Visual literacy is a fun topic to introduce into the classroom. It allows students to explore the digital world visually and hands on.
Visual literacy is "the ability to understand, interpret and evaluate visual messages" (Baker, 2012, p. 42).
In today's society, visual ads are everywhere we look - in magazines, on billboards, on our coffee cups, everywhere! Human beings are exposed to these ads every single day through the internet, on television, on the way to work and school. It is important to be able to identify the information behind these visual images. It is critically important to open up the idea of visual literacy to young children as they are commonly the ones spending most of their time on the internet and watching TV before and after school. Students need to be aware of the hidden messages some of these images contain, as well as understanding how to take an image with no words and find the meaning of it.
There are so many issues with body image in today's youth. Not only in females, but also in males. Young teenagers thrive off of the models in magazines or their favourite actress/actor. A desire to want to look like these famous people, or have that perfect flawless skin, or those big muscles, arises over these youth creating self-esteem issues which can link to many other psychological, emotional and health issues. It is so important for students to realize the idea of photo-shop and how so many of these images are altered to make the model look more appealing to consumers. It is an advertising technique to catch the interest of people like young girls to buy that makeup product to hide blemishes. If we were to spend time as teachers, and teach students about the idea of understanding the meaning behind visual images, they would be more aware of what they are looking at, and the idea of what they are looking at may not be at all what was on the screen before editors worked hours changing the way somebody looked.
In my media literacy class, we were shown two very powerful videos provided by the Dove foundation. After seeing these videos it has proved to me that we need to show our young students what the media is doing to our self-esteem and our perception of how we look, compared to how somebody else sees us. With the way our world is, and the many issues that arise with low self-esteem, I believe everybody should be shown these videos. It is so important for youth to understand their own self-worth and beauty at a young age, because if they let that get to them because they will never look like a famous model or a body builder, they will never be happy with themselves, therefore never being happy with whom they are as a grown up, having very little self-belief and lacking the ability to see the good qualities they individually have.
"Visual literacy education should prepare students at a young age for the onslaught of advertising they will be exposed to during their lifetime. The immediate examples of seemingly innocuous sites are numerous: Nickelodeon advertises their commercial programming and includes shopping links. Zoog Disney seamlessly ties in merchandising links with its interactive programming. AOL Instant Messenger, a growing favourite among youngsters, is continually employing new pop-up advertising techniques. This kind of complete advertising integration transforms students' budding view of the world. "Their participation in global media culture shapes the way they communicate and the kinds of social identities they take on. It informs how they present themselves to others and their understandings about the social groups and communities to which they might conceivably belong" (Riesland).
Teaching students visual literacy not only will help them to see the negatives in images, but also the positives. I focused solely on the negatives media ads can have and how we as teachers can change that around by showing our students the power media can have on us.
References
Baker, F. (2012) Media literacy in the k-12 classroom. International Society for Technology in
Education.
Riesland, Erin. Visual literacy and the classroom. John Hopkins School of Education.
Dove Evolution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hibyAJOSW8U
Dove Real Beauty Sketches
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpaOjMXyJGk
Visual literacy is "the ability to understand, interpret and evaluate visual messages" (Baker, 2012, p. 42).
In today's society, visual ads are everywhere we look - in magazines, on billboards, on our coffee cups, everywhere! Human beings are exposed to these ads every single day through the internet, on television, on the way to work and school. It is important to be able to identify the information behind these visual images. It is critically important to open up the idea of visual literacy to young children as they are commonly the ones spending most of their time on the internet and watching TV before and after school. Students need to be aware of the hidden messages some of these images contain, as well as understanding how to take an image with no words and find the meaning of it.
There are so many issues with body image in today's youth. Not only in females, but also in males. Young teenagers thrive off of the models in magazines or their favourite actress/actor. A desire to want to look like these famous people, or have that perfect flawless skin, or those big muscles, arises over these youth creating self-esteem issues which can link to many other psychological, emotional and health issues. It is so important for students to realize the idea of photo-shop and how so many of these images are altered to make the model look more appealing to consumers. It is an advertising technique to catch the interest of people like young girls to buy that makeup product to hide blemishes. If we were to spend time as teachers, and teach students about the idea of understanding the meaning behind visual images, they would be more aware of what they are looking at, and the idea of what they are looking at may not be at all what was on the screen before editors worked hours changing the way somebody looked.
In my media literacy class, we were shown two very powerful videos provided by the Dove foundation. After seeing these videos it has proved to me that we need to show our young students what the media is doing to our self-esteem and our perception of how we look, compared to how somebody else sees us. With the way our world is, and the many issues that arise with low self-esteem, I believe everybody should be shown these videos. It is so important for youth to understand their own self-worth and beauty at a young age, because if they let that get to them because they will never look like a famous model or a body builder, they will never be happy with themselves, therefore never being happy with whom they are as a grown up, having very little self-belief and lacking the ability to see the good qualities they individually have.
"Visual literacy education should prepare students at a young age for the onslaught of advertising they will be exposed to during their lifetime. The immediate examples of seemingly innocuous sites are numerous: Nickelodeon advertises their commercial programming and includes shopping links. Zoog Disney seamlessly ties in merchandising links with its interactive programming. AOL Instant Messenger, a growing favourite among youngsters, is continually employing new pop-up advertising techniques. This kind of complete advertising integration transforms students' budding view of the world. "Their participation in global media culture shapes the way they communicate and the kinds of social identities they take on. It informs how they present themselves to others and their understandings about the social groups and communities to which they might conceivably belong" (Riesland).
Teaching students visual literacy not only will help them to see the negatives in images, but also the positives. I focused solely on the negatives media ads can have and how we as teachers can change that around by showing our students the power media can have on us.
References
Baker, F. (2012) Media literacy in the k-12 classroom. International Society for Technology in
Education.
Riesland, Erin. Visual literacy and the classroom. John Hopkins School of Education.
Dove Evolution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hibyAJOSW8U
Dove Real Beauty Sketches
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpaOjMXyJGk