Sinsemia as a tool for designing interactive artifacts for teaching. The case study of The topography of Dante’s Inferno and the detailed definition of reference frame

The Topography of Dante’s Inferno” is a synsemic interactive artifact which is designed for 11-14 years old students. The design process has been based on the fundamental concepts of synsemia, which lead to an artifact that includes and combines different didactic mediators; in particular, in this article is described more in detail the fundamental concept of reference frame. The reference frame can be described as the frame (consisting of graphic elements) which allows to contextualize the graphic elements of a synsemic text. The artifact has been qualitatively evaluated in two focus groups (one with 12 teachers in training and one with 12 teachers in service), in which some reflections emerged, like some misinterpretations due to a more or less correct design of the reference frame and the didactic mediators.