For the most part, the visual component has been ignored in programs developed to improve the general education of undergraduate students. At the University of Cincinnati (Ohio), however, a general education program has been developed that includes a visual literacy component. Faculty development workshops have been held to remind faculty members…

The puzzling quality of modern art, in both its complexity and its simplicity, symbolizes a barrier between the student and the elite's privilege of power. Too frequently, students have been taught that art is a secret, a code to which only teachers have the key, and that there is only one correct interpretation of a work, which must be imparted…

One use of television in the two-year college classroom is to help students to deal with inferences. An inferencing exercise that students have generally enjoyed is watching television for a certain length of time at home and taking accurate notes of the commercials. Then, each student pretends to be a space creature who has just landed and seen…

The goal of an introductory graphics course is fundamental visual literacy, which includes learning to appreciate the power of visuals in communication and to express ideas visually. Traditional principles of design--the focus of the course--are based on more fundamental gestalt theory, which relates to human pattern-seeking behavior, particularly…

Ninety-four children, aged 5 to 12 years, were subjects of a study of recall of television literacy messages (drop-ins). The 30-second "How To Watch TV" (HTWTV) segments were designed for broadcast on Saturday mornings by the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) to convey to children some information and values about television (e.g., animals do…

A study on visual literacy in children explored such questions as: (1) how a visual literacy curriculum might be structured; and (2) whether, when students participate in a visual literacy program, they consequently say or write more, and whether what they have to say is more insightful. During the experiences, children talked and wrote about…

In terms of direct experience, students are limited to their immediate environment--unless that environment is expanded. A school of global education was therefore developed in the Livonia Public Schools (Michigan) to identify and implement ways by which this sought-after awareness could be incorporated into a secondary school multidisciplinary…

A study of the cognitive aspects of children's television watching addressed the following questions: To what degree is processing capability mediated by one's attentional set, as opposed to skills that one brings to the viewing situation? If attention is a significant mediating factor, is this true across various kinds of information one can…

This document briefly reviews four areas of educational inquiry. The first section is concerned with definitions of the terms "spatial ability" and "visual imagery"; the second is concerned with training studies in which attempts have been made to improve spatial ability or to encourage greater use of visual imagery in problem…

The process of becoming literate today means both visual and verbal literacy. There is no need, however, to choose between print and nonprint media as teaching tools. Today's "new media" serve to expand and accentuate the world of printed words and provide valuable means of learning in and of themselves. Visual literacy implies developing an…

Cinema emerged about 1900, and as the twentieth century ticked by, the cinematic process was recognized as a model for the thought processes of the human mind--of both the unconscious dream process and of the stream of conscious thought--and also as a model of the historical process. Film not only is an experiential process and a physical…

The exploration of nonverbal forms of culture and communication has led to the development of visual anthropology courses within the anthropology department at Temple University. Visual anthropology is conceptualized as the study of human nonlinguistic forms of communication involving film making for data collecting and analysis. Several areas of…

This paper discusses the relationship between "language" and "visual language." The paper describes two integrated teaching projects (children ages 4-11) in Croatia in which English as a Foreign Language and the visual language are presented as two potential common languages for young people to improve their communication in…

As a co-author of the GEAR-UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) grant proposal to the Department of Education in 1999, the primary author (Kohl) of this paper is in her third year of working at Franklin Middle School, which largely serves at-risk minority students through the University of South Florida (USF),…

The speech contained in this document originally accompanied a slide presentation on the altered photographic image. The discussion examines the links between photographic tradition and contemporary visual imaging, the current transformation of visual imaging by the computer, and the effects of digital imaging on visual arts. Photography has a…