Visual literacy is something we all deal with on a daily basis. More and more every day we are confronted with visual media in the form of billboards, magazines, television, movies, and of course extensively on the internet.
Many of our readings this week discussed the danger of having a "seeing is believing" attitude when it comes to visual images. Manipulating images is nothing new, but in the digital age of photoshop one can not necessarily trust an image to be an accurate representation of the real thing.
My favorite historical instance of manipulated images are early UFO fakes using tricks of lighting, perspective and even double exposures to create the appearance of capturing a UFO on film. Other instances of early photo manipulation is using multiple negatives to create one image, in effect blending them together.
Other instances of "seeing isn't believing" and hoaxes include things like the "spaghetti tree" hoax created by a British news service. They claimed that spaghetti was grown on trees in Italy, running a staged picture of someone picking spaghetti from a tree! This sounds absurd, but people bought it due to the convincing photo attached to the article (and the fact that spaghetti wasn't a common food at the time in Britian).
Using visual literacy cues, and being more visually literate, allows someone to pick up on potential fakes, or manipulated images. Using this knowledge someone can learn more about the intent of the image and what the artist or author wanted to convey through the image. Whether we know it or not, our exposure to so much visual media in today's world gives us at least a basic understanding of visual literacy. Today's schools should try and add visual literacy into their curriculum more often to teach students how to critically evaluate visual images!
I personally plan on including a segment in my lessons which discusses modern day hoaxes which circulate through social media and e-mail. Constantly I see photoshopped images, or forced perspective photos which come with fantastic claims... and people believe them because they believe what they see in the image must be true! If more people understood the medium of digital manipulations and how easy they are to create, they would be more skeptical about what they come across on the internet!
This week's Technology explorations:
15 a: Prezi - http://prezi.com/
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1.
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Describe what you learned from exploring this resource.
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Prezi is a cloud based utility to create slide show
presentations. You can create, save,
and present all from the online web 2.0 utility. Prezi goes beyond the typical slide show
presentation and creates a presentation based on a concept mapping. As you zoom into the concept map new “slides”
appear at deeper levels of detail.
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2.
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How could you use this resource in a school setting? It does not matter if it is in your field
or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in
educational settings.
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This would be a great utility to use to create interesting
presentations following a concept map of a lesson, book, project or
research.
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3.
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Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike;
Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth.
Why or Why not?
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An interesting utility that creates well designed presentations… if
you take the time to learn the software.
This is however a subscription service, at about 5.00 per month for
the most basic services. I personally
do not like the format of this presentation, and do not like the subscription
based service, so I don’t think I will be using it. I would however recommend it to someone who
enjoys concept mapping.
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15 b: SpicyNodes - http://www.spicynodes.org/
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1.
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Describe what you learned from exploring this resource.
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Spicynodes is an interesting utility to create an interactive concept
map (or mind map) to be utilized on a website. Web based, spicy nodes gives the user a
unique way to display their information by creating an interactive map of
interconnecting ideas. A mobile app
created by spicy nodes combines the concept map structure with Wikipedia to create a
fluid way of browsing the information available on Wikipedia, with each
branch of the map linking like articles together.
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2.
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How could you use this resource in a school setting? It does not matter if it is in your field
or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in
educational settings.
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This service can be used to create an interesting and unique
interface for webpages or wikis, giving it a more “textile” and intuitive way
of linking all the information together.
This utility can also be used by students to create study maps, or
presentations. Unfortunately the
utility doesn’t work well with large amounts of text information and is best
kept to short bits of information on each “node”.
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3.
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Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike;
Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth.
Why or Why not?
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This is a subscription service, and I do not recommend it. There are other mind-mapping utilities
available for free. If you wanted to
include a mind-map style interface on your webpage there are innovative ways
to code and arrange your links to create the same effect… this may not be as
easy as using this service, but it is free.
Although spicynodes hints at use in the classroom there doesn’t seem
to be a pricing guide for education use, or an explanation for student use (whether
or not a teacher can create one account and allow all their students to
access it or if there has to be an account for every student…)
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16 a: Edmodo - http://www.edmodo.com/
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1.
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Describe what you learned from exploring this resource.
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Edmodo is a networking service that has the look and feel of a social
network like facebook, but is specifically designed for education. For the student, it allows for communication
and networking with the teacher, other students and other staff of their
district’s network. For the teacher it
allows the ability to post schedules, assignments, and stay connected with
students. Edmodo also has a mobile app
for phones and tablets which allows even more versatile connectivity.
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2.
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How could you use this resource in a school setting? It does not matter if it is in your field
or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in
educational settings.
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This is a versatile resource which can be used in many ways. Most notably to stay connected with
students, but also to create online assignments, track student progress,
network with other teachers and resources, among many other things.
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3.
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Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike;
Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth.
Why or Why not?
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The service is free and used by many school systems. I would definitely recommend using this
service. As more and more students are
engaging with technology and social media edmoto is a great tool to tap into
that culture.
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16 b: math dictionary http://www.amathsdictionaryforkids.com/dictionary.html
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1.
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Describe what you learned from exploring this resource. Be
thorough in your response.
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This is an online dictionary of common math terms. Each term is defined with a simple
definition as well as an interactive example of how each term is used. Not only does it include the terms and
definitions, but also printable resources, charts and posters. This site is geared towards younger
children, but can be used as a teaching resource for any age group.
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2.
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How could you use this resource in a school setting? It does not matter if it is in your field
or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in
educational settings.
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This is a great way to offer students an interactive dictionary of
math terms. This can be used as a
study tool by students, or as a way for teachers to show examples of how to
use different concepts.
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3.
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Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike;
Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth.
Why or Why not?
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It’s free, it’s fun, and it’s easy!
I definitely recommend this for use in any class that may use
math! Math and science classes will
find this resource very helpful.
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17 a: Glogster - http://www.glogster.com/
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1.
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Describe what you learned from exploring this resource. Be
thorough in your response.
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Glogster is an online tool for creating multi-media
presentations. With a “scrapbook” like
appearance, each digital “poster” is a presentation created to incorporate
text, links, images, videos and audio files to create unique
presentations. The tool has a library
of presentations to use as examples, as well as pre-made templates to start
your own presentation from. A drag and
drop format of editing allows quick and intuitive creativity.
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2.
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How could you use this resource in a school setting? It does not matter if it is in your field
or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in
educational settings.
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This resource can be used by teachers to create interactive digital
posters for students, or for students to create their own presentations over
lesson material or research.
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3.
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Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike;
Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth.
Why or Why not?
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I personally do not like the appearance of these. They are visually busy, and look like a
poorly designed scrapbook! I can see
this being acceptable for younger age groups, elementary ages maybe, but for
a high school project it isn’t professional looking enough for my tastes. It is an interesting interface, and creative
way to present however. This is also a
subscription based service with pricing based on number of teachers/students… Unless this is going to be used several
times a year by the teacher I do not recommend it.
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17 b: Jing http://www.techsmith.com/jing/
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1.
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Describe what you learned from exploring this resource. Be
thorough in your response.
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Jing is a screen recorder, allowing the user to capture whatever is
seen on the computer screen. This
program takes images or video and quickly saves and creates sharable
content. The program is downloaded
onto the desktop. Created videos can
be uploaded directly to screencast.com and hosted from there. Unfortunately
the program will only record 5 minutes of video at a time.
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2.
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How could you use this resource in a school setting? It does not matter if it is in your field
or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in
educational settings.
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This program can be used to create tutorial videos or take screen
captures easily and quickly. In
education this can be used to show students how to perform a task on the
computer, or to create tutorial instructions.
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3.
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Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike;
Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth.
Why or Why not?
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I would not recommend this service, although it is free, it is very limited. The tutorial videos did not explain the
format in which images or videos are saved, and if I understood it correctly
can only be uploaded to their hosting account at screencast.com. Other products (like screencast-o-matic)
allow much longer record times and different saving formats directly to the
desktop, for the user to decide how to upload and share them (also allowing
the user to edit them using video editing software). This tool is simply too limited for me to
recommend.
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18: You Tube for Education - http://www.youtube.com/education?b=400
and SchoolTube http://www.schooltube.com and TeacherTube http://www.teachertube.com
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1.
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Describe what you learned from exploring this resource. Be
thorough in your response.
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All three of these resources are similar in that they are video
hosting web sites. They allow users to
upload video content to be viewed, shared, and streamed digitally over the
internet. Teachertube goes one step
further and gives users the ability to host documents and photos as
well.
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2.
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How could you use this resource in a school setting? It does not matter if it is in your field
or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in
educational settings.
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These resources can be used by teachers to find instructional content
provided by other educators, TED talks, etc to use in classroom lessons. Or by students to upload their own video
assignments or presentations.
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3.
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Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike;
Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth.
Why or Why not?
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These resources are all free.
I would recommend them for all educators, whether you use them as a
resource for instructional materials or as sites to host your own (or your
student’s) videos. Schooltube and
teachertube are great as well because they are geared specifically towards
education and are not as public as youtube.
Youtube is often blocked in school system networks as well, so these other
websites give teachers another video hosting webpage to use.
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