Collaborative reading in the physical-virtual environment

Collaborative reading is a pedagogical practice that allows discussion of texts while keeping an individual and collective interpretation of it, letting the readers assume an active role. This work proposes a framework, the Collaborative Reading in Physical-Virtual environment (CRPV), to use this type of reading in non-linear texts within a socioenactive system. The model was based on Organizational Semiotics, the structure of hypertexts and the enactivism concept. CRPV system changes the multimedia content in each text depending on how each user and group reads, aiming to be a socioenactive system. This concept can possibly shift the original notion of reading from an individual activity to a more collaborative form of interaction, especially in virtual environments that are the latest birthplaces of new literacy forms. Text structures of this CRPV model and multimodal interfaces matching them were created and scenarios of use case were planned, implementing those design aspects with contemporary technologies, such as augmented reality. One of these scenarios was tested and the first experiment showed that participants got highly motivated and engaged in the reading activity. This research has the potential to impact the education area, the reading process and the studies in multimodal interfaces, offering new, low cost and highly interactive environments.

Semiotic study for the analysis of communications within organizations: Theoretical approach from organizational semiotics

In this paper we develop a methodological proposal for the study of communications within organizations from a semiotic approach. This proposal includes a semiotic study based on three central concepts: 1. the sign and its development – we begin with Charles S. Peirce’s well-known concept of sign and continue with the discourse transformation perspective; 2. the development of operations for the analysis of semiotic expressions to find a specific mechanism which enables us to analyze interpretative-cognitive processes in iconic, indexical, and symbolic expressions; and 3. interpretation processes in organizations developed from the analysis of the role of dynamic objects in the creation of signs to try to develop a descriptive, analytic, and reconstructive approach on how dynamic objects work and go further in the description of possible semiotic worlds. We develop concepts such as social semiosis (as a system), semiotic expressions (as updates to this system) in organizational environments, and the concept of semiotic actors closely related to the construction of an organizational world. This study enables us to approach the dynamics in communicational processes within organizations in all its elements to perform a critical analysis.