Aesthetic value enhances personal and professional lives and contributes to people's environment. If one defines the aesthetic sense as the faculty that enables one to modify the quality of his or her environment, then it follows that aesthetic education should be a means to achieve this end. In order for that to happen, there must be changes both…

Examines how visual literacy (the ability to interpret the visual images of advertisements, illustrations, television, and other visual media) can promote creative and analytic thinking. Provides several instructional strategies to teach visual literacy through book illustrations. Notes that visual literacy is essential in a world increasingly…

Considers how visual literacy implies a poetics of technology, one rooted in basic human passion. Notes that most academic forms sanctioned for students to inhabit are as monumentally dull as the urban forms in which they pass an extra-academic portion of their lives. Concludes that technology is most useful when it allows the poetic spirit to…

Traces the different historical senses of the term literacy to see why it was chosen for generalization. Examines the semantic aspects of the term as currently used in three cases--scientific literacy, visual literacy, and cultural literacy. Discusses evaluative and analytic conceptions of literacy. (KEH)

Cameras and photography offer children a tool for investigating interesting scenes in their environments, turning them into active observers of life. The article recommends types of cameras, describes how to get children started, and presents a variety of activities to help children get the most out of a camera. (SM)

This classroom guide and "Better Viewing" guide accompany a 28-minute videotape on television literacy called "Master Control." The classroom guide explains the purpose behind the video, pointing out that "Master Control" is not about doing away with TV, but about a youngster's getting the most out of his or her TV…

Cortical blindness is defined and its diagnosis is explained. Guidelines and sample activities are presented for use in a cognitive/visual/multi-sensory stimulation program to produce progress in cortically blind infants. The importance of using the eyes from birth through early development in order to form the nerve pathways responsible for…

This book is a guide for encouraging critical television viewing skills in children, allowing them to make up their own minds about the power and influence of television. The introduction addresses the importance of television in North America and compares viewing patterns with those in other countries. The text throughout is accompanied by…

Five principles of media literacy help parents base their criticism of television on reason: people are smarter than televisions; the television world is not real; television teaches that some people are more important than others; television keeps repeating the same things; and someone always wants to make money with television. (SM)

Articulates, through a critical analysis of Atlantic Canada's latest secondary English language arts curriculum documents, the expansion of traditionally understood conceptions of literacy to include information, media, and visual literacies. Examines the specific nature and extent to which technology and computer-mediated curricula are used to…

This guide, intended as a manual for the beginning director, educational filmmaker, or film school student, provides instruction for attending to the progressive elements of cinematographic craft, from the initial idea to the screen. The guide examines the structure of the script, aspects of acting and working with actors, music and sound, camera…

This theme issue presents art advocacy as a necessary means of bringing art and art education to an elevated status in the elementary secondary curriculum and educational system. Articles include: (1) "Editor's View" (Margaret Scarr); (2) "Art Education: Why Is It Important" (Arts Education Partnership Working Group); (3)…

Today's students face a barrage of competing texts in many different forms and media, and it is now up to teachers to help students determine not only "what" should be read but "how" it should be read. This book addresses this issue. The book explores the idea of "textual intelligence"; offers both practical and…

Explores how visual (pictorial) and verbal (linguistic) systems work together and influence each other as young children create symbol systems. Finds that, for young children, color plays a key role in communicating messages. Shows how art and writing (especially color and light) influence each other in children's literacy development. (SR)

This book is intended as a source for those who desire to apply a coherent system of instructional design, thereby insuring accountability. Chapter 1 covers the instructional design process, including: instructional technology; the role of evaluation; goal setting; the psychology of teaching and learning; task analysis; operational objectives;…