Embedding Visuals Into Teaching and Learning

I confess, I am a visual learner! I also relate better to metaphors, since they paint a picture in my mind.

My eyes roll back when I see long passages of text, that I am supposed to read, digest, analyze, understand, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I can do it (I am an avid reader), but I can wrap my mind around concepts, thoughts and content better, if it is represented visually in some shape or form.

The majority of content presented to students in school is in form of text, the world outside of school bombards us with information in many forms of media beyond text.

Image licensed under CC by Trey Ratcliff

Our ability to navigate a media rich world and “read and write” in that world is increasingly important skill to posses.

Visual Literacy is defined by Wikipedia as:

the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from information presented in the form of an image, extending the meaning of literacy, which commonly signifies interpretation of a written or printed text. Visual literacy is based on the idea that pictures can be “read” and that meaning can be communicated through a process of reading.

I have been working with one of our Middle School teachers, Morah Ita,  and her blog. She is steadily climbing the classroom teacher’s blogging step ladder. Her classroom blog has moved from being a static replacement of the weekly newsletter sent home and information “pushed” out for students to read and consume to a hub, where students respond to prompts from her, are able to read and comment on each other and allow a global audience to their conversation.

Another upgrade we are taking a closer look at now, is a move from TEXT HEAVY to a more MEDIA INFUSED writing style.

Inspired by the website Visual Writing Prompts, I took the text based journal prompts on her blog and “visualized” them.

From creating these visuals as a journal writing prompts, my thoughts turned to other subjects.

Our 4th/5th grade Math teacher is revisiting fractions. Part of her class needs more help than others in understanding and making sense of fractions.

Again, the idea was to bring more visual “real life” elements to a typically taught abstractly (with numbers) or with clipart (blocks or circles) concept. Just google “visual fractions” and switch from web to images.

The meta-cognitive process of creating the slides and thinking of a questions to go along with them gave place to another opportunity for the more “advanced” students. As the teacher works with struggling students, they would be able to create visual fraction problems for their classmates to practice and solve.

Our Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Yegelwel, shared the following on our school’s Professional Development Ning.

A seesaw is a perfect balance (given the right amount of weight on each side)! How do you teach heavy, light, equal to Kindergarteners? Using balances and connecting cubes in the classroom is good, but using their bodies on the seesaw outside is even better.  We (not me personally!) weighed ourselves, figured out which child weighed the same or almost the same as another child and then tried to balance on the seesaw.

The activity is excellent. I am so glad that the teacher documented it by taking the image to be later shared among colleagues and parents via her classroom blog.

I am wondering now though, how can we continue to upgrade and continue to infuse visual literacy for our 5 and 6 year olds?  Can we take images from objects the children are familiar with (ex. from around the classroom) and create visual questions for them. The objective is to teach students not only the concept of heavier, lighter, equal, but to give them the ability to see and evaluate images and transfer the concept to real life and vice versa.

PS. I used the (free)  iPad app Haiku Deck, in case you were wondering how the visual slides were created.

I have found the app to be perfect to quickly create good looking slides. The app is very intuitive. The fluency of the creation process is smooth.

1. Add your text (you are limted to up to two lines…which is a good thing!)

2. Choose an image (from Flickr’s Creative Commons pool or upload your own)

3. Choose the layout

4. Share your slides (export it as a PowerPoint file or send an e-mail with a link)

I then emailed the slides to myself, opened them up in PowerPoint and exported them as images to be uploaded to the blog. You can also view the slideshow on the iPad and take screenshots of the individual slides in order to upload them to a blog.

I am calling on all of you bloggers, presentation deliverers and teachers to

BREAK UP THE TEXT! Include less words, embed a variety of media to support you message/content, infuse visual literacy into your teaching!

Tiny Tap App in the Foreign Language Classroom

TinyTap is a new app that caught my eye for its potential to make students creators and designers of games on the iPad. The app’s description says it is geared towards the”little ones” and lists the following as features and its educational use:

• Add your own photos, take a picture, or search the web to add photos to your game
• Record your own voice over photos so your little ones can always hear a familiar voice
• Record a question, answer and a hint for a rich experience
• Personalize your game with a soundtrack with over 20 great selections to choose from
• Track your child’s progress with TinyTap’s in-game scoring system
• Super duper simple interface, easy for anyone to play and create
• Easily share the games you create with friends and family

EDUCATIONAL USETinyTap isn’t just for families! This user-friendly platform also makes converting and creating activity books and classroom activities a breeze. Children with special needs also benefit from the simple interface and personalized game play.

Geared towards the “little ones” from the description is a little vague. I think this app can be successfully used to various degrees from babyhood to upper elementary school students. I give this age range due  to the opportunities of personalization and the skills needed to “use” the game, versus the sills it takes to customize and/or design original games of various degrees of difficulty and creativity for other (younger) users.

My first impulse to test this app out was to create a babybook. I speak German to my little grandaughter, so I took a picture of her and recorded questions like

• Wo ist deine Nase? (Where is your nose?)
• Wo ist dein Mund? (Where is your mouth?) etc.

I traced the acceptable response areas on the image for each question, then recorded the response if the user tapped the correct area and one for the option that the user did not tap the correct area. My idea is to expand the book with pictures of family members who live far away, places she is used to visiting, rooms in the house,

The next step was to take the app into the classroom. I showed the game, I had created in German for my granddaughter to one of our Hebrew teachers, Morah Liat. She was excited to test it out with her 5th graders and create a “Review Book” for younger students for the upcoming school year. Our elementary school Hebrew teachers use the TalAm Curriculum. She divided students into groups of two and gave them vocabulary review units, such as parts of the face, body, classroom, school supplies and characters used in the curriculum book.

Students had to take their own images and then trace the correct answers, record a positive response as well as a negative response.

Sarah S, one of the 5th graders, blogged about her experience

I used the app Tiny Tap to create a Hebrew vocabulary game for the First, Second, and Third graders at my school. Everyone got partners to do the project with. I was partners with Barbie. I think I worked well with Barbie and we agreed on almost everything. Barbie and I made the app about the face. For example, Barbie recorded herself  asking a question in Hebrew such as: Where is the nose? Then if the student knew what the question was asking, they would touch the nose on the photo of a face. If they touched the nose and got it correct the iPad would say in Hebrew: Yes, that is the nose. Good job! If they touched the wrong thing the iPad would say in Hebrew: Please try again.

5th graders were also asked to review the app and to give some suggestions how they would improve it:

• I didn’t like this app because it did not have some things that I wanted my  game to have,  like to be able to circle two things for the answer (Casey)
• I think tiny Tap should allow text boxes so the kids can see and hear the words. If I was the App creator I would put stickers and better music for older kids. (Cayla)
• To improve the app, I wish that there was extra additions that you could put on the game. I felt like the app was good but a little thin on what you could do. (Jake)
• I didn’t like how simple and basic the app was. I would improve the app by being able to draw a picture on it and by having different options of how to make the game. (Sarah)
• The app could be improved by allowing people to change the balloon, make it do something different other than flipping the page.(Shoshana)

Although students felt overall that they were too old for the app (have to remind them that they were designing for younger students),  I was thrilled to see the app allow them to:

• be creative
• “think” about design thinking
• create with younger students (school mates) in mind
• work collaboratively
• practice their speaking and listening skills (in target language)
• personalize content (images and voice recording)
• easily share their games/interactive books with other iPad users

Here is my app evaluation according to the checklist of  Evaluating Apps with Transformative Use of the iPad in Mind

Click on image to enlarge

How do you envision using TinyTap app to transform learning in your class? Let’s brainstorm…

Infographics- What? Why? How?

I am seeing more and more “InfoGraphics” springing up everywhere. They are catching my visual eye immediately.

As a native German speaker, I love compound words and it comes naturally to me to want to take them apart in order to create meaning of the word: “Info” and “Graphic”- Information that is written or drawn…

A quick search for the the definition of “InfoGraphic” reveals on Wikipedia:

Information graphics or infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge

In PC Magazine it reads:

An umbrella term for illustrations and charts that instruct people, which otherwise would be difficult or impossible with only text. Infographics are used worldwide in every discipline from road maps and street signs to the many technical drawings.

On Dave Gray’s Blog Communication Nation, he explains:

WHAT IS AN INFOGRAPHIC?

1. It’s a visual explanation that helps you more easily understand, find or do something.
2. It’s visual, and when necessary, integrates words and pictures in a fluid, dynamic way.
3. It stands alone and is completely self-explanatory.
4. It reveals information that was formerly hidden or submerged.
5. It makes possible faster, more consistent understanding.
6. It’s universally understandable.

What I am reading out of these definitions are the following words: Information, Knowledge, Visualization, and Communication! Those words are some of the puzzle pieces to 21st Century Skills and Literacies.

Immediately I am wondering:

• How can I create my own infographic?
• How can I use this to teach students?
• How can I teach students to make their OWN infographics?
• How can I use infographics in Professional Development?

I found the following infographic explaining the steps in creating an infographic. What seems to be important to remember is:

The Challenge with creating an infographic is not the Graphic Design, it’s getting the data to the point where it’s streamlined enough to see the visual metaphor.

Speaking about metaphors and visualization takes me back to Daniel Pink’s book “A whole New Mind”. I wrote about Pink’s quote MQ (Metaphor Quotient) is as important as the IQ a while back. Infographics might fit the bill when it comes to incorporating many of the qualities of teaching and learning in our time and age.

What do you think? Have you incorporated infographics in your lessons? Have you created your own infographics for your students or asked them to create their own?

I am off to think about creating my first infographic. Stay tuned for what I will come up with.

Mindflash Blog

Here are a few examples of infographics that caught my eye:

• Facebook: Facts You Probably Didn’t Know
• College degrees- earning power
• Evolution of the Book
• 50 Great examples of infographics
• Infographics Showcase

Interested in creating your own infographic? Here are a few links to help you along:

• Wild Apricot Blog : Make Your Own Infographic
• Designing “The World of Programming” Tutorial