Visual literacy Definition: 21st Century Skills:  Can students interpret, use, appreciate and create images and video using both conventional and 21st Century media in ways that advance thinking, decision-making, communication and learning.

Media Literacy Definition:  Center for Media Literacy:  The ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create media in a variety of forms 

My definition:  In my opinion, visual literacy is composed of three discrete skills: navigating, evaluating, and communicating (create and mashup) in the context of visual imagery.

Download a printable copy of Towards a Framework for Visual Literacy Learning

My Visual Literacy resources at del.icio.us

Visual Literacy Framework:

There is a biological basis for visual communication.

The auditory nerve transmits sound to the brain and is composed of about 30,000 fibers. Contrast that with the optic nerve which sends visual signals to the brain through 1 million fibers (Burmark 2002). Basically, you’ve got a dial-up connection from the ear to the brain and broadband from the eye to the brain. Teach kids to take advantage of the connectivity, and the raw capacity of the brain to process visually, and then teach them that…

Emotion, depicted through visual means, sells the message.

Students must learn how to convey meaning emotionally. That’s why digital storytelling, when done right, can be such a powerful learning experience. Anyone that has seen 4 Generations: The Water Buffalo Movie can attest to that. View that movie…how many of you would pony up $250 after viewing that? And take the video obituary (called the Final Word) of Art Buchwald at the New York Times where he says “Hi, I’m Art Buchwald and I just died” and they go on to tell his life story. Use Flickr to find the raw material for inspiration, and for images that can sensitize and develop compassion and understanding.  All of this powerful--because of the intersection of emotion and medium. And then teach them that…

The most powerful producer of visual imagery is the individual, its you.

Digital cameras, cell phone cameras, 200 dollar Flip Video cameras, citizen "journalism," photos of the London subway bombings, of Saddam Hussein’s execution, , the I-35 Bridge collapse, the Hudson River Plane Crash, and 3,955,085,997 billion photos at Flickr, and the 70,000,000 videos at YouTube (2008 data) attest to the capability and absolute unmitigated power of the individual to produce visual material (See the 800 math videos from Khan Academy) and bring the world home. But simply producing this is not enough, because…

You have to share it. Understand Creative Commons.  Post content online that others can use, that enable you to connect to other users, collaborate with others, create with others and contribute to everyone.  So, teach kids to be able to do that, and in the process emphasize that…

Individuals must be capable of working in multiple mediums to create visual messages, in accordance with the principals of visual literacy.

They have to do something with that visual imagery and it has to be done the right way.  Create.  Remix.  Mashup.  Post to YouTube and places that have the chance to make a difference such as Stories for Change.  Use Google Earth to combine imagery with place, or explore Storymapping.org.  Use Photosynth to upload your images to create an three dimension online experience.  Use the content of Google Streetview in a Web page or wiki; blend this with other media and primary source content to create a mixed-media platform of resources that can be the raw material of learning.  Additionally, use an online content creation system like JayCut to create messages for the distribution of content on the networks of the Web, and to make content transportable.  Why is this necessary?  Because...

Visuals, when combined with other multimedia, provide individuals with a competitive voice.  One that can be heard.  One that can be measured.  One that says "here I am, and here's what I think, here is what I have to contribute.  Now what do you think?"  Kids have meaningful things to say, so challenge them to produce visual content with purpose and with pride.  Help kids understand that the world is more connected then ever, and that producing visual content like this becomes even more powerful in 2009 because...

Networks for sharing and collaboration extend that voice; that voice forms the basis of community as a contributing member of a conversation.  150,000 videos are uploaded to YouTube per day (Wesch 2008). Between 1 and 2 million photos are uploaded to Flickr each day (Flickr main page).  Both platforms enable commenting, and YouTube encourages videos to be produced in response to others.  Complete conversations around a single photograph occur in Flickr, an idea that is explored by Clay Shirkey in Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing With Organizations.  Entire orchestras are organized on YouTube. The potential for rich dialog can occur (as well as hateful dialog), so kids need to learn how to be a part of that, and in a positive way…

And then emphasize that in 2009:

Everyone can learn from each other, independent of time, space and place.  (Ryan Bretag).

Critical Reading

Core Principles of Media Literacy | National Association For Media Literacy Ecucation (see the Six Principles)

Confronting the Challenges of Media Literacy | Henry Jenkins

Research Review:  Multimodal Learning Through Media | Edutopia

A Learner-Centered Approach to Multimedia Explanations:  Deriving Instructional Design Principles from Cognitive Theory | Moreno and Mayer

Multimodal Learning Through Media:  What the Research Says | The Metiri Group

Visible Knowledge Project: Multimedia Authoring | Interviews

Transliteracy | Thomas et. al, First Monday

Citations: 

Burmark, Lynell. Visual Literacy: Learn to See. See to Learn. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2002.

Bretag, Ryan.  Personal Communication.  2008.

Shirkey, Clay.  Here Comes Everybody:  The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.  New York, New York. The Penguin Group,

Wesch, Michael. "YouTube Statistics." Digital Ethonography. 18 May 2008. Kansas State University. 7 May 2008 <http://mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/?p=163>.