| Photo credit: flickr.com |
Before I get started with this post, I just want to take the time out to say that I am proud of myself in how far I have come in this MOOC course, and in my understanding of the various concepts of metaliteracy. When I first began this course, I found myself to be so lost. I don't know if the topics are becoming easier or more interesting, but I really think that the course is beginning to make a lot of sense.
Anyway, back to what I'm really here to talk about! This week's MOOC talk was about the importance of visual literacy to metaliteracy. I have to say that this week's talk was pretty cool. I know that for me, I learn best from visuals and hands-on learning, but I never realized that such a huge part of our overall learning and understanding comes from visual aid. I think its great that Mr. Stone used this talk to highlight the importance of visual literacy.
Mr. Stone uses a lot of great examples in his lecture, but one of my favorites had to do with the project that was done on his campus. Large letters that spelt words like "thrive" and "grow" were placed in relation to trees and bushes, in order to draw attention to nature. Mr. Stone noted that so many students walk around with their heads down in their phones, and paid absolutely no attention to their surroundings. I think this project was an interesting way for the students and faculty of the campus to really engage with their surroundings.
I also thought the juxtaposition of information with nature was pretty awesome. Many of us do not associate nature with information or technology. After seeing this example, I tried to think of more examples where our natural environment was utilized to dispense or provide information, but I could not think of anything. I also think that the visual word association in this project was interesting. Words like "thrive" and "grow" are words that can be associated with plants and nature, but they also can be related to college and education. Isn't college a place where we come to thrive and to grow? We come to branch out, and to leave as more developed and informed person. Was this project supposed to intentionally have more than one meaning?
I made these connections from a couple of videos I saw on Mr. Stone's Vimeo account. There are two "Type in Motion" videos for the words "vacuum" and "wind," which work mostly with the aforementioned concept of visual word association. For "vacuum," the letter U is sucking up the rest of the letters, which is the motion that we would typically associate with that word.
In thinking about metaliteracy as a whole, I think that visuals such as these could be vital to global metaliteracy. Could you imagine using videos like Mr. Stone's to teach different languages to students young and old? For example, I can already see how videos like these could be useful to a person learning English (which is arguably one the hardest languages to adopt). Imagine there being videos for nuanced words that look and sound the same, but are radically different; like see and sea or red and read. Or what about using these word associations and infographics to inform students about other cultures? With ideas like this, I think that visual literacy could be (and is!) a vital part to our learning and understanding.
I really support your view on how visual literacy can be extremely beneficial to those trying to learn a new language. I remembered back in high school French everything was labeled with its French translation. Those became the nouns I was most familiar with, because I always saw them. The constant exposure imprinted itself on my find.
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