I am very interested in how literacies are changing . I am a teacher and I advocate visual literacy and sometimes struggle with how little attention my students pay to drawings. Most of my students revert to the mode of drawing they had when they were in Kindergarten so they draw stick figures for the rest of their lives. When I worked as an architect I had same problem with clients who could not "read" architectural plans and were too embarrassed to admit their visual illiteracy. I am glad that we are reading (Reading Images, the Grammar of Visual Design. Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen)
“The distinctive contribution of the approach to literacy as social practice lies in the ways in which it involves careful and sensitive attention to what people do with texts, how they make sense of them and use them to further their own purposes in their own learning lives” (Gillen and Barton, 2010, p. 9). Even though I read this article several times, I found it hard to understand exactly where the author was going. I was hoping for more concrete examples to illustrate his ideas. As a heavy internet user and a technology and design teacher, I have spent plenty of time on social media, reading internet articles and few blogs. I would like to visit more blogs by young people and see what specific methods they use to format text. I see many examples of that on Facebook. What I see mostly on Facebook are stark images and a few evocative words that promote one idea or another. I noticed that with these memes that one cannot express more than three sentences, and many people "like " and "share." It seems to me that social media websites have too much information and to compete for attention, posts need to be very short and act like a billboard sign on a highway.
As a bilingual Arabic- and English-speaking person, I am also interested in the relationship between new media, new literacy, and democracy. I was very excited about Arab Spring and how it could not have happened without New media. It is interesting to note that 27% of people in Egypt are considered illiterate. It is unfortunate that the Egypt experiment ended badly.
I found chapter five of ( Literacies Social, Cultural and Historical Perspectives. Lankshear and Knobel) enlightening. I think the discussion on the meaning of citizenship and literacy is relevant in every democracy. I am wondering if our US literacies are failing to produce engaged citizenry. I often ask my students up to high school, "What system of government do we have? " and most often they don't know!
A few weeks ago, I saw this image on a friend's website and thought it was positive and worth sharing:
I am a visual learner and find much easier to understand complex ideas if they are supported by rich images and illustrations, but I still believe that traditional texts and time-honored storytelling are important foundation for deeper comprehension.
“The distinctive contribution of the approach to literacy as social practice lies in the ways in which it involves careful and sensitive attention to what people do with texts, how they make sense of them and use them to further their own purposes in their own learning lives” (Gillen and Barton, 2010, p. 9). Even though I read this article several times, I found it hard to understand exactly where the author was going. I was hoping for more concrete examples to illustrate his ideas. As a heavy internet user and a technology and design teacher, I have spent plenty of time on social media, reading internet articles and few blogs. I would like to visit more blogs by young people and see what specific methods they use to format text. I see many examples of that on Facebook. What I see mostly on Facebook are stark images and a few evocative words that promote one idea or another. I noticed that with these memes that one cannot express more than three sentences, and many people "like " and "share." It seems to me that social media websites have too much information and to compete for attention, posts need to be very short and act like a billboard sign on a highway.
As a bilingual Arabic- and English-speaking person, I am also interested in the relationship between new media, new literacy, and democracy. I was very excited about Arab Spring and how it could not have happened without New media. It is interesting to note that 27% of people in Egypt are considered illiterate. It is unfortunate that the Egypt experiment ended badly.
I found chapter five of ( Literacies Social, Cultural and Historical Perspectives. Lankshear and Knobel) enlightening. I think the discussion on the meaning of citizenship and literacy is relevant in every democracy. I am wondering if our US literacies are failing to produce engaged citizenry. I often ask my students up to high school, "What system of government do we have? " and most often they don't know!
A few weeks ago, I saw this image on a friend's website and thought it was positive and worth sharing:
Later that day, a few of my smart friends said "Are you sure that the pope said that?"
I then I used Snopes to fact-check and realized my post was not factual.
I realized then that impulse to share emotionally charged memes can be dangerous in the dissemination of ideas.
I am a visual learner and find much easier to understand complex ideas if they are supported by rich images and illustrations, but I still believe that traditional texts and time-honored storytelling are important foundation for deeper comprehension.
Hi Khader,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your focus on visual literacy in this post. As a chemistry teacher, I am constantly drawing diagrams and using visual representations since the majority of my content happens on a level that cannot be seen with the naked eye. Animations, youtube videos, etc. are a key component of my class. I am so happy that I have these technological tools at my disposal or else I think it would be so much more difficult for my students to picture and understand what I'm teaching them about. I've read a few posts and you are the only post that has really focused on visual literacy. I enjoyed reading your thoughts.
I am very interested in visual learning. Many of the details of programming and operating systems theory are about abstract concepts that you simply cannot see even when looking under the hood.
ReplyDeleteI hope to become more fluent in building my own visual aids for the sake of my students' deeper understanding.
I enjoyed the meme gaffe. It happened to me more than once. Even so, I am still going to share what I find - even if it means a little embarrassment from time to time.
Bill