James Stewart Learning Portfolio in IT 645 Chapter 9 & 10

What is visual literacy? Where and when is it learned? Why is it important? Contrast Internet broadcasts, live cams, and Net meetings. How can each of these Internet-based video technologies be used in teaching and learning?

Visual literacy is an ability that is developed over time. More specifically, one develops visual literacy from things that they see and just by looking at those things one can know exactly what is expected. One example that the text uses is the symbol for “recycle” and places it over a newspaper. The question asked, “What does this suggest you should be done with your newspaper?” A person that has seen this symbol knows that the suggestion is for the user to recycle the newspaper. Therefore, one has learned visually. Visual learning takes place throughout the course of living. Students learn visually throughout their educational career whether a teacher formally introduces a visual. This is important because we learn from our surroundings.

An Internet broadcast is the broadcasting of live events and performances over the Internet, using streaming video technology that compresses digital video and plays it back while it is being received. On the contrary, a live cam is a digital video camera that is connected to a computer, which in turn is connected to the Internet so that the digital images from the camera can be seen by those connecting to the live cam web site. Next there are internet meetings. An internet meeting is an internet based “face to face” conversation with people around the world via compressed video. Each of these is extremely powerful tools and can be used in a multitude of ways to enhance one’s learning experience. Perhaps the best way to illustrate how useful these Internet-based technologies are, is to point that this class, IT645, is being taught using these types of resources. There are some students in this class who do not live anywhere near the Hattiesburg campus of USM. Because we have these capabilities, we are able to learn from our homes the things that the confines of the regular classroom might not allow.