Visual Teaching Alliance

Timothy Gangwer's Blog – October 2009 Archive (15)

Collaborative Research: Science of Learning Center: Visual Language and Visual Learning (VL2)

The Science of Learning Center on Visual Language and Visual Learning (VL2) at Gallaudet University brings together deaf and hearing researchers and educators from a variety of settings. The Center advances the science of learning by investigating how humans acquire and use language and develop literacy when audition is not an available mode for learning. Scientists from different disciplines explore collaboratively how deaf individuals learn to read and investigate how visually based learning… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on October 29, 2009 at 10:35am — No Comments

Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic Learners

"The National Insitutes of Health (NIH) estimate that the incidence of learning disabilities in the general population is 15 to 20 percent. Fifty-one percent of all the students enrolled in the nation's special education programs are classified as learning disabled (U.S. Deptartment of Education)." Unfortunately, this diagnosis is often viewed as a hindrance rather than an opportunity for growth and understanding.

Parents and students, please note: Individuals diagnosed with learning… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on October 28, 2009 at 2:29pm — No Comments

Are You Visually Literate? Are Your Kids?

If you're visually literate, you know what to look for in a photo, what questions to ask, and can begin to deduce its meaning and significance. Historical and cultural literacy will help you to refine and evaluate these deductions, as well as indulge in what the material culture scholar Jules Prown has called "cultural daydreams"--brainstorming about the larger meaning of the photo before diving into actual research on it.

Map reading, diagramming, making sense of charts and graphs… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on October 27, 2009 at 2:31pm — No Comments

Brain Scans Gauge Horror Flick Fear Factor

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Film producer Peter Katz doesn't just want his horror movies to scare you. He wants to pinpoint how frightened you are down to an exact moment in a scene.

To do that, he recently teamed up with researchers and used MRI scans of brain function to determine the degree of fright caused by certain scenes from his latest horror flick, "Pop Skull."

For the experiment, researchers at functional MRI research facility Mindsign Neuromarketing, based in San… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on October 26, 2009 at 11:02am — No Comments

What is Dyslexia?

What is dyslexia?

In a 2000 Roper Poll, 63% of Americans confused dyslexia with mental retardation (qtd in Willemin, par. 3). So it is important that we define what dyslexia is.

Here are just a few of the host of terms that have been used for dyslexia over the decades: Association Deficit Pathology, Central Nervous System Disorder, Congenital Alexia, Dysgraphia, Dyscalculia, Dyslexia, Hyperactivity, Hyperkinetic Behavior Syndrome (an older term for ADHD),… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on October 22, 2009 at 11:31pm — No Comments

Visual Literacy

Visual images are fast becoming the most predominant form of communication. Children are surrounded by all sorts of visual media now and according to Mary Alice White, researcher at Columbia Teachers’ College:

‘Young people learn more than half of what they know from visual information, but few schools have an explicit curriculum to show students how to think critically about visual data.’

Visual literacy includes such areas as facial expressions, body language, drawing,… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on October 21, 2009 at 12:42pm — No Comments

Visual Learning and Dyslexia

Our brains are equipped with functions that are required for learning such as listening, reading (looking), speaking (listening), writing, calculating, reasoning, and thinking. They are organized so that each has its own particular neuronal network system which is operated by what we might call a program of the mind. We could say that learning happens when information received visually, aurally and otherwise through sensory organs switches on these programs, which then drives the neuronal… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on October 19, 2009 at 12:19pm — No Comments

The Art of Learning Better: Tips for the Visual Learner

Those who are visual learners understand concepts and ideas better when they are presented in pictures, text, drawings, graphs, charts or other visual representations. Here are some tips for making your coursework and schooling a little easier if you’re a visual learner.

Organization

Keeping your stuff together and staying on task can sometimes be a challenge. These tips can give visual learners a leg up on organization.

Color code. If you color code… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on October 16, 2009 at 10:43am — No Comments

Visual Poetry Today

They are not merely poems, but they are certainly poems.

The child of both poetry and the visual arts, visual poetry has a double set of interests and its forms are myriad. Some visual poets continue to write traditional poems that require a certain visual context in which to properly mean—a context so important that it serves as a critical component of a unified text. Other visual poets focus entirely on lettershape, drawing out the beauty of these pieces of language either in… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on October 15, 2009 at 1:08am — No Comments

Visual Literacy and the Classroom

Although the definition of literacy remains a hotly contested topic among educators and researchers, it is hard to deny that technology is driving the debate. While reading and writing will most likely remain at the heart of standard literacy education, educators should reconsider what it means to be literate in the technological age. The New London Group, a cohort of educators and researchers interested in examining the teaching of new literacies, explains literacy this way: "one could say… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on October 14, 2009 at 12:03am — No Comments

Technology and the Visual Acquisition of Knowledge for the Multiple Intelligence Theory's "Visual Learner"

THE BIG QUESTION

How can we define learning and intelligence? This question has been asked countless times within the context of communication, brain research, educational psychology, pedagogy, and many other fields. Plato discussed similar themes millennia ago. Howard Gardner, a Harvard Psychologist who made a name for himself soon after graduating summa cum laude in 1965 is perhaps now the foremost name in Multiple Intelligences theory, and has addressed the question with a… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on October 13, 2009 at 10:10am — No Comments

Book Review: "Believing is Seeing"

Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See. Donald D. Hoffman. 294 pp. W. W. Norton & Company, 1998.

Those of us not expert in the study of vision might assume the process of seeing to be complicated but straightforward. Wrong. Complicated, yes; straightforward, never. In this book on vision, Donald Hoffman lets the reader in on the "secrets" of what he calls our visual intelligence. He theorizes that what we see is constructed by the brain as it builds an image… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on October 9, 2009 at 1:00pm — No Comments

Gifted Visual Spatial Learner Checklist

The Following Are Indicators Of A Visual Spatial Learning Style Coupled With An Auditory Sequential Processing Weakness.

This indicator is to be used for initial identification only. If the majority of these characteristics are present, it is probable that the child has a Visual Spatial Learning style coupled With an Auditory Sequential information processing weakness. However, this is not definitive and the child should then be referred for formal identification.

It… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on October 8, 2009 at 10:15am — No Comments

Understanding Dyslexia - Common But Often Misunderstood Condition

There exists many medical conditions, that, although they are incredibly significant, are not given the awareness and attention that they deserve. Although many of these such conditions can be pointed out, perhaps one of the most common and most often misunderstood is dyslexia. Dyslexia affects millions of people around the world, but despite these numbers, many often misunderstand dyslexia, and few give in the time and attention to finding out what the condition is, the symptoms that occur… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on October 7, 2009 at 12:03pm — No Comments

Reading Images: An Introduction to Visual Literacy

Images are all around us, and the ability to interpret them meaningfully is a vital skill for students to learn.

“LITERACY” USUALLY MEANS THE ABILITY TO READ AND WRITE, but it can also refer to the ability to “read” kinds of signs other than words — for example, images or gestures. The proliferation of images in our culture — in newspapers and magazines, in advertising, on television, and on the Web — makes visual literacy, the ability to “read” images, a vital skill. But what… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on October 5, 2009 at 11:27am — No Comments