New Literacies: What am I learning

I am choosing to research and learn about Visual Literacy.  Visual literacy involves using maps, diagrams, images, technology, gestures, and videos, among other things, to share literacy.  Previous to researching visual literacy my definition of literacy was very narrow in that I thought it had to involve text and writing.  But visual literacy makes learning more accessible in that it uses more universal images and symbols.  Under this context of literacy, language is not as much of a barrier so it opens the doors of communication.  It is widely used in electronic media in the form of pictures, video, maps, and websites.  I also think visual literacy takes the idea of being literature beyond the doors of a classroom.  Learning how to be a visual learner is useful in everyday life and is something we come in contact with all the time.  We are constantly reading symbols, seeing pictures, interpreting graphs or charts, and using gestures.

I am using an online cartoon building website called Toondoo to create my product.  This medium is perfect for visual literacy because it involves using pictures and images to communicate information.  I think using cartoons or graphics as a means of learning gives added support to people who might struggle with literacy, yet it still entails using some of the more traditional literacy skills such as reading and writing.  Working with this technology has showed me how difficult it can be to portray your ideas through visual images, but I also think it has been very helpful to me.  I am able to see a new way of looking at things and better understand how my perspective might be too narrow to communicate to a large group of people.  I need to choose images that everyone can understand, which is a lot like choosing a written text that everyone can understand as well.