Visual literacy

For the online PGCE course I also read Talking about visual texts with students by J. Callow (2003), published by Reading Online - An electronic journal of the International Reading Association.

Visual literacy is part of the new literacies and in describing it, a type of metalanguage needs to be used. The article was based on research done in a few Australian schools and deals with the way students understand the visual aspects of their own Power Point presentations.

The article takes the reader through the main steps of the project and concentrates on explaining (with plenty of visual examples!) how the students perceived the visual images they used in their projects. It is interesting to mention that most presentations had images bigger than (or at least as big as) the written text that accompanied the image. The students were allowed to use only clip arts, but some suggested that real pictures would have had a stronger effect on the viewer/reader.

The author concludes the article by stating that it is important not only to familiarize the students with the technology involved in making visual presentations, but also how the visuals used create meaning.

My experience with Power Point is rather limited. I used it this past school year only to make a weekly newsletter for my students. I haven’t made any presentation at all and haven’t asked my students to do one. But, my teaching partner asked his students to do a presentation for science and some of the students came back to school with very nice power point presentations. Unfortunately, they were done by the parents and not the students, and none of them acknowledged the sources for the real pictures used. Thais don’t care too much about plagiarism.
Nevertheless, after reading the two articles I realized that there are many ways in which teachers can incorporate new literacies in their lessons. Sometimes such lessons are cross-curricular and might be a bit difficult for subject teachers to get them approved by the school’s administration.