Argues that educators should train themselves and students to understand and cope with television's power. Describes an inventory of viewing and reading habits, then discusses how three principles of teaching television are expressed in class activities. Outlines a unit that takes students from television as "just entertainment" to active,…

Describes the American public's growing interest in art after World War II. Discusses the problematic history of arts in the public school curricula, in which arts programs are seen as a last priority in school reform and are the first to be eliminated in school districts facing financial retrenchment. (SR)

The "ISSS Annual Conference Proceedings" is a peer-reviewed professional publication published once a year following the annual conference. (Individual papers contain references.) [For the 2011 proceedings, see ED518589.]

Within the scholarly debate about the value of visual literacy is the belief that visual literacy bestows the skill of critical viewing, or conscious appreciation of artistry along with the ability to see through manipulative uses and ideological implications of visual images. Critical thinking is commonly viewed as argument skills, cognitive…

This paper introduces five concepts that guide teachers' and students' critical inquiry in the understanding of media and visual representation. In a step-by-step process, the paper illustrates how these five concepts can become a tool with which to critique and examine film images of indigenous people. The Sani are indigenous people of the…

Several schools of thought regarding media criticism, derived from diverse disciplines and literary sources, have emerged during the last decade. To examine their application to the visual communication media arts such as film and television, this paper: (1) reviews the literature of media criticism; (2) discusses various approaches to visual…

While literacy is an important part of anyone's education, it should be noted that visual literacy, being able to view, interpret and react to visuals, is just as important for today's population. College students are reluctant at first to take the time to really examine a picture book, whereas youngsters go over and over their favorite books to…

The way the author's experiences of the city of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) shaped her visual literacy are explored. Along with the imagery of the steel mills, she experienced some artistic opportunities that helped shape the foundation of her life in art. Although no American city was as extensively industrialized as Pittsburgh, it was the artistic…

Holograms are capable of taking the two-dimensional ways of envisioning information to another dimension of presentation, representation, and conceptualization. Educational holography is joining display holography, holographic testing of materials, and holographic optical elements as a fourth major field in holography. Holograms are explored as…

Today's students are more comfortable with and skilled at discovering and developing information in a different verbal and visual text than that commonly found in the classroom dominated by written texts and conversation. This gap between the verbal and visual environments has implications for the teaching of reasoning skills: literacy in one…

There are two categories of representations: figurative and non-figurative. Within the category of figurative representations, there are two groups: visuals and graphic symbols. Graphic symbols include pictorial symbols, abstract symbols, and arbitrary symbols. Symbols can be used for identification, overview, supplying instructions, position,…

Technology, software, and design activities that have been used to create presentations for a class in visual literacy taught to graduate students in the instructional technology program of Northern Illinois University are described. In the past, the language of visuals was introduced through a slide and tape produced for the class. An additional…

Although schools in many countries have initiated mass media education, American schools still give little consideration to any systematic study of the mass media. Students are particularly in need of learning how to apply basic critical viewing concepts to watching television, the most powerful and ubiquitous of the mass media. Most researchers…

This district curriculum guide for teaching media skills in grades K-10 lists the skills that should be taught in grades K-6 and at the junior and senior high school levels. It is suggested that these skills be integrated into the classroom curriculum with emphasis on applications. The skills for grades K-6 are presented in five strands: (1) the…

This collection includes 16 conference papers and presentations and brief descriptions of 35 workshops and demonstrations. The document contains the following papers: (1) "Visual Literacy in the Elementary Grades" (David J. Bieman); (2) "Inservice Training for Sheridan's Audio Visual Staff" (Dave MacDougall); (3)…