Visual Learning

In Media Literacy the author Phillip Seymour advocates for the inclusion of digital images and sound into our curriculum. He goes on to describe how the National Council of Teachers feel it would be a breach of a teachers duty to ignore the impact of digital images and sound on our students. They also advocate for teaching the students to approach the images with a critical mind.

In looking at the effects of new media and technology on our society there is a disagreement as to the result. Does the new media dumb down our society or has a new presented a new communication paradigm?

Advocates for media literacy in the school see three key concepts that need to be taught:
1. Developing analytical and critical thinking skills in our students which will provide them the tools to interact positively with multiple media sources.
2. Teaching visual literacy schools that allow students to communicate effectively and appropriately with visual images.
3. Infusing technology and media into the core school curriculum.

The article continues on to give examples for how technology and visual images can be integrated into the curriculum and sample lesson structures to provide ideas and promote Polaroid cameras.

All 6th graders at our school take a technology class and our high school has a technology requirement as part of the graduation requirements. In each class basic technical skills are taught that will be required for using technology in the core classes. I do not know to what extent digital image editing and copyright are discussed. Integrating technology use into the curriculum to engage the students can be challenging in some subjects. The limited use of creating reports that have images attached to them does not seem to allow space for critical thinking about those images. This might be accomplished in a series of lessons within our tech courses but I do not see the time being allocated in all of the different core subjects. I agree with the need to find more ways to integrate technology into the curriculum in the hope of engaging the students but it needs to be done carefully in order to make sure the technology is not just a distraction but is enhancing the learning experience.