Re: [xmca] Semiotic-Material Ordering

Dear Eric, thank you very much for your comments, I am happy that my
work made some sense to you.

it is clear that I am much influenced by Vygotsky's Thought and
Language, and I see a lot of parallels to Valsiner, too.

May I ask you how you (would) evaluate your portfolio or any similar
tools from your perspective?

Michalis Kontopodis

research associate
humboldt university berlin
tel.: +49 (0) 30 2093 3716
fax.: +49 (0) 30 2093 3739
http://www.iscar.org/de/culthistanthpsy/

On Apr 16, 2008, at 7:29 PM, ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org wrote:

>
> Michalis:
>
> Such an important paper pertaining to the work that I currently
> practice.
> In fact you have summarized very well a practice that we put into
> place two
> years ago that we have found great success implementing. Two years
> ago
> staff put in a great deal of time in the evenings to develop a
> portfolio.
> It was a list compiling all of the activities they would be required
> to
> complete while they are attending our program. Prior to the
> development of
> this portfolio the explanation of expectations was more ethereal in
> nature
> and consisted of meetings, small checklist and quite frankly
> subjective
> feelings. Since the development of this portfolio the result has been
> similar to the following quote from your paper:
>
> "The diagram [insert portfolio here] presented here is abstract and
> encompasses the student's complete school past.
> Time is here not only spatialized but it is fabricated as a line
> connecting
> the past, the present and
> the future, i.e. it is fabricated as irreversible time. A student's
> development is 'objectified'. The
> term "to objectify" is used here to indicate the translation of
> something
> vague (ongoing interaction
> and intra-activity in everyday life) into something visible, in a
> way which
> is accepted as objective;
> the term also indicates embodying a vague idea in a materiality e.g. a
> document (Middleton,
> Brown, & Lightfoot, 2001; Middleton & Brown, 2005). Discursive
> interaction
> and intra-activity
> is always also non-discursive: the graphics of development go
> together with
> the students' autobiographical
> narrations and the teachers' discussions/reports mediating the
> institutional
> memory. (p.15)"
>
> Also of note my newest avenue of interest has been to thoroughly
> research
> Chapter 5 (an experimental study of the development of concepts) from
> Vygotsky's Thought and Language. Much of what you write pertaining to
> development is similar to Vygotsky's view that what evolves into
> higher
> psychological thought in adolescence is present in the child prior to
> adolescence but the mediation and the flow of complexes eventually
> evolves
> in the adolescent thinking in concepts as a result of this
> semiotic-material ordering. I also see parallels between your
> thinking on
> semiotic-material ordering and Valsiner's concept of the process-
> structure
> of semiotic mediation.
>
> Thank you for allowing your paper to be viewed on XMCA, I for one
> greatly
> appreciate it.
>
> eric
>
>
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Received on Wed Apr 16 13:51 PDT 2008