Week 6.1 Images

Images and Visual Literacy

To be visually literate students need to be able to interpret and produce images to communicate a message to an audience ( Bamford, 2003). Students need to be strategically taught in order to develop higher order visual literacy skills and students require these skills to be critical consumers of these media (Thibault &Walbert, 2003). This type of literacy is even more critical for today’s students as images become more and more prevalent as a means of communication. As the vast majority of images students are exposed to have been mediated by technology (Lester 1995 as cited in Bamford, 2003) visual literacy must also include digital literacy.

So in analysing the affordances of images and technical tools for images in learning need to consider two aspects

 1.  The tools ability to support -  critical discussions around  images and exposure to a range of images.

 2. The opportunity to create images by experimenting with graphic software.

Pinterest : supports exposure to a range of images. These can be used  for writing stimulus and reinforcing comprehension strategies.

These are my favourite boards for interesting writing prompts by pinning an interesting image and posting a question or story starter in the caption OR reading strategy prompts.

Storybird provides access to artist quality images and a platform for writing narratives around these images. Storybird also supports collaboration and connected learning experiences. I have explored its potential for transforming learning in my Scoop it curator's notes. 

Voice Thread allows teachers and students to upload images and record written or verbal responses. I had a few problems recording my voice in this example but was able to add typed questions. This tool would work best with small groups  ( 3-7) sharing a voicethread. I would like to try creating my own image to add to Voicethread.

I also love Thinglink. This tool enables the user to make an interactive image that is linked to user created and webcontent. Users are able to add link to content on the web ( video, audio, images and webpages) as well as add their own content >>>>> ?? could not do this.

The Thinglink site also allows users to “touch” and comment on others creations. Author’s of images can also choose to allow other users to copy and modify their work. Thinglink also has a free iPad app so it is also mobile.

For all you ever wanted to know about Thinglink  as well as links to examples of ways it’s been used be educators.

 

Combining image creation using graphics software ( Powerpoint, Paint.Net)  and analysing images ( Thinklink)

To do this I needed to create my own image – I searched for and found a tutorial for creating advertisements using photoshop. I don’t have that software but decided to experiment with Paint.Net to combine images. I have used the ChromaKey function of the program to change the background of an image and thought this would be a good option. However the image I chose from Flickr did not have a green or blue background. After searching  forums for information on removing backgrounds and a lot of frustration-tracing around the image etc -  I realised that I could easily remove and change the background in PowerPoint !  I then saved and imported it into Paint.Net to apply effects then saved again. I repeated the process for another image I wanted to use then inserted them both back to PP to add the background , text and a few sparkles.

I then uploaded this image to Thinglink and explained my design choices using text. I also found it useful to attribute my sources using this tool as I could provide copyright information in the comment and link directly to the original image in Flickr. Aside from copyright, having the original image adds transparency to the process of creating the advertisement and allows the reader to compare the image before and after it has been digitally manipulated.

This image is a product students might create as part of an English unit on advertising.

Comparison Table – a work in progress

Voice thread	Thinglink
Able to record voice Able to easily share /and hear other’s opinions and feedback.	Able to record comments using text – May be able to link to audio content from another source. Able to link to web content Able to focus attention to a specific area of image and link to that.

REFLECTIONS 

Our Week 6 Meeting discussions led me to consider the uses of thoughtfully chosen images for stimulating thinking . I found the See-Think Wonder strategy deceptively simple but extremely useful not only in scaffolding students thinking around a digital artifact but also in making the thinking process itself transparent.

I loved the image of the young boy rolling a tyre Justine included in her blog posting this week and can see that this choice of image would form the basis for valuable discussions with students.

Reference

Bamford,A.(2003). A visual literacy white paper [white paper]. Retreived January 3,2013, from, http://www.aperture.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/visual-literacy-wp.pdf    5

Thibault,M.,&Walbert,D.(2003). Reading images: An introduction to visual literacy. Retrieved December 31,2013, from http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/675