Visual Literacy Blog WEEK TWO

This week's assignment was an interesting approach to visual literacy. The videos we were assigned to watch allowed us to see the importance of visuals in our lives, but more importantly, how we interpret those visuals and use them in our everyday lives.

The first video attempted to answer the "What if we weren't visually literate" question. Without street signs, parking notices, signage for commercial businesses and restaurants, sports paraphernalia, and bathrooms, our lives would come to a halt. These signs are integral to our routines because they allow us to associate a visual cue with a location, direction, or brand.

I enjoyed the Dove advertisement. In today's society, citizens are bombarded with images of “perfect” models. Watching that "Evolution" video made me realize how much work goes in to creating an advertisement by turning an average looking girl into a perfect model or cover girl.

The third video showed the evolution in several people and showed how technicians using Photoshop change things like background, luminosity, and hair color and polish blemishes and make-up. I liked that this video showed multiple changes from different ethnic groups and ages.

The article was short but well written. I think it is important to share their definition of visual literacy, "Visual literacy is defined as the ability to understand communications composed of visual images as well as being able to use visual imagery to communicate to others. Students become visually literate by the practice of visual encoding (expressing their thoughts and ideas in visual form) and visual decoding (translating and understanding the meaning of visual imagery)" (Oakland Museum of California). I like that they used the definitions of visual encoding and visual decoding because visual literacy is a one-two-punch kind of topic.

In my job a news reporter, I hope to be a role model for my viewers. I have to be able to portray a sense of self-confidence and belief in my abilities. I need to feel comfortable in my own skin and be able to encourage viewers to be happy with who they are. So many magazines force women to believe that they have to be a perfect size zero to be happy and well liked, and that couldn't be farther from the truth. The media decides what is newsworthy and how to cover it. With that being said, ads like the Dove "Evolution" and the Photoshop "Makeover", reporters have a platform to encourage women to talk about what it really means to be beautiful because

Link to Article:
http://www.popeater.com/2009/08/07/kelly-clarkson-slim-photoshopped-self-magazine-2009-cover/

While popeater.com may not be the most reliable news source, this article does bring about an interesting point. Kelly Clarkson is a talented singer that won over the hearts of millions of Americans on American Idol. The magazine cover shows the star looking happy and healthy. Oddly enough though, Self magazine is being accused of altering the photo to make Kelly look more appealing to readers. While this is certainly not the first or last altered photo on a magazine cover, it is important for Americans (especially teen girls) to keep in mind the great lengths companies go to create a product.

Learning Entry Blog WEEK ONE

Designing and Understanding Instructional Media

I. Presentation on Designing Instructional Media

A. What are the 4 key guidelines for designing instructional media?

1. Contrast

a. Difference between

luminance foreground and

background

b. Use a light text on a dark background or a dark text on a light background

c. Research says that yellow text on a blue background is effective for learning

2. Repetition

a. We want users to use their cognitive resources to understand the information we provide, not to figure out the content of the slide

b. Use the same font type, type of bullets, consistent use of borders; make a pattern for laying out the information and stick with it

3. Alignment

a. Don’t make readers

confused

b. Remember that we are taught to read left and right and top to bottom

4. Proximity

a. Put related concepts closer together on the slide but make sure the slide does not become busy

B. What should you consider when designing online materials?

1. Always keep the learner in mind. Make sure they are using their cognitive resources to understand the information provided, not how it is being presented.

C. What strategies can be used to design effective instructional media?

1. Use lots of white space

2. Keep the number of words on each page low

3. Use keywords or phrases and shorten the length of the information presented

4. Don’t use several or fancy fonts

5. When possible, uses boxes to organize the content of the slide

6. 28-point font is best for projection

a. 24-point font is the absolute lowest for projections

7. Don’t use confusing graphics or backgrounds

II. Web Resources, Multimedia, Hypermedia

A. Hypermedia

1. From presentation, “A program or product that contains media that are connected by links and media and allow a person to navigate through a document, resource, or system in a non-linear fashion.”

2. Leads to motivation and proactive learning

3. Learners are able to organize their thoughts in new ways, which lead to improved writing and processing skills

4. Examples—commercial multimedia/hypermedia and interactive videodisc packages

B. Multimedia

1. From presentation, “ A program or product that can contain still pictures, moving pictures, sound, animation, text, motion pictures, video and it is considered multimedia as long as any two are combined.”

a. Flexibility because users are able to choose the two resources that make it multimedia

b. Critical and Creative Thinking skills are developed because there are a wide variety of options available to users

c. Examples: Presentation software editing tools and video production and editing systems

C. Limitations

1. Lack of Training

a. Training needed in software skills and integration techniques

2. Projections Needs

a. Need for LCD projectors

3. Memory

a. need for large amounts of storage

4. Integration Issues

a. lack of time during school day

III. Information Literacy

A. Domain

1. Found after the http:// and www and extends to the first forward slash

B. Extension

1. Type of establishment

a. .com, .edu

C. Publisher

1. Easywhois.com

D. History

1. www.archive.org

E. External Links

1. Altavista.com

IV. Relating to Major

A. Most of the information we covered this week does not directly relate to my major. As a journalist, I will rarely give formal speeches that require the use of a projector and all of the information we learned about contrast, alignment, repetition, and proximity as well as the other design techniques. I will use these techniques in college but I will most likely not use them after I graduate. The one portion of this week’s learning that does relate to my major is information literacy. When gathering information for stories, I will need to validate the sources I am using. By identifying the domain, extension, publisher, history, and external links, I will be able to verify the credibility of my sources.

V. I chose this Youtube video from the University of California Irvine Science Library because it takes a look at how to evaluate web content in a compare/contrast way. Since the only thing I identified with this week is verifying web content, I thought it would be fitting to choose a clip on this subject. The clip stresses the importance of trustworthy content and how to check on the domain, extension, publisher, history, and external links.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that seeks to expand the creative works legally available to others. Under these licensing agreements, people can use, remix, and share the work of others as long as it attributed to the author and/or does not infringe on any of their reserved rights. The agreements are most often used in an online setting and their conditions are created by the users. There are four main types:

Attribution: Works must be properly attributed but it does allow others to copy and distribute your work

Share Alike: Requires an identical or similar license, but does allow derivative works

Noncommercial: Others are allowed to copy and distribute your work as long as it is for a noncommercial purpose

No Derivative Works: Only verbatim copies (with no derivatives) of work are allowed

To understand the process of Creative Commons better, check out this youtube video from the folks at Creative Commons: