Before beginning this project on Visual Literacy, I honestly was not aware of how important this concept of literacy is. When I first begin looking over my options to explore, visual literacy is what caught my interest and was something I knew I wanted to look farther into. However when exploring definitions of literacy, like the one I posted on February 11th, I was shocked to see how rarely the definitions included visual literacy. Because of this, I knew I wanted to explore this concept of Visual Literacy, to get a better understanding of how this topic fits into the definition of literacy.
Visual learning is something we do from the day we are born as we watch those around us and learn from their actions. As time goes on we learn to recognize symbols, images, and objects, and we begin to understand their meanings and soon can recognize that they go hand-in-hand with communication. I now will know as a teacher, that if my students do not understand the meaning of what they see, then they will not be able to express their emotions or feelings through writing. I also learned the importance of having and using visuals all throughout the classroom and classwork. When students are taught both visually and verbally, they are much more likely to remember it. For instance, using graphs and charts allows students to show relationships between concepts and data, while also allowing them to make informed decision based on the material presented to them on the graph or chart. It's proven that most students need to see the information in order to learn it and as teachers this is important for us to know because now days we tend to stick to the text-book way of teaching and expect our students to read the information by themselves and then to understand everything.
After learning how important this topic of literacy is, it is important for me as a teacher to also remember and incorporate all the other concepts that go along with literacy into my planning, to provide 'effective literacy instruction'. When doing so, because of this project we had to do for TE402, I am now aware of several ways to complete these instructions using several of the technology examples provided by my classmates.
The cool thing about this project is that we were able to visually present our information on the topic of Visual Literacy using sliderocket. This is an intriguing way to capture the audiences attention, as they learn new information. Sliderocket also allowed us to incorporate a video into the project. This video is full of images that trigger our mind with thoughts, feelings, emotions, ideas, stories, etc. as we "read" the pictures full of symbols and objects. We also used pictures to represent what was being said through text in the project. For example, on slide 5 we placed a guy with a bright light bulb above his head. This can represent a new idea or can be a representation of the guy understanding whats being communicated to him. (An "ah-ha" moment!)
If the students in my placement were to be presented this information with this digital technology I used, they would first have to understand how to read the text given on the slides. They would also have to see a connection between the photos and that text given. Understanding that the information is presented in a "slide show" meaning they have to click the mouse to continue onto the next page to receive more information is also important according to their digital literacy skills. This idea of it being in a slide show is good for the students because the information that is presented is done so on their time, meaning they decide when they understand what is being presented and can go onto the next slide at their own pace. This gives the students time. The images presented on the last slide are set up in a way that tells a small story with the use of arrows between each image. With this being said, the students will need to use their visual literacy knowledge to comprehend the story these images are telling.
Along with the idea of digital literacy, in order for my students to develop visual literacy they will need to understand that they are visually learning all the time. When they see something, they communicate the message it's saying in their mind. For instance, a Starbucks symbol will relate to coffee, while a person facial expression can represent a feeling; sad, happy, angry, etc. To provide this support, it's important that a lot of visual are present in the classroom. This can range from classroom instructions, to flags, or to images of different cultures and places around the world. It's important that these images teach the students something.
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