How can visual literacy and the use of Internet impact the teaching and learning process in the classroom? What are some visual-thinking strategies you would like to use in your classroom? What role do you want the Internet play in your classroom?
The internet is an excellent tool to be used in the classroom and can have a huge impact on the teaching and learning that takes place. The internet can be used to retrieve information, foster collaboration, or add enrichment to learning activities for teachers and students alike.
Information:
The amount of information on the internet is seemingly endless. It isn’t restricted by boundaries such as a physical library of books. There are a variety of search engines and processes which allow for specific searches to be made through use of key words or Boolean phrases. Teachers can use this wealth of information for researching and creating lessons. They can also find lesson plans for practically every topic that have already been created and shared by other educators. Students can also sort through the information available when researching a topic and can pick and choose which sources they would like to use, and all without having to peruse through a huge amount of literature.
Collaboration:
Blogs, discussion forums, collaborative simulations or games, and internet communication tools are a few of the ways that the internet can be a tool to foster collaboration. Teachers and students can all participate in these online activities either with their peers or with each other. A classroom blog is a great way to encourage discussion and participation regarding topics in the classroom. Discussion forums can be very specific to issues that teachers or students are facing. Collaborative simulations or games are great hands-on activities that encourage teamwork and give students a meaningful learning experience. Communication tools such as email or instant messaging are a great way to communicate either synchronously or asynchronously and can be used during the school day or beyond.
Enrichment:
The internet provides many opportunities for teachers and students to take their teaching or learning to whole new levels. Online games, virtual field trips, podcasts, web conferencing, and simulations are just a few of the many opportunities that exist on the internet. They overcome boundaries such as space or time that may exist within the classroom walls. Teachers can provide these enrichment opportunities for students with some advanced preparation, or students can find them on their own, applying the skills they have learned.
As a teacher, I would love to continue learning new ways to incorporate the use of the internet in my own classroom. I think this learning will come from training, exploration, and collaboration with others. For starters, I would like to implement an activity in my class where students locate images or animations that tell the story that summarizes the learning that has taken place in the classroom. These can serve as visual reminders or cues to the students to be able to reconnect to those lessons and remember the “main ideas.” Since technology is becoming an increasingly integral part of society, I think it only makes sense that it does so in each classroom as well.
The field of Instructional Technology is not founded solely within the field of Education. Much of the research in Instructional Technology is based in Communications theory. Visual literacy is a term that is based within the Communications field. Visual literacy includes the comprehension of visual media using diagrams, graphs, and diagrams as a form of presenting data. The study of visual literacy also examines how visuals enhance the cognitive abilities of learners using specific properties of the visuals including spatial relationships, composition, and color. Additionally, visual literacy examines an awareness of visual manipulation, distortion, and misinformation in advertising and propaganda.
ReplyDeleteSince the early 1990’s, the Internet has evolved into a visual media tool unsurpassed by any other visual learning technology (photos, diagrams, videos, etc…). Broadband communications has enhanced the Internet’s capacity to present visual media, concurrent with the expansion of the recent emergence of social networking where visual media is shared. With so much media blazing past us, it is important that teachers balance the use of visual media or teaching and learning with an awareness that visual media is not all accurate and true. The power of television and film images can create an almost utopian world of objects and events creating an illusion of reality that draws us in.
Visual literacy must couple the use of visual media of all kinds with an understanding of how visual media constructs meaning for the learner, while advocating careful review of the elements that make up the image in order to enhance understanding and appreciation or to promote critical viewing skills.
DrE