1.
Conceptual Understanding
a.
Learning about the new literacy of visual
literacy helped to open my eyes to different teaching methods in my
classroom. Typically, literacy is taught
by the words on a page, rather than by using illustrations, graphs, photographs,
videos, etc. Therefore, it is a strong
contrast from the traditional literacies that are taught in schools. I also learned several different ways that
visual literacy can be easily incorporated into the classroom on an everyday
basis, and in each area of the curriculum.
I also learned that there are different ways that this can be easily
done for upper elementary and lower elementary.
Previously, I had only seen lower elementary students refer to
illustrations in books to help them decode the text. Now, I know that children can use graphs,
videos, photographs, etc to explore the visual literacies available. The digital literacy, Glogster, helped to
inform my thinking by showing me a new resource that I could use to present
information to my students and for students to use to present information to
classmates and me. This online poster
supports the idea of visual literacy and how it can be used in the classroom
too. This is somewhat different from
what I posted about in my original definition.
Although visual was included in my definition, I now have a more
concrete idea of what it look like to include visual literacy in the
classroom. As one can see, I have grown
from thinking that literacy is just communicating with others by using
different methods of communication and text (online vs. print). Using digital literacy, new literacies, and
traditional literacies can all be combined to teach a complete understanding of
literacy to students. It is easy to
combine and integrate all these different aspects to create a definition of
literacy that teaches to the whole student in every aspect of their everyday
life, in today’s world.
2.
Classroom Implications
a.
Digital Literacy: Students will need exposure to
different types of online literacies, such as websites, videos, photographs,
etc. This exposure to online literacies
will allow students to grow in their knowledge of digital literacy. However, students will also need a general
understanding of how a computer works.
Teachers will need to ensure that students understand how to type, use a
mouse, click on objects, and maneuver the information on their computer
screen/website. For my specific
literacy, they would need a class devoted to learning how to use glogster and
then have a guided instruction for creating a project using glogster,
especially with lower elementary students.
By going step-by-step with the students, they will be able to better
understand how to use the digital literacy and then use it to respond to
information online and/or classmates information.
b.
New Literacy: Students need to develop an
understanding for the importance of viewing visual literacy and how it can
impact their learning. This can be done
by showing students how visuals can impact their learning, such as
illustrations in a book or photographs of facial expressions to understand
emotions, etc. The students will need
these types of supports at first, and scaffolding on how to interpret the
visual information presented to them.
They will need to be taught terminology associated with visual literacy,
art, media, etc, as well as information on how to interpret it, such as what to
look for. This can be done through
teacher modeling at large group time and breaking off into small groups to
practice with students. The students
would then get practice watching how to interpret visual literacy, practice
with a partner, and then, after this, be expected to use this information to
respond to visual literacy independently.
This could even be done by responding to a post on a website or in a
class discussion. This is how I would
expect myself to introduce visual literacy to my students.
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