september 27, 2005 TIE 544

1. brief overview to visual literacy

resource

visual literacy and applications to education basic overview of visual literacy in relationship to education with good practical classroom applications. .

2. visual literacy presentations from the new media consortium visual literacy 2005 on-Line conference:

future literacies, future identities: the role of visual literacy in interactive environments
visual literacy across the curriculum a higher education example

3. in-class assignment 1: can meaning be detached from image? a flashy perspective

mediaMemory by charlie roberts www.charlie-roberts.com

charlie is a student at teachers college in the instructional technology and media program. amazingly, coding is his hobby, not his vocation. mediaMemory was done in flash, mySQL, and php. he has some good things to say about visual images in advertising. he created this project for a class -- don't worry, we won't expect you to produce something like this!

background on mediaMemory play mediaMemory and email charlie at charlie@charlie-roberts.com your brief comments about the game and your reflections about how it could be modified or adapted for use in a school.

4. in-class assignment 2: expanding your notion of visual literacy

a. make your own personal visual literacy map/timeline on powerpoint.
go to the internet and obtain and copy images and make a map on powerpoint that is representative of you: your personal history, traits, hobbies, interests, beliefs, etc. the purpose of this activity is to help you see the connotation, or the potential meanings, of the images you see and select and how these specific symbols and images connect to experiences in your life. this activity also will give you the important experience of creating a narrative based mostly on image, which will help enhance your own develop your own personal definition of visual literacy.

use:
pictures of historical events that have occured in your life that have had an impact
photos of places you have lived; maps, landscapes, houses
photos indicating activites, hobbies
photos depicting family heritage, ethnic roots
artistic and abstract photos that are indictative of moods, personality
icons, symbols, logos, cartoons
illustrations
advertisements
themes, collections

you must include the following distribution (minimum):

try to stretch your imagination and select images that are not directly related to specific activities, but have more abstract meaning and connections to your life. include images that require a range of viewer interpretation. use a variety of images. mix history, art, iconography. use a variety of topics and themes.

remember: don't just madly collect images from the internet. stop. plan. think. this is an exercise in reflection about connecting one's life to image, not collecting images.

the challenge of this activity will be organizing the pictures. you can separate pictures into different slides by years, decades, periods in your life. you can separate slides by picture types. or your don’t have to separate at all. you can collage, rotate, crop. how you organize your pictures might say something about yourself as well.

as you select images, think of what you might tell students if you were guiding them through this exercise. how would you help students learn how to "see" images? to pay attention to detail, form, and nuance? though it may be easy for students to decode straightforward images, the more complex symbols and historical pictures might prove to be more challenging for them to interpret. how could we help students identify specific markers in historical photos that would give indications of time and place? how could we teach them about what affects the mood of a photo? how different angles, perspectives, lights might alter how a subject might appear? what skills would students need to understand the difference between an artistic photo and a news photo? all of these skills are part of developing visual literacy.


b. write a short paragraph describing your map,
on a slide, or on a separate file, write a brief paragraph describing your map and why you selected some of the pictures, particularly the ones that require more interpretation.


links & resources to use for your assignment:

historical archival photos.
picturing the century
american memories
library of congress photo index

photofinding tools
amazing picture machine - locates pictures on the web
go graph - search engine for images
image finder - searches many photo sources
photoseek - locates photos using search engines
webseek - multimedia search tool

photosharing
http://www.flickr.com/photos/search/ flickr. photosharing site. locate user personal photos by tags, such as “hurricane katrina” or “dogs”..
woophy: this sit allows users to locate photography by geographical location.

advertising archives (you can find old ads from your childhood.)
ad access database
adflip

image databases
google images
yahoo gallery
ditto
freefoto

symbol database
http://www.symbols.com/ great resource!

random and interesting
emporis database of buildings. if you live in a high rise, you can find your structure!

maps
google maps/satellite view get a view of your childhood home!