Welcome to EDIT 5564: Visual Literacy. In your professional life, education and daily life, you will encounter and interact with images and visual materials on a regular basis. This course will provide you with the knowledge and skills to be visually literate both in your daily life and in an instructional design context. Someone who is visually literate cannot only critically consume and interpret visual messages; they can also design and develop effective visuals in a variety of settings. In this course you will learn how to effectively find, interpret, use analyze, evaluate, design, and create visual messages and understand ethical issues surrounding the access to and creation of visual media.
Lessons | Description |
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Lesson 1: Introduction to visual literacy | In this lesson, you will be introduced to visual literacy. You will learn what visual literacy is and why it is important to be visually literate. You will find examples of visuals that you believe are particularly effective and visuals that may rather be ineffective for the purpose they have. |
Lesson 2: Visuals and perception | You will learn how the brain processes visual information and how people perceive these visuals. You will learn about Gestalt psychology and cognitive information processing of visuals. |
Lesson 3: Visuals and emotions | You will learn about Bang’s visual principles and learn how visuals can convey certain emotions. You will analyze such visuals and will also create visuals that convey specific emotions. |
Lesson 4: Visuals and semiotics | You will learn the basic principles of semiotics. You will learn about signs, signifiers, denotation, connotation, myths, and stereotypes. You will analyze and evaluate images based on semiotic concepts. |
Lesson 5: Visuals and photography |
You will learn basic principles of photography. You will create photographs and learn about concepts such as the rule of thirds, ISO, depth of field, aperture, and shutter speed. |
Lesson 6: Visuals that move |
In this lesson, we will transition from analyzing and creating still-images to moving images. The focus is on the analysis and creation of video. You will learn about basic cinematographic and mise-en-scene concepts. |
Lesson 7: Data visualization and infographics |
While words and speech are often used in training and instruction, visuals are much less used. People often do not find it easy to visualize information. In this lesson, you will learn how to visualize data and information. You will create your own infographic. |
Lesson 8: Visuals and storytelling |
In this lesson, you will learn how to tell stories with visuals. You will analyze wordless stories and design their own visual story. |
Lesson 9: Visuals and ethics |
You will learn about the ethical, legal, social, and economic issues surrounding the creation and use of images and visual media, and access and use visual materials ethically. You will discuss the use of Photoshopped and doctored images. They will also learn about copyright issues regarding the use of visuals. |
Lesson 10: Visuals and learning | In this lesson, you will learn how visuals can enhance learning. You will learn and apply principles that have been proven to promote learning. You will also design and develop visuals to enhance learning. |
For this course you will be asked to read various articles and book chapters. All books and articles used in this course should be available online via the Virginia Tech University Libraries. Below, see the lessons and associated readings.
Lessons | Readings |
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Lesson 1: Introduction to visual literacy |
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Lesson 2: Visuals and perception |
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Lesson 3: Visuals and emotions |
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Lesson 4: Visuals and semiotics |
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Lesson 5: Visuals and photography |
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Lesson 6: Visuals that move |
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Lesson 7: Data visualization and infographics |
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Lesson 9: Visuals and ethics |
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Lesson 10: Visuals and learning |
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The following scale will be used in determining final grades:
Points | Percentage | Grade |
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232 - 250 | 93-100% | A |
225 - 231 | 90-92% | A- |
217 - 224 | 87-89% | B+ |
207 - 216 | 83-86% | B |
200 - 206 | 80-82% | B- |
192 - 199 | 77-79% | C+ |
182 - 191 | 73-76% | C |
175 - 181 | 70-72% | C- |
167 - 174 | 67-69% | D+ |
157 - 166 | 63-66% | D |
150 - 156 | 60-62% | D- |
We have created an online student interface that allows you to submit assignments, check grades, and review the assignment rubrics. This will allow the graders to organize and grade your activities in a timely manner, and provide useful feedback. When an assignment has been graded you will then be able to log back into this interface to view your score and any feedback that was given. The student interface will also allow you to review the grading rubrics for each assignment. Please bookmark this direct link to the SASI (online student interface).
Each learner is expected to abide by the Virginia Tech Graduate Honor System Pledge, as stated below. All assignments and activities in this course are expected to be the learner's own work; no outside assistance may be used.
The tenets of the Virginia Tech Graduate Honor Code will be strictly enforced in this course, and all assignments shall be subject to the stipulations of the Graduate Honor Code. For more information on the Graduate Honor Code, please refer to the GHS Constitution at http://ghs.graduateschool.vt.edu/
If you have any questions about this module, please contact us at itma@vt.edu
For this course you will be asked to read various articles and book chapters. All books and articles used in this course should be available online via the Virginia Tech University Libraries. Below, see the lessons and associated readings.
Lessons | References |
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Use of images/vectors throughout the course | All vectors are either adapted from Freepik.com or created by Evelien Schilder unless otherwise noted. The course content and images have been created by Evelien Schilder unless otherwise noted. |
Course Overview |
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Lesson 1: Introduction to visual literacy |
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Lesson 2: Visuals and perception |
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Lesson 3: Visuals and emotions |
Image sources
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Lesson 4: Visuals and semiotics |
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Lesson 5: Visuals and photography |
All images in this lesson have been taken by Evelien Schilder and Tonny Schilder |
Lesson 6: Visuals that move |
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Lesson 7: Data visualization and infographics |
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Lesson 8: Visuals and storytelling |
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Lesson 9: Visuals and ethics |
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Lesson 10: Visuals and learning |
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(1) These objectives closely align with ACRL’s Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education: http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/visualliteracy.