I see the issue of semiotics intimately related to what Gary Shank [9 Nov 94] mentions in his eloquent message: "Truth and meaning can certainly be interrelated, but ultimately they are separate concepts."
If we are to break away from a monist model of reality (one objective reality) and move into the paradigm of assuming that there are as many "realities" as people themselves (by no means an easy task!), we can begin to think about the issue of individual meaning. By individual meaning, I am thinking not so much about established symbol systems with agreed sets of meaning constructs, the most notable being language, but other realms of personal meaning.
Events in our lives, culture, and even our genes create conditions that make us all "gravitate" or become attracted to different objects, disciplines, concepts, and/or ideas and help contribute to making us the individuals that we are.
This "gravitation," or attraction to different things, varies from individual to individual and reflects that which is meaningful to us. A representation or picture of a piano keyboard may not mean much to the average non-musician, but to a concert pianist it probably means a lot of things. I firmly believe that if we are able to somehow "uncover" those objects, disciplines, concepts, and/or ideas that are meaningful to an individual, we may be able to design individualized curricula that will motivate and interest that individual much more than any "standardized" curricula.
Because of this position, I tend to disagree with Marcy's statement about instructional goals in a semiotic perspective. Instructional goals should not be defined in terms of standard or desired interpretations but rather on an individual's personal meaning constructs. A person should be allowed to interpret things any way they wish rather than imposing on them the way in which that thing will be interpreted. Our instructional goals or educational objectives should probably be described in terms of high level cognitive skills, and the curriculum for helping students achieve these skills should be customized and meaningful to each student. The obvious question derived from this statement is "How can we make individualized instruction for a class of 30 students?" The answer to that question is through the SMART use of technology--using computer programs and templates to design unique customized instructional programs. However, the subject of using technology for writing individualized instruction is probably for another forum.
This brings me to my last comment which relates to what Dr. Rob Phillips [10 Nov 94] mentions: "This led me to think that semiosis is related to the 'interface' with which the user interacts with the computer, rather than to the educational content."
I don't fully agree with this statement either, I believe the real power of a semiotic curriculum is its ability to create learning experiences and even learning environments that are meaningful and relevant to students. The interface for interacting with information is important, but the content itself is probably more important toward achieving a meaningful learning environment.
My doctoral dissertation project centers around a software application I have designed and that we have named Attentional Map Diagnostic Application (AMDA). Through the viewing and interaction of images, we hope to use this application to uncover the user's individual meaning constructs, i.e., that which is meaningful or important to that person. We hope that this tool will help curriculum developers interested in developing individualized semiotic or meaning-based curricula by "uncovering" those ideas, concepts, objects, and/or disciplines that are important (meaningful) to the student and consequently using that knowledge to create relevant and motivating instructional materials.
AMDA has not been tested yet and my dissertation proposal is not quite yet complete. (I hope my committee doesn't think I'm crazy and allows me to do this project!) However, if anyone is interested in AMDA, I'll be glad to provide more information.