The Color Pile: Equitable Self-Expression Through Color and Abstraction

The Color Pile is a visual tool transported from the author’s art-student context, and builds on the teaching model of Connie Smith Siegel and the Color Contrast work of Johannes Itten. As re-positioned, it offers a novel path to eliciting student narratives and point of view in language-dependent learning settings. Can this playful exercise support the clear articulation of complex ideas and help generate descriptive language? The Color Pile process moves from prompt to reflection to abstract visual composition, and resolves in a verbal, written or drawn reflection. Color and abstraction may help students gain access to their full capacities for complex thought and self-expression. Could this approach provide differently equitable support for student-produced narratives and descriptive language than is afforded by viewing representational imagery? Direct observations of middle school students using the Color Pile suggest the method could be meaningful to a diverse audience of teachers and learners. Its usefulness in a broad spectrum of language-oriented learning settings is considered.

Visual Literacy and Virtual Rephotography

Rephotography is a varied set of practices that begin with taking one or more pictures of the same subject. Valued for generating conversations in-situ about a place over time, recent large-scale migration to online learning draws attention to rephotography’s virtual modes. From examples that use online location software (e.g., Google Street View) to those in video game worlds, virtual rephotography might present convenient windows to unreachable destinations. However, rephotographing without having visited actual vantage points needs to take into account complexity and disjointedness introduced by such tools. Drawing from the author’s current practice-led research into photomedia, visual literacy and temporality in Northeastern Japan, emergent particularities are discussed for developing visual literacy through a necessary application of Google Street View.

Supporting Visual Literacy in Nursing

COVID-19 impacted in person learning, particularly for the health sciences. Nursing students learn valuable clinical skills in simulation labs on campus. When one university campus stopped in person instruction during the 2020 spring semester, two librarians worked together to identify resources to support a nursing course that quickly switched to remote learning. These resources ranged from library licensed content to free virtual reality simulations. In order to identify materials, the librarians first defined visual literacy within nursing, as well as met with various constituents to understand curriculum goals and needs. Making connections with both the faculty and the curriculum was the impetus for examining similarities between the Association of College and Research Libraries Visual Literacy Competency Standards and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing Clinical Resources Essentials for Baccalaureate Nursing Education. Both librarians are eager to continue working on strategically and systematically incorporating visual literacy library instruction into the nursing curriculum.

Virtual Construction Kits

The “Studio of art designing” develops and publishes electronic creative education programs for children and young people. All virtual kits represent miniature programs each designed for a small but clear task. The main purpose of each construction kit is to reveal the meaning of some aspect of the creative process. Virtual construction kits suggest the user making their own work of art. However, this creative process is done with the help of means and methods that develop the user’s thinking. Thus, the user gets to know this phenomenon “from the inside.” Virtual kits have found application in textbooks for a comprehensive school and as an accompaniment to museum projects. Projects related to the Russian Avant-Garde, antique vase-painting, steampunk, infographics, animation, “laterna magica” and visual storytelling are used in many secondary schools and museums in Russia.

Visual Encounters with the Past: Teaching Visual Literacy to Enhance Historical and Cultural Understanding

At the University of Denver, the reference librarians and special collections curator have developed strategies to incorporate visual literacy into instructional sessions across multiple disciplines. In this chapter, we will discuss our collaborations with faculty in anthropology and in history to help students interpret tangible and digital archival visual information that will inform their understanding of historical contexts and meet learning outcomes in two classes: “Native American Resistance in the Digital Age” and “World War I.” Whenever we partner with faculty to include visual literacy in non-arts courses, we start with course outcomes and work with the faculty to determine how the incorporation of visual literacy can help reach those goals. Our process is iterative, practice based, flexible, and ever evolving. This chapter will provide practical strategies that educators can use to implement this type of collaboration at their own institutions.

A Visual Design Framework and Assessment to Inform Instruction

As evidence of meeting program criteria required by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), engineering technology (ET) students are expected to both read and create graphical communications. Academic librarians’ visual literacy (VL) instruction can support ET students’ ability to communicate through graphics. Under comprehensive VL instruction, teaching visual design principles is an area of VL that supports graphical communication. An adaptive comparative judgment (ACJ) assessment was given to 115 ET students to inform visual design instruction and future research. A visual design framework supplemented the assessment to familiarize students with visual design principles. ACJ offers an alternative assessment model because instead of grading against a rubric of learning outcomes, it uses context to judge the quality of a work. The assessment results outline specific areas to focus visual design instruction for students to effectively navigate and create graphical communications.

Visuals that Portray a Wind Farm

John Debes, the founder of the IVLA, argues that our first language is body language – visual and tactile information together helping us make sense of the world (Debes, 1972). During research of the public response to what could be the first freshwater offshore wind farm in North America, on Lake Erie, participants have a distinctly embodied understanding of environmental information. Their oral stories, drawings, and written responses reflect use of visual literacy that personifies wind turbines, the lake, fish and birds, and Earth’s processes as human in nature. In return, participants’ perception of the wind farm’s features, size, and distance is skewed toward an immediate, physical presence. Between anthropomorphism and embodiment, what the general population sees as important in a large-scale sustainable energy project is very different from what is shown in technical documentation from scientists, engineers, and policymakers, complicating public decision making.

Library Exhibitions and Visual Literacy

Library exhibitions showcase collections and can be laboratories where users apply key visual literacy skills, such as making close observations, practicing interpretation, and challenging assumptions. Library exhibitions facilitate self-directed inquiry and have a wide pedagogical range. At academic libraries, faculty include exhibition curation and viewing in their curriculum to promote scholarship and activism. Public libraries use exhibitions to cultivate civic interest and encourage intergenerational and multi-cultural learning. Across settings, exhibition experiences support visual learning, prompt critical thinking, and mobilize change. Through examining contemporary library engagement models such as the American College and Research Library’s Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, this paper provides examples of exhibits that illustrate ACRL’s visual literacy benchmarks. Additionally, the paper provides a brief overview of recommendations for partnering with libraries to expand opportunities for visual learning.

The “Shaken Photos” Project as a Stimulus for Developing Creative Thinking with Preschoolers

Using a digital camera to achieve a successful result requires from the user, first and foremost, to be familiar with the proper use of the medium and to have obtained basic knowledge of the principles of the art of photography. What is the result in those cases where the photographer either does not know the basic principles of photography or cannot apply them effectively in practice? Is the product considered a “failure” thus leaving photos with no clear and recognizable objects? This paper focuses on designing and implementing an applied educational intervention, themed on ”shaken” photos taken by preschoolers and using this material to create digital narratives. This case study examines "shaken" photos as an opportunity to develop imagination and creativity through photography.