Images in Learning

Sharing, explaining, illustrating, demonstrating, highlighting, discovering, exploring.... Use of "the image" within a learning context is limited only by the pedagogical designers imagination. Providing learning tasks that require students to view and create images by them using their higher order thinking skills will equip students for this 21st Century in which they live. Students will need to master images to succeed in s digital environment.

 As identified on the Fluency 21 website images are a vital element in effective communication.

 

I would use Flickr - Photo Share as a repository for images for sharing with students, it is easy to use and allows for logical organisation of artifacts. Other members can be followed, groups set up or joined and topics and themes searched (made possible by tags). Exploring and uploading to Flickr (whilst thinking out loud) is a great way to illustrate to students how crowd generation of content enhances the learning experience.

I have placed a photo here via my Android phone that I saved in my Flickr web space. It is in relation to immigration and multiculturalism (part of the Year 7 curriculum in Queensland).
The children are my nephews  - Samoan/Australians who support the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team.
It could be a See-Think-Wonder stimulus leading to search and production of images by students to express their thoughts on the topic. The image would also lend itself to discussion around cybersafety and images of children on the internet.




Within Flickr I am also able to locate and collect images created by others.
In a study of the novel "Boy Overboard" by Morris Gleitzman the topics of poverty and recreation emerge early in the text. What do children with almost no material possessions do for fun? This image provided much discussion around what my students could create a game around without making a purchase and by using basic materials in the home or community.


https://www.flickr.com/photos/unhcr/4931082597/in/faves-123060977@N06/

Visual literacy has come into its own with the introduction of the web 2.0 tools.
Students need to understand images and be critical consumers of them. They need to be producers of images that get their message across, to their identified audience, to meet a specified purpose.

To share their community and environment with other students (in school and globally) the app 360 Panorama is great for placing the consumer in the producer's shoes. From these interactive images compare and contrast discussion can be had so knowledge of the place in the panorama can be built in a socially constructive way.

This is my street.


Virtual tours such as Louvre Museum (in France) allows students to experience unique educational places in other countries. 360 panoramic images in exhibitions provides visual access more effectively than flat photographs. In this example double clicking on museum objects allows the viewer to gain further information depending on interest.