Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
he problem of
the twentyfirst century
is the problem
of the image,"
according
to cultural
theorist W.J.T. Mitchell (1995). The
centuries-long domination of texts
and words in culture, particularly
Western culture, has come to an end.
The new "pictorial turn" means that
images no longer exist primarily to
entertain and illustrate. Rather they are
becoming central to communication
and meaning-making.
Mitchell wrote about a culture
saturated with images in print, television, film, and public spaces. He did
not fully anticipate how, and how
quickly, evolving technologies would
transform our visual environment. The
camera, for example, was not so long
ago a specialized device that, except
in hands of experts, produced lowquality pictures seen by few people.
Now digital cameras are just another
component in many electronic devices,
and images are created to be uploaded
rather than printed. The four-year old
photo-sharing Web site Flickr includes
more than two billion images, and in
just one recent month (January 2008),
more than 79 million viewers watched
3 billion videos on the three-year-old
site YouTube.
This visual explosion is not only
a popular-culture phenomenon. Vast
scholarly archives-including the
ARTstor Digital Library (www.artstor.
org), NASA's Visible Earth collection (visibleearth.nasa.gov), and the
American Memory site at the Library
of Congress (memory.loc.gov)-make
high-quality visual materials available
to students, teachers, and researchers
everywhere.
Our visual, screen-based world is
the natural environment for many of
today's college students. Our technolPeter Felten is associateprofessor and director of the Centerfor the Advancement of
Teachingand Learningat Elon University.
60
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VISUAL LITERACY
By PETER FELTEN
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2008
I...........................................................................................
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AND PERCEPTION
is an excellent introduction to both the basic principles and the historical evolution
of visual design.
Edward Tufte, a professor emeritus
at Yale, has developed a large following
for his elegant, practical, and pointed
views on the visual display of quantitative data. His workshops and books,
including The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (2nd ed., 2001),
should appeal most to professionals in
business, engineering and the sciences.
Tufte's most recent volume, Beautiful
Evidence (2006), includes a chapter
based on his influential article, "The
Cognitive Style of PowerPoint," that
contends that "PowerPoint, compared
to other presentation tools, reduces the
analytical quality of serious presentations of evidence" (p. 157).
Despite the harsh critique, many
academics rely on PowerPoint and
other software to create, manipulate,
and present visuals. Many campuses
and technology groups (such as EDUCAUSE) offer or broker training in
these technologies. For example, the
University of Minnesota's Center for
Teaching and Learning hosts a free
online tutorial about "Active Learning
with PowerPoint" (www 1.umn.edu/ohr/
teachlearn/tutorials/powerpoint). Lynda
(www.lynda.com) is a corporation with
an excellent reputation for online tutorials on the tools and techniques commonly used for visual design.
62
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ReSUrceBox
PUBLICATIONS
* Association of American Colleges
and Universities. (2002). GreaterExpectations:A New Vision for Learning as a Nation Goes to College.
Washington, DC: AAC&U.
[ Association of American Colleges
and Universities. (2005). Liberal
Education Outcomes: A Preliminary
Report on Student Achievement in
College. Washington, DC: AAC&U.
0 Coventry, M., Felten, P., Jaffee,
D., O'Leary, C., Weis, T., & McGowan, S. (2006). Ways of Seeing:
Evidence and Learning in the History
Classroom. JournalofAAmerican History, 92 (4), 1371-1402.
M Drucker, J., & McVarish, E.
(2008). GraphicDesign History: A
CriticalGuide. Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Prentice Hall.
0 Elkins, J. (2007). Visual Literacy.
New York: Routledge.
Gee, J. P. (2003). What Video
Games Have To Teaching Us about
Literacy and Learning. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.
E Golfarb, B. (2002). Visual Cultures in and Beyond the Classroom.
Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
0 Handelsman, J., Miller, S., &
Pfund, C. (2006). Scientific Teaching.
New York: W. H. Freeman.
0 Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the
New MediaAge. New York: Routledge.
N Luke, C. (2003). Pedagogy, Connectivity, Multimodality, and Interdiscipilnarity. Reading Research
Quarterly,38 (3), 397-403.
N Mayer, R. E. (2005). The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia
Learning. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
0 Metros, S. E., & Woolsey, K.
(2006). Visual Literacy: An Institutional Imperative. EDUCA USE Review, 41 (3), 80-8 1.
* Mitchell, W. 1. (1995). Picture
Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual
Representation.Chicago: University
WWW.CHANGEMAG.ORG
of Chicago Press.
0 New Media Consortium. (2005).
A Global Imperative: The Report of
the 21st Century Literacy Summit.
Austin, TX: NMC.
* New Media Consortium; Educause Learning Initative. (2008). The
2008 Horizon Report. Austin, TX:
NMC.
0 Oblinger, D. G., & Oblinger, J. L.
(2005). Educating the Net Generation. Boulder, CO: Educause.
0 Purve,, D., & Lotto, R. B. (2003).
Why We See What We Do: An Empirical Theor' of Vision. Sunderland,
"MA: Sinauer Associates.
0 Rice, J. (2007). The Rhetoric of
Cool: Composition Studies and New
Media. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
0 Stafford, B. M. (2007). Echo Objects: The Cognitive Work of Images.
Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
E Thomas, E., Place, N., and Hillyard, C. (2008). Students and Teachers Learning to See - Part 1: Using
Visual Images in the College Classroom to Promote Students' Capacities and Skills. College Teaching, 56
(1), 23-27.
0 Thomas, E., Place, N., and Hillyard, C. (2008). Students and Teachers Learning to See - Part 2: Using
Visual Images in the College Classroom to Enhance the Social Context
for Learning. College Teaching, 56
(2), 74-77.
N Tufte, E. R. (2006). Beautiful Evidence. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.
E Tufte, E. R. (2001). The Visual
Display of Quantitative Information.
Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.
* Wieman, C. (2007). Why Not Try
A Scientific Approach to Science
Education? Change, 39 (5), 9-15.
N Zull, J. E. (2002). TheArtof
Changing the Brain: Enriching the
Practiceof Teaching by Exploring
the Biology of Learning. Sterling,
VA: Stylus. "w
RSLrc
Bo3
WEB SITES
E Active Learning with PowerPoint, Center for Teaching and
Learning, University of Minnesota: wwwl .umn.edu/ohr/
teachleam/tutorials/powerpoint
* American Memory, Library of
Congress: memory.loc.gov
0 ARTstor Digital Library: www.
artstor.org
0 EDUCAUSE: www.educause.
edu
"* Flickr: www.flickr.com
"* International Visual Literacy
Association: www.ivla.org
""Lynda: www.lynda.com
" New Media Consortium: www.
nmc.org
0 Spatial Perspectives on Analysis for Curriculum Enhancement:
www.csiss.org/space
E Visible Earth, National Aeronautics and Space Administration:
visibleearth.nasa.gov
0 Visible Knowledge Project:
crossroads.georgetown.edu/vkp
0 YouTube: www.youtube.
comrc,
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