-> The English and Science Syllabus documents in Australia make
-> reference to teaching about visual texts and visual communications
-> but I don't think this is really taken seriously. Do you have any
-> information do share or insights to share on this
-> general topic. I think you are from America! Do you know of anything
-> in the schools that addresses visual communications or teachers
-> children to be visually literate. I think the visual images that
-> constitute so much of our culture are taken for granted in education
-> because of the emphasis given to written and spoken literacy.
Yes, I am from America. I live in Los Angeles County, California.
I've never heard of any American educators refer to "visual literacy" as
such. Certainly science teachers have always been concerned that
students can read diagrams and graphs, as these come up frequently in
that subject area. Also, students sometimes have to produce drawings,
such as in biology they must draw what they have seen under the
microscope. From your description, I'd assume these are some of the
things included under visual literacy. Obviously we want students to
have these skills, and teachers need to help students with them.
But it sounds to me like much more is being made out of this topic of
visual literacy in your area. As for computer imagery and its part in
the visual literacy category...I work in a school where I've had almost
NO chance to use a computer with my students over the entire time I've
worked there. Our school has a computer keyboarding requirement for
students to graduate, but there is no requirement in the curriculum at
this time that the students learn anything about visual literacy with
respect to computers.
I think that in America, rather than isolate visual literacy as a
separate thing which students need competency in, we deal with it within
the context of our courses. For instance...I am a math teacher and use
many visual images to teach about functions and their graphs. While I
certainly realized I was appealing to the students who learn best
through visual images, I never thought about it before as being "visual
literacy" that enabled them to read the diagrams and graphs and gather
information from it.
Sheila
--- PCBoard (R) v15.22/M 10
---------------