Visual literacy and the internet promote learning

How can visual literacy and the use of the Internet impact the teaching and learning process in the classroom? What are some visual-thinking strategies you would like to use in your classroom? What role do you want the Internet play in your classroom?

Visual literacy….adding images…adding color…adding understanding.

Through the exploration of images and their impact on learning, it brought to the fore front of my teaching students need more visual connections to the content I teach.  One picture is worth a thousand words (Barnard, 1921) was brought about perhaps through an old Chinese proverb.  In the end, it means that something hard to describe may be best represented through a picture.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words.html

 With the use of the internet teachers are able to pull a variety of resources, filter through them, and create more content rich lessons than ever before. These past two weeks in particular emphasized moving from a traditional lecture formatted classroom environment to that of a collaborative nature. 

Collaboration by itself, however, is not the master key that unlocks knowledge, but the skillful planning of the teach using the correct technology tool at the right time.  For instance, I researched WebQuests lessons for the secondary mathematics classroom relating to quadratics. This link will take you there:  http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=66698.

I was drawn to it by the initial picture because I found out people can take rides at the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, MO when my daughter moved back to Michigan to go to school.  There is an informative video about the arch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX2KpYDhnP0 

By making connections to content students become more engaged to learn and recall important facts.  As I develop my next unit on quadratics I want to employ similar learning experiences for my students from my experiences here.  In our readings this week reference was also made to word clouds.  Word clouds would be a perfect supplement to graphic collages on the topic of quadratics. One would provide visual images gathered by students and the other would be a verbal model of the same information.  

Math can come across as a foreign language to some students because there are so many new terms they have limited prior knowledge of.  Using the internet to help them decode information and reach independent conclusions about would be valuable. 

Student engagement is achieved through student centered activities.  With technology slowly becoming more available at my school, I look forward to guiding my students on how to use the internet as a tool to succeed now and n their future! 

Watching a computer generate a parabola will also help visual learners such as the GeoGebra has available online: http://tube.geogebra.org/m/189498

 Interactive parabola

Last year as a cumulative project, I had my classes build mini-catapults, take measurements and derive a quadratic equation.  I am now considering how to ue technology with the project.