Creating a Visual Message

Visual Literacy

This week in our Multimedia Apps and Tools class we are focusing on Communication, and "Visually Literacy." After reading about Visual Literacy in Garr Reynolds blog PresentationZen, and watching videos by George Lucas and Martin Scorsese, students will create their own visual message. Considering Martin Scorsese’s statement that we...

“need to know how ideas and emotions are expressed through a visual form. We have to begin to teach younger people how to use this very powerful tool...because we know the image can be so strong, not only for good use, but for bad use.

Digital Literacy Tools

Students will either use their own photographs/images or find one from the many copyright free websites available to them (https://www.diigo.com/list/emccarthy/Photos/16th57ti9) to create a simple visual message. While I don't pretend to be an expert, I do think it's important to participate in the learning activities in my class and share my work. So, here is my visual message...I hope it begins to convey an emotional message about the Great Irish Famine. I would work on the text and it's layout...I think there are too many words and the little images in the top right don't seem to work as I had intended. Any suggestions are welcome to make this a better visual message.

I use my own photograph from Ireland and edited it with a free Chrome App called Pixlr Photo Editor.

Going Back in Time

As a child from the 50’s/60’s, I often remember the educational movies we were shown in school. The classic male voice, so serious with melodramatic background music, flicking and snapping across the film as it rolled through the reel. After the teacher got the projector threaded, lights went out and after 5 minutes I’d be asleep at my desk. Try showing clips from one of these movies from the Prelinger Collection on education to your students as ask them what they think, they might get a kick out of going back in time and seeing what it was like to be a student way back when.

Educational movies from the Prelinger Collection from archive.org.

Here is a good one that you might use as a kick off to 1:1 computing (proper care of the fountain pen) or a writing class when you talk about the many different digital tools available to communicate their ideas and messages... “TRACES DEVELOPMENT OF WRITING & TOOLS OF WRITING. SHOWS VARIOUS PARTS OF A FOUNTAIN PEN & DISCUSSES ITS PROPER CARE & USE.”  It makes me think about how writing has changed over time and what it mean to be literate in a digital world? What skills and dispositions do our students need in today? Are we still teaching reading and writing from the 19th century model?
Here is a copy of the same video on YouTube for quicker viewing...