In interactive media, it is the spaces between the text that are as important to read as the text itself. Visual literacy is a vital form of reading in an increasingly pictorial world. This paper examines the grammar of visual literacy by analyzing the discourse of a group of adolescents and the way they interpret multi-layered, seriated, and…

Film and writing each resolve quite differently the problem of how to communicate. Still, film can demonstrate some underlying principles that are helpful to writers, especially those writers lacking understanding or skill in certain writing principles. There are at least five principles that both film and composition portray: the importance of…

A study investigated the use of verbo-visual content in geography textbooks of various countries. Secondary school geography textbooks from Australia, Greece, Japan, Sweden, and the United States were examined. For each of the selected books, empirical data about the amount of texts, pictures, maps, and tables was gathered; contents were assessed;…

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…

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 examined teachers' actual use of media and pictures in their teaching of geography in the secondary schools of five countries (a previous study focused on representations). About 180 teachers from Australia, Greece, Japan, Sweden, and the United States responded to a questionnaire concerning how often they used various types of media or…

One of the most interesting challenges facing educators today is how to engage students in meaningful study of the environment in which they live. This paper presents the benefits of studying scientific data from an aesthetic point of view. The visual display of the earth's surface through aerial photographs and satellite map images was used as…

This paper examines the conceptualization and design of the Pennsylvania Audiographics Distance Education Project's (PADEP) Life Skills and Drug Education Course, and discusses the successes and difficulties of the project based on results from formative evaluation. Educators from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, developed new courses that could be…

When students become actively involved in technology productions they develop learning skills, communication skills, and visual analysis skills, all of which are applied to real-life learning within the classroom curriculum. Students participate in all stages of the production projects, which proves to be motivating for the students and allows the…

This paper describes the Integrated Studies Project, a middle school curriculum project developed at Keele University in England, and designed to integrate the social sciences and the expressive arts. The described materials are available from Oxford University Press. These consist of large fold-out sheets with information, photographs, drawings,…