Teaching Students to Critically Read Digital Images: A Visual Literacy Approach Using the DIG Method

This innovative teaching idea, the Digital Image Guide (DIG) Method, addresses the pressing need to develop visual pedagogies in the university classroom by providing a technique for students to use to critically read digital images. This article also introduces the concept of shallow and deep images. It then explains the difference between the two types of images and how to use the DIG Method to dig deeper in order to understand deep images. By utilizing the DIG Method, students can learn to analyze, interpret, evaluate and comprehend images found on social media sites and around the web, increasing their visual literacy skills in the process.

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Reading the World – Teaching Visual Analysis in Higher Education

This article provides a practical guide for teaching visual analysis to university students. By adapting Serafini’s curricular and pedagogical framework for teaching multimodal representations to incorporate self-reflection, I evince how visual analysis can be taught in a writing course and similar introductory courses.

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The Art of Evidence: A Method for Instructing Students in Art History Research

Within various disciplines, contextual sources such as history, theory, and criticism are used to support knowledge claims. However, the discipline of art history assigns the undergraduate a particular challenge with regard to secondary source use.

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Supporting Multimodal Literacy in Library Instruction

Students interact with information in many ways throughout the day, code switching between modes depending on their needs. Educators are finally realizing that composing in more than one mode is not only important, but also necessary. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of the academic library, the ACRL Framework and information literacy instruction in creating ethical, inspired users. This paper looks at previously published work on multimodal discourse, how libraries have supported modes in the past and how the ACRL Information Literacy Framework highlights the need to teach students and faculty how to compose in many modes.

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Comics, Questions, Action! Engaging Students and Instruction Librarians with the Comics-Questions Curriculum

In a four-session Summer Bridge programme, we experimented with new curricular and pedagogical ideas with a group of incoming freshmen. We developed the Comics-Questions Curriculum (CQC), which melds students’ question asking with a focus on comics. The purpose of this paper is to describe the rationale for and ongoing development of the CQC as well as the ways the CQC fosters engagement of students and librarians, builds upon students’ existing skills but propels them forward toward college-level work, and positions librarians as partners in students’ college work. Although it was designed for a specific purpose initially, the CQC in its current state is widely adaptable to other contexts beyond the original scope.

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Acquiring Visual Literacy Skills: Interpretation of Journalistic Photographs as a Tool for Contemporary Education

Due to the progressive visualization of everyday communication, it has become increasingly
important to understand images and think and learn in terms of images. Tere should not
be any surprise, therefore, that educators express a need to introduce visual literacy into the
curriculum. However, the concrete tools to address this need are still missing. Te variety
of visual methods and approaches provided by visual studies’ literature does not seem to be
particularly useful when applied to education. Terefore, I suggest that a focus on teaching the
interpretation of journalistic photographs is a crucial component of contemporary education,
because it develops students’ visual literacy skills while addressing current requirements
in Higher Education, which expect students to be able to interpret, use and create images.

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“They’re not just for Fridays anymore”: Media literacy, Hollywood, Historical Inquiry, and Hollywood Films

For generations, and perhaps since the inception of the motion picture industry, teachers of history have recognized the utility of incorporating Hollywood, or commercial, film productions into their classrooms as a visual stimulus.

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The Language of Movies: Using Film to Teach Visual Literacy in the EFL Classroom

Movies are an authentic and motivating resource for language instruction. They are also often viewed as a pacifier or a piece of candy in the classroom. This capstone aims to address the best practices for incorporating film into the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom in order to teach critical 21st century skills such as visual literacy. A series of content-based lessons have been designed to promote critical thinking skills while simultaneously developing film and media literacy. This five-unit curriculum contains a series of edited film clips, PowerPoint slides, and supporting documents for EFL professionals who are looking to incorporate new literacies into their classrooms.

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Growing the Art Image and Visual Literacy Garden: The Journey to Create a Practice Guide for Student Employees

Expanding upon my poster titled “Art Instead of Just Images: Training Students to See Beyond the Screen” presented at the 2016 ARLIS/NA + VRA Third Joint Conference in Seattle, I detail the current journey of my project to create a practical guide for student employees to understand and manipulate images of art.

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A Wordle to the Wise: Using “Word Clouds” Meaningfully in the Classroom

Word clouds, created by a variety of web applications, are enticing new tools for some social studies educators. Teachers should be prepared, though, for the possibility that our zeal for a new resource may prevent us from adequately examining its value. This article recounts a class activity involving the creation of a word cloud, the Wordles of major documents from the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, analyzes the lesson’s strengths and weaknesses, and offers guidance for the meaningful use of word cloud applications in the classroom.

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Presenting My Selfie to the Digital World: Visual Composition for Better Representation

The intention that motivates an online image’s creation might be ignored by overwhelmed media consumers as images wash over them as they scroll through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Snapchat. Consumers of commercially and personally produced images tend to focus on how those images make them feel as opposed to the narrative or reportorial information embedded in images. Since both “experts” and “novices” create online images, discerning an imagemaker’s level of expertise is difficult, if not impossible, to grasp due to lack of attribution, the availability of sophisticated online photo editing tools, and a steep learning curve among many novice creators. To discourage merely skimming images and to develop greater visual literacy, five principles of visual composition can be applied to access and analyze the intended and unintended denotative and connotative messages embedded in personal or commercial images posted on various social media platforms.

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Equipping Teacher Candidates with Media Literacy Skills: Best Practices in Online Education Courses

This paper provides an overview of how to reach the millennial generation, primarily at the higher education level. However, it does address an audience of K­12 teachers, higher education faculty, researchers, administrators, and practitioners, who not only teach the higher education population of students, but who prepare students who will one day attain a postsecondary education. Currently used practices that have been grounded in theory are presented along with evidence of curricular integration of visual and media literacy skills. The skills are in alignment with the standards of the Association of Colleges and Research Libraries (ACRL), the definition of visual literacy from the International Visual Literacy Association (IVLA), and the definition of media literacy from the National Association of Media Literacy Education (NAMLE).

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Digital Design and 3D Printing in Technology Teacher Education

This paper reports changes in the Technion technology/mechanics teacher education courses aimed to enhance students’ knowledge and skills in teaching digital design and manufacturing. The two major changes are: (1) equipping the departmental laboratory of technology with modern computer aided design software tools (Creo, Mathcad) and 3D printer, and (2) upgrading the courses to meet the conceive-design-implement-operate (CDIO) approach. Our ongoing study indicates that the CDIO approach can be applied to balance learning pedagogical fundamentals, training technological skills, and teaching practice. The study provides indications that learning activities in the courses facilitate development of visual literacy skills.

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Learning Through Mini-Documentary Video Projects

Mini-documentary video projects are short factual videos that can be created by students. The mini-documentary video is generally suitable for entry level skill sets and online distribution. Multiple interrelated competencies can be attained while researching a topic, collecting media assets, recording original content, composing, editing, and producing a mini-documentary video project. This paper outlines a conceptual framework for learning through mini-documentary production, which is based on experiences working with adult students in an online course featuring video editing for YouTube. Three interrelated areas where learning can occur are discussed: (1) visual and media literacy, (2) copyright and fair use, and (3) educational video design. Strategies that have worked in past iterations of the course are described as well as problems or issues to be aware of prior to implementing projects like this in the classroom.

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Building Blackboard Innovation Practice Platform Based on Multimedia Literacy

“Considering some deficiency of college students’ innovative project construction and general lack of innovation incubation platform, this paper puts forward a framework of Blackboard-based multimedia innovation practice platform. Logically, the platform contains three correlated layers: the multimedia literacy layer (foundation), incubation layer (core) and innovation practice layer (goal). From the perspective of multimedia literacy, the function of the platform is designed. Several years of practices have proved that the building of the platform is helping and motivating more and more college students to step on the way of innovation practice.”

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