacherswere interested in the technical aspects of the VLE; instead ofjust directing the students to the system help desk, they answeredall kinds of questions not only concerning the course content or theassignments. Regarding the course design, the teachers showed anawareness of what kind of difficulties Mondo can cause, with empha-sis on introducing the students to the Mondo design and navigationthrough compulsory assignments. Therefore, the teachers' digitalliteracy can be described as specialized and in some cases reflective.

According to the student questionnaire, the respondents didnot think they needed any specific knowledge to participate inMondo, apart from some terminology and knowledge on how to usesome tools:

It's nothing complicated about Mondo. I've got most of it from previ-ous experience (Student's answer from the questionnaire).

However, in the beginning of the course, there were severalsequences of questions–answers concerning navigation on Mondo:

oops, I just submitted my response to another blog, but there'sno possibility to re-submit? For next time, I mean… (Student's ques-tion in the Main chat room. Sep. 20 2010).

The teacher answered:

/…/ I will open your study blog so that you can submit the respondyou intend! (Teacher's answer to student's question in the Mainchat room. Sep. 20 2010).

Moreover, some more technical oriented issues were discussed:

How do I submit the blog in order to create a new thread? (Student'squestion in the Main chat room. Sep. 20 2010).

The answer was:

you get a new thread by clicking on “start a new thread” in theforum! (Teacher's answer on student's question in the Main chatroom. Sep. 20 2010).

As the example shows, not only were there some difficultiesaccording to how to use Mondo, but there were also difficultieswith the terminology. The student tried to ask how to create a new

discussion thread in the forum tool, by asking how to submit herblog. Moreover, the teacher did not choose to explain these misun-derstandings, instead she used her own terminology to guide the stu-dent through the navigation and use of Mondo.

A literacy practice of interest regarding context was the Main chatroom. Students were offered many ways of communicating with theteachers (Mondomail, regular e-mail etc.) and one channel that wasused for all kinds of matters was the Main chat room. Analyzing thisaccording to the SFL framework, the contextual Field was not onlycontent (criminology-) oriented, it was also oriented toward thetechnology as such and the organization of the course (assignments,posting dates, interpretation of the course demands etc.).

The Main chat room also included a small amount of socially ori-ented chat, mainly from the teachers. For example, one of theteachers published a post just to say hello.

Have a nice weekend!! (Teacher's chat post in the Main chat room.Aug. 26 2010)

Even though Mondo offered easy ways for linking and down-
loading all kinds of material, most of the course content was com-municated through writing of a traditional kind. Still, other modeswere used, such as video clips and illustrations. In the beginningof the course, the students were encouraged to publish photos ofthemselves:
Teacher: Hi all! Here in the chat room you can publish questions orjust say hello! We're about to sort you into study groups as you signin on Mondo! Many regards [name]

Teacher: Many of you has already started to publish personalinformation and pictures in your profiles! What you chose to write isof course up to you. We know by experience that a picture is good forthe social environment here at “The Distance”! (Teacher's two firstchat posts in the Group chat room. Aug 26 2010)

In this example lexico-grammatical choices are made in the invita-tion to the chat by the expression “Hi all!” and “Many regards!”, andestablishing the expression “The Distance”. Thus, the teacher estab-lishes an informal mode of communication, closer to spoken languageand recontextualizing or “borrowing” modes from an everyday do-main. The Main chat room and the Group chat room contained arather everyday linguistic register in terms of expressions, perspec-tive and so forth. Both teachers and students used this register.

The teachers participated in Learning dialogues and Study blogs,with the aim to assess or sometimes just add comments to the discus-sions, which can be seen as having multiple roles (cf. Dysthe, 2003).The built-in hierarchy, parallel to the academic system with examina-tion and administration through the roles (administrator, teacher,student, guest), gave the teachers the power to choose and renametools, and decide how to communicate and collaborate usingMondo, and for example link to study material and literature. Thestudents participated in Mondo with no possibilities to change thedesign or the terminology of Mondo.

Moreover, the roles and relations were influenced by an externalframemade explicit by legal documents and texts, which created a hi-erarchical relation. Apart from course specific literature and teacher'sguidelines, there were texts available on legal issues concerning dig-ital discussions, for example Act (1998:111) on Responsibility for Elec-tronic bulletin boards. This can be seen as hierarchy within Tenor.Teachers, having more access to Mondo tools and to the course con-tent than students, are at the same time dependent on adjusting tothe academic framework and the legal references.

The teachers' roles in the VLE were multiple also in the sense thatthey gave not only assessment and written responses on completedLearning dialogues, but also social smalltalk. In the chat rooms, the


teachers sometimes participated with a somewhat social mode (seeabove), using smileys and everyday expressions in their writing. Thecomplex role of the teacher was also shown through questions andanswers over the chat forum, when teachers were supposed not justto have an expert role on the subject but also on the Mondo designand more technical oriented matters. This can be compared with amore traditional teacher's role which perhaps does not include thetechnical knowledge needed for VLE use, at the same time as usingan informal (everyday) register in communicating with students.

5.3.4. Reflexive digital literacyThere are some indications of students having an overview and, in

some respect, control over the system use (even though it does notmean the possibility to change the system). One indication on reflex-ive knowledge of Field was the following comment in the Main chatroom made by one student:

Hi teachers! Noticed that Mondo will be updated Dec. 10–12.Just want to check with you since our learning dialogue is active dur-ing those dates? So that everyone are aware of not being able to postanything those days? (Student's post in the Main chat room. Dec. 92010)

A system update was interfering with a deadline for one of theassignments, which made one student publish a reminder to theteachers on the Main chat room. The student's comment can beseen as reflexive knowledge in the sense that she could identify con-sequences of technical aspects of the VLE, and used the communica-tion channel open to both students and teachers to act in that end.The student's question (quoted above) can be seen as an exampleof negotiating roles possible through reflexive understanding ofMondo and its environment. The student questioned the digital com-petence of his/her teacher, thereby negotiating the roles and hierar-chy. The regular case would probably be teachers remindingstudents on these kinds of matters.

Sometimes the students challenged the teachers' expected (oroffered) modes of communications through bringing in everydayuse of social media concerning on-line presence. That is, they some-times expected teachers to answer e-mails quickly or sending textmessages on a cell phone instead of using the forms of communica-tion offered within the VLE. The questionnaire showed that studentswanted the teachers to respond faster and more personal to theirquestions and give more immediate feedback on assignments.

The participants in the study group discussed the function of theirgroup's chat room. Below is a dialog between two students:

Student A: Hello Dan are you here

Student B: absolutely

Student A: don't know if this chat is so effective since it doesn'tupdate itself :D

Student B: Nope, we just have to add each other as friends on likefacebook, msn and all funny sites out there. The chat seems a bitineffective except for kind of bulletin board

(Students' chat in the Group chat room. Sep. 13 2010)

One of the student made comments and reflected over the chat assuch — was the chat room the most effective and interesting commu-nication forum? According to this analysis, the activity in the groupchat room (compared to the Main chat room) supported the student'scritical position: the chat room did not seem to be used as theteachers might have expected and the students found alternative

ways of communicating other than over the VLE. That is, both in ex-pression and in action, they were challenging the value of the VLE.

An assignment of interest was the Study blog. Mondo offers a blogtool, but the Study blog designed by the teacher was more of a discus-sion tool (a forum, which is the actual tool used for the assignment).Students were not quite sure how to interpret the assignment. Afterthey had completed their first Study blog, the teachers gave collectivefeedback to every study group, and the feedback showed that manyof the students had been confused on how to interpret and solvethe assignment:

Another matter that many of you have in common is that youexpressed doubts regarding how to write a study blog. In spite ofthat you have all done exactly what we expected and more to it!What we want to accomplish with the study blogs /…/ (Teacher'sgroup feedback on the first Study blog. Nov. 2010)

The Main chat room gave an example on how the negotiation ofmeaning was taking place between one student and teacher. Belowis an example of reflexive knowledge of the Mode aspect. One studentpublished the following question in the Main chat room:

Student C: Hi! I can't figure out if I shall publish more than one blogpost in the study blog. Was I supposed to post comments continuouslyup until the 20th? Or, is it one post regarding the three discussionpoints plus one response to another student? I've read the instructionsclosely but they don't really tell if there's a post or a blog. Isn't a blogmore than one post? I interpreted the instruction as I should makeone post the 20th, respond to another student's post and then copyand paste the two posts to the assignment “Study blog 1”. Is thatcorrect? (Student's chat post in the Main chat room. Sep. 21 2010)

The student received a first answer the same afternoon:

Teacher: Hi! Good that you ask! You publish your blog on the 20th.After that you make at least one response to another student's post.Finally, you submit your blog and your responses in “Assignments”.You're welcome to respond to more than one other blog but it's nota requirement! Did I make it clearer or fuzzier? (Teacher's answerto student's chat post in the Main chat room. Sep. 22 2010)

The student responded:

Student C: Still a bit fuzzy if blog and blog post means the same. Forme, a blog is something diary like with many blog posts over time,hence my question if one single blog post the 20th counts as a blogor if the idea was that I should have written posts continuously, I'vepublished a post and I've responded to another participant's post.Is that enough to submit this in the Assignments? (Student'sresponse to teacher's answer in the Main chat room. Sep. 22 2010)

The dialog over the main chat can be seen as a negotiation withinthe reflective knowledge domain concerning the mode of communi-cation. The student challenged the teacher's choice of naming theassignment ‘study blog’, by comparing it to a (presumed) everydayunderstanding of the (personal) blog. The teacher's answer showslittle interest in discussing the name of the VLE-tool or the interpreta-tions of the assignment. Instead she instructed the student what to dowithin the study blog assignment:

Teacher: Sue! Yes it can be seen as a bit fuzzy! Actually nothing morethan you sum the blog in a diary-like way in terms of reflecting onyour own learning over a period of time. The blog posts concernsyour published blog in the forum. You can publish your blog now:[url] (Teacher's answer to student's post in the Main chat room.Sep. 22 2010)

Table 4The application of the four strata to virtual learning environments.

Stratum

Context Register: Field, Tenor, ModeSemantics Meaning negotiations in the VLE between users,

designers and teachers as co-designersLexico-grammar Interface elements as texts and their order in the VLEPhonology/graphology Screen pixels and sounds (the manifestations of texts)


In other words, the student brought her everyday knowledge of aspecific literacy practice into a new domain, challenging the teacher'suse of the concepts in the VLE. The teacher has offered a specificmeaning of blogging, which is different from the everyday use, andthe teacher keeps her authority by explaining how to solve the as-signment, not discussing the “real” issue, namely the understandingof a certain literacy practice. The negotiation of meaning of theStudy blog is supported by another student's reflection:

When I read about the different assignments I thought “Help, am Isupposed to blog! I've never written a blog before” (Interview withstudent, Sep. 14 2010)

According to the interview, the student's everyday knowledge ofblogs included public writing with a personal and often humorousangle, rather than something associated with writing in an academiccontext. A blog for her was something quite different from the Mondoblog tool as well as the assignment Study blog. After writing her firstStudy blog within the course, she adapted to the writing style suitablefor the specific course context.

Teachers' and students' use of an appropriate linguistic registeraccording to situation can be seen as a realization of a reflexiveknowledge of separating the registers. In one of the interviews, a stu-dent commented how she wished to be able to use smileys and otheremoticons, especially in comments on peer students' Study blogs:

I wish it was accepted to add a smiley once in a while in my com-ments on a study blog. I know I can sound unfriendly in writing,but it has to do with the lack of body language and it's hard some-times to write in such an impersonal way as academics (Interviewwith student. Nov. 24 2010)

The comment can be seen as knowledge of an academically ac-cepted register, and at the same time, a reflexive knowledge onwhen to use what register (everyday or specialized).

5.4. Digital literacy regarding Mondo: a summary

In the case study three different registers of digital literacy havebeen identified, which is summarized in Table 3. Mondo is designedas a collection of tools. In other words, features of the platform areprominently displayed “as is”, and any renaming and adaption ofthe tools is left to the teacher. According to data, the examples havebeen discussed, of how teachers, designers and students displayaccess to different registers concerning a VLE tool. The designers ofMondo have recontextualized tools and concepts from an everydaydigital domain such as blogs, chats and forums, and the meaningmaking of these is different among teachers and students:

1. The blog tool put in place by the VLE designers was not used duringthis course. Instead, teachers adapted the term “blog”, building on aforum tool. Neither the course blog nor the VLE blog matched stu-dents' everyday conception of blogs. Students, with their meaningmaking of everyday blogs, were initially confused by these threedifferent interpretations of blogs, but reconciled their meaningmaking with the teachers' more specific use of blogs.

2. Similarly, the main chat and other chat tools differed from students'everyday meaning making of chats by e.g. not being applied syn-chronously. Instead, teachers and students alike used the mainchat as a general course bulletin board or discussion forum. Thefunction of the chat as a general course forum was from the outsetestablished by the teacher. The students agreed upon this view. Thecourse's community established a specialized meaning of the chatfunctions stemming from the community's needs, the way thechat had been designed, and knowledge of chats in everyday use.

3. Forums were used in a variety of manners. Teachers had the oppor-tunity to rename tools, and took this opportunity: The Study blogmentioned above was a renamed forum for course assignments,as was the Learning dialogue. The Criminology Café was used inthe manner of an everyday forum, but with some course content.The course's community had to form agreement of what was ap-propriate in these different fora.

6. Discussion

Communication within a VLE takes place between three parties:VLE designers, teachers and students. These three groups form acommunity, which is realized in dialog during the course. Since allparticipants have different backgrounds, a variety of registers are atplay. This means that there are matches as well as mismatches be-tween participants' displayed meaning making of the VLE. For exam-ple, a student who also is an experienced blogger may have a differentconception of a blog tool in a VLE than a teacher who is versed in thespecific blog tool within the VLE. In SFL terminology, this means thatthey have access to different registers.

The case study revealed discrepancies between the digital liter-acies of teachers, designers and students, which means that ashared register was sometimes difficult to maintain. That point isin itself expected — it is common knowledge in both TEL andlinguistics that people do not always understand each other.However, the framework of SFL allows us to detail exactly whereregister is shared and where there are discrepancies, and suggestwhere efforts to reconcile register could occur, by teacher, VLEdesigner and student. Knowledge of the students' everyday digitalliteracy and knowledge of Field, Tenor and Mode within a VLE arekey factors for designers and teachers. The framework proposedin this paper could serve as a starting point for discussions, devel-opments and instruction regarding the use of VLEs in highereducation.

As discussed in Karlsson (2005), contexts, domains and registersare not always as distinct as the literature may indicate, but morefuzzy and heterogeneous. This paper has shown how a specific educa-tional setting is characterized by heterogeneity of domains, texts, reg-isters, roles and modes of communication. Rather than a VLE solelysupporting students into a specific domain and register, the VLE con-stitutes an arena for the students and teachers to negotiate their roles,knowledge and literacies (cf. Barton & Hamilton, 2000; Dysthe, 2003;Lea & Street, 1998; Macken-Horarik et al., 2006). To some extent, theanalysis has also shown how negotiations and other types of differingviews and conflicts can make way for a reflexive learning and a criti-cal knowledge domain.

This paper has focused on contextual analysis within the SFLframework, and has shown that analysis such as this works well inidentifying registers of digital literacy. However, a more full-fledgedSFL-analysis would include in-depth analysis of the semantics,lexico-grammar and phonology of VLEs. Such an analysis will giveus more details of the structure and meaning of the VLEs and whatkind of semiotic resources is available for students and teachers.The paper further proposes that analyses of semantics will be aboutthe negotiation of meaning between the users of the VLE, and theimplemented meaning of the VLE. The lexico-grammar analysis will


then cover how the visual and textual elements are put together andused interactively in the VLE, as well as the implied reading path (seeTable 4).

Here, the analyses of the VLEs were approached chiefly fromthe contextual stratum. The SFL framework applied to VLEs couldbe further developed to: 1) analyze in depth the semantics, lexico-grammar and phonology of VLEs as pointed out in Table 4, and 2)perform detailed linguistic analyses of the texts produced by thestudents and teachers, and how this is interrelated with the designof the VLE. The analyses can show how the Tenor aspect and theField aspect, with their mixed and heterogeneous character, arerealized in the texts.

7. Conclusions

A social-semiotic perspective on digital literacy focuses on func-tional and communicative aspects rather than a set of skills to belearnt. Also, it reconnects digital literacy with its semiotic roots andshows how signs are interpreted and elaborated differently by differ-ent participants. Digital literacy may be defined as access to three dif-ferent registers: everyday, specialized and reflexive. These registersare enacted depending on the context of an interaction in terms ofField, Tenor and Mode (Tables 2 and 3).

The particular setting that was investigated in this study was auniversity course in criminology, conducted via a virtual learningenvironment. There are two main contributions from the study:1) an instantiation of a framework for analyzing digital literacy interms of the social semiotic perspective, and 2) illuminating thatdiscrepancies in dialog between students and teachers occur be-cause there are different conceptions of how to discuss in a VLE.In social semiotic terms, participants have access to different regis-ters regarding the VLE. Even more importantly, they do not discussthese differences in order to arrive at a more shared understandingof the VLE, and the VLE in question gives little guidance on thematter.

Designers and teachers seem to underestimate the power of signsand the capacity of people to elaborate them, and that VLE and coursedesign strongly affect communication within the VLE. This has notonly to do with the design and adaption of the VLE, but also howthe different tools are used in specific activities. The signs cannoteasily be reinterpreted in the new context as formed by the specificcourse. In other words, digital literacy must be seen as a situatedpractice (cf. Kress, 1989; Sutherland, Lindström, & Lahn, 2009) andthe VLE designers are part of that practice albeit not present in aparticular course.

A possible application of the proposed framework is that one orseveral categories of participants (designers, teachers, students) canuse it as a starting point for discussions on problems and affordanceswith a VLE: What kind of digital literacies do the students bring intothe academic setting? Which are the largest discrepancies betweenteachers' and students' understanding of different tools or concepts?How can the VLE be designed as to encourage reflexive registers?By investigating these questions, the concept of digital literacy canbe discussed and understood in relation to different knowledge do-mains and contexts before making more general syntheses in orderto specify what it means to be digitally literate in society.

There are new types of objects in every new digital environment.Designers and teachers as “co-designers” need to reduce the gapbetween everyday and specialized digital literacy. A crucial point isto take advantage of systems familiar to the student/teacher whendesigning VLEs (cf. Andersen, 1990). It is of course difficult forteachers to have this meta-perspective of their adaption of a VLEfor a specific course. But designers must take this into accountwhen building VLEs, because discrepancies between specialized andeveryday digital literacy may become obstacles for learning and VLEuse.

Acknowledgments

This study was financed by the Swedish Research Council, projectno. 2009-6033. The authors wish to thank Caroline Liberg, AndersBjörkvall and the two anonymous reviewers for valuable commentson this paper.

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Identifying different registers of digital literacy in virtual learning environments