Visual Literacy
How to Start
Beginners:
If you have never heard of CRAP visual design principles, also known as CARP, this would be a good place to start. An infographic of these design concepts can be found below, entitled "Clear and Readable Presentations." There are many ways that students can begin applying some of these visual literacy techniques with a variety of creationary apps. I find the most effective tool to be Book Creator, where students can create a text based on concepts they are inquiring into. Later, student can export these .pdf files to Google Drive and share with each other, or freely download their peers' books from a commonly shared folder. If students want to use more dynamic media, they could apply these principles through Explain Everything, EduCreations or Show Me. This becomes a little more tricky with apps that allow for student handwriting, as discussions need to ensue about audience perspective. If you are interested in taking data one has collected and presenting it visually, Piktochart has a user-friendly interface for novices to the world of infographics. Last year, my students created a Google Form that tied into our unit of inquiry. They then represented that data by creating an infographic using Piktochart, while applying CARP principles in the process. Weebly is a wonderful way for students to work on design principles in combination with a space for documenting their learning long-term. iMovie and Stop Motion is another way students can work on some of these principles, but mainly those involving repetition and contrast. |
Intermediates: If you would like students to have a bit more creativity over their visual projects, you could introduce them to many of the resources I learned from Heather Dowd last year. Her website is an amazing place to start exploring if you have the desire to go a bit more in depth. From some of those resources, the ones I use most are: Adobe Kuler to find color combinations, The Noun Project, Iconmonstr, and Flaticon for icons, DaFont to add any fonts that peak my interest. If you, or your students, would like to design from scratch, Keynote and Pages might be some software that you'd like to explore for upper elementary. They do take more time, but there can be more creative freedom and thus more professional feel to them. If students are interested in creating a Remix from video clips, I have found that clipconverter.cc to be an easy to use resource. Just paste in the URL and convert it to an .mp4 file. Then, you can easily import it into iMovie to trim and tell a story. This is what I used to create the vulnerability mashup. Keri-Lee Beasley also has written a fantastic book about design entitled, "Design Secrets Revealed." For those who have access to Macs, getting students to create interactive iBooks through iBooks author might be the next step for you. If you would like to teach your students how to take effective photos with their iPads, here is a resource that you can use to teach photography techniques. There are many more great resources to use in order to improve visual design in presentations and learning products. Be sure to add them to our collaborative list. |
examples in Action
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