Visual literacy skills have become an inevitable part of life in today’s world. Technological innovations leading to new literacy skills have changed traditional ways of communication and made it necessary to learn and understand symbols, pictures, photos, illustrations, diagrams, infographics, pictograms, simulations, graphical interfaces, digitized images, and other visual tools. Therefore, it is very significant to teach individuals about visual literacy skills: the ability to understand, interpret, evaluate, organize, and construct visual information. Infographics are essential tools for learners. One of the most prominent institution to teach visual literacy skills is libraries. Visual tools, strategies, and methods should be applied in library instructions for users to realize these skills. The aim of the chapter is to show the importance of visualization, visual literacy, and infographics and present suggestions regarding how to develop the visual literacy skills of learners by libraries.
Infographics have been frequently used in recent years with the purpose of the visual presentation of information. It is a visualisation method which aims at presenting any content with a visual composition, combining such elements as shapes, symbols, graphics, photographs, illustrations, and texts for the target audience. The purpose of this research is to develop an instructional design based on the ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation) model of infographic design as well as the determination of student and teacher opinions on the usage of infographics in teaching.
The aim of the quantitative study is to identify the digital literacy levels of prospective teachers in terms of several variables. The sample consisted of 354 prospective teachers studying in different departments of Sakarya University College of Education. The 30-item instrument used to gather the data was the “Digital Literacy Scale” developed and used by the researchers. The scale was composed of 5 different factors namely information literacy, visual literacy, software literacy, technology literacy and computer literacy.
It is essential for the 21st-century generation of students to be equipped with proficient visual skills and the need to use visual methods for teaching design in architectural undergraduate studies cannot be overemphasized. Photographs are used for analytic illustrations and case study presentations mainly in architecture. However, utilizing photographs as a visual reference tool will build a better prospect for students to enhance their creative thinking and design concepts.
Today, the concept of “Literacy” represents reading and writing in various forms of texts which embody knowledge and a range of skills. Different literacies are essential for human to live, work and produce in the society. In order to use communication technologies in educational and teaching processes appropriately, individuals are not only required to become scientifically and technologically literate but also multimedia literate. Within this respect, a Project called “The 21st Century Literacies Education for Teacher Candidates” was conducted with the support of TUBITAK at Amasya University.
The Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education presents guidelines for educators and provides a scientific framework in which students can acquire visual literacy skills and use visual media in a critical way throughout their professional career. The Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education was composed by the American Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). By means of these standards, the members of the association identified the domains of visual literacy and specified what learning outcomes could enable students to acquire visual literacy skills. The present paper is a discussion of the extent to which the Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education can be met.
The aim of this study is to develop a scale determining the visual literacy levels of university students. After reviewing the relevant literature a 75 item draft scale was prepared. The scale was applied to 3rd and 4th year students of Education Faculty of Amasya University. Non-functional items have been excluded from the scale as a result of the factor analysis and 41 items have been included. It has been determined that the statements in the scale are gathered in 7 dimensions. These dimensions consisted of: “Identification of the need for visual”, “Finding and accessing visual sources”, “Analyzing and interpreting the visuals”, “Evaluation of visuals and visual sources”, “Effective usage of visuals and visual media”, “Designing and creating visuals” and “Taking ethical and legal issues into consideration”.