Esraa Abdelfatah
Helwan University, Egypt

Abstract:
Throughout the history of civilizations, the language of visual art has expressed the hidden concepts under the apparent forms and the invisible deduced through the visible. Furthermore, this process takes place through various mediums to convey complex and abstract ideas and meanings through symbols, allegories, and metaphors. Additionally, all those mediums represent hidden meaning and veiled language, a meticulously packaged lesson ready to reveal itself. This research will provide a new method of seeing and interpreting the creative experience of visual art from many aspects by monitoring and studying the development of symbolic thinking through theories of reading, receiving, and interpretation. This, in turn, requires the necessity of dealing with the artwork as a concept and not just looking at its formal aspects only. Thus, this calls for a reconsideration of visual and conceptualism metaphors and tropes in artists’ practices, using metaphorical structures as one of the most important ways of contemporary thinking.

Keywords: Conceptual perspective, allegory, metaphor, visual arts

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Amy S. Ackerman
Stockton University, USA
Mary Jane Murphy-Bowne
Stockton University, USA

Abstract:
A challenge exists to engage college students in online learning courses in a meaningful way. To achieve engagement, a course used visual edutainment themes to introduce weekly objectives in the course. This paper provides an overview of the approach and the theoretical basis for this strategy. Visual edutainment can produce learner interaction; improve retention; help provide meaningful, motivational, and memorable learning experiences; engage learners; and decrease the cognitive load of a learning experience. Suggestions for other applications and a synopsis of the Pecha Kucha (PK) style of presenting are also included. We found that using edutainment themes to engage online learners is well received and using PK Create as a tool for students to develop Pecha Kucha presentations is a simple approach.

Keywords: E-Learning, Edutainment, Engagement, Pecha Kucha, Visual Literacy

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 Heidi Appel
University of Toledo, USA
Michael Deetsch
Toledo Museum of Art, USA

Abstract:
Visual literacy touches all academic disciplines, yet integrating it into higher education across curricula is challenging, particularly because visual literacy is traditionally associated with specific disciplines such as art, education, and communications. We describe an interdisciplinary faculty-led effort to bring visual literacy into the entire curriculum at the University of Toledo in collaboration with the Toledo Museum of Art. Given the value of ACRL visual literacy student learning outcomes to students of all majors and the complexities of introducing new courses, we chose a flexible model of curriculum modules that faculty could adapt as needed. We supplemented curriculum modules with the visual literacy exercises developed by the TMA. We used multiple venues to make faculty aware of these resources, including presentations at faculty meetings, workshops, and open houses. The history, design, promotion, and success of this effort are discussed.

Keywords: visual literacy, higher education, institutional partnerships

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Frank Cerreto
Stockton University, USA
Jung Lee
Stockton University, USA

Abstract:
According to the generative learning model, learning with understanding is a generative process. During this process, humans construct meanings by creating mental structures to store and retrieve new information and building processes to relate new information to prior knowledge. This article provides a theoretical framework of learner-generated visualizations from text through the lens of generative learning and discusses the evaluation of student-generated work, movie trailers. Once students generate their own visualizations, evaluating their products is complex. To facilitate this evaluation, we adapted Richard Mayer’s SOI Model (Select, Organize, and Integrate) describing the cognitive stages involved in generative learning in multimedia development. The application of the model to the evaluation of student work and an analysis of student reflections is discussed.

Keywords: Movie Trailer, Generative Learning, SOI model

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Xiaoning Chen
National Louis University, USA
Ran Hu
East Carolina University, USA

Abstract:
One of the primary visual sources children are exposed to is the illustrations in picturebooks. This study examines visual representations of Chinese people and Chinese Americans in contemporary picturebooks. It seeks answers to how and why the Chinese and their culture are represented in these books through a critical visual literacy lens. Ten sample picturebooks were analyzed. The findings demonstrate progress in representing diverse Chinese and Chinese American characters in contemporary picturebooks; however, many visual representations still reinforce stereotypes of Chinese people and Chinese Americans, consistent with the dominant social discourse. Implications for developing culturally rich and dynamic Chinese characters in future picturebooks are discussed.

Keywords: critical visual literacy, picturebooks, Chinese/Chinese American representations

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Juliana Ferreira de Oliveira
Federal University of Paraná, Brazil
Juliana Bueno
Federal University of Paraná, Brazil

Abstract:
The articulation between different temporalities and spatialities is an important field of discussion for understanding historical information. When considering the Brazilian high school context, specifically the humanities curriculum, this paper discusses the use of a didactic tool for visualizing temporality to enhance the visual literacy of teachers and students as primary and secondary target groups, especially from a synchronic-diachronic perception of historical time. We investigate how the articulation of the multiplicities of time and space might mediate strategies for teaching and learning history, considering visual language in a currently changing curriculum for high school. To this end, we briefly describe the tool’s design in the previous phases of our research and its connection to curricular demands, data visualization, and traditional historiographical models. Through user evaluation, we discuss the reception of the tool among teachers and students, as well as the implications for cultural learning. The research was instigated by the distancing many students feel when attempting to place themselves within a historical narrative. During the learning experience, it is essential to understand how history is constructed by the participation of groups and individuals and not by distant, impersonal forces; this broadens the discipline of history to include the narratives of students’ lives. In addition, we understand that these social perceptions, which include those of time and space, are lived through multiple languages and cognition channels and are mediated by the teachers. Thus, visual language acts as a mediating device for teaching and learning information literacy so that all narratives can be more easily addressed and all learners are perceived as active agents of social change.

Keywords: data visualization, didactic tool, timeline, history, high school

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Maria Victoria Guglietti
University of Calgary, Canada

Abstract:
This paper explores the contribution of reflective visual journals to our understanding of visual literacy. The discussion is based on a phenomenographic analysis of 232 reflective visual journal entries and a thematic analysis of nine interviews with student participants in an undergraduate visual culture class. Reflective visual journals require students to reflect on, analyze, and produce their own images in response to their learning about visual culture. The paper calls for a systematic study of visual reflection as a visual literacy experience. It discusses “concept re-enactment,” a visual reflective practice that results in the performance of a concept or an argument. This practice complicates our assessment of visual literacy skills as concept re-enactment is not fully captured by students’ visual production. This study, therefore, argues that concept re-enactment reveals visual literacy as a multidimensional experience involving practices that are neither fully “visual” nor captured by the notion of visual competence.

Keywords: Visual reflection, reflective visual journals, visual skills, visual competencies, concept re-enactment

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Kamal Oghly
The International Cultural Academy, Syria

Abstract:
Due to the exceptional situation left by the war in Syria, a huge number of Syrian refugees are lacking the proper education. As a result, the International Cultural Academy has decided to take the initiative to design a special program based on the elements and tools of visual language to help these refugees raise their awareness and capabilities and thus compensate for the severe shortage in the knowledge field. This training program is designed in an unconventional way, so that it is dealt with interactively, and there is still a room for development. We started working on this program short time ago relatively, through workshops that included refugee women from several countries, and the result was very positive, but we still need more time so that we can evaluate performance and accurately monitor the results.

Keywords: Visual Literacy, Visual Language, Education for Syrian Refugees.

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Ashley Pryor
The University of Toledo, USA
Barbara Miner
The University of Toledo, USA
Lee Fearnside
Independent Artist, USA

Abstract:
The authors argue that community-engaged arts practices like The Holding Project can and should be brought into closer alliance with each other and can be mutually beneficial. We suggest that the 2011 Visual Literacy Competency Standards are entrenched in a Western Enlightenment worldview. While the values undergirding these worldviews may be valuable in some contexts, they are not universally shared and serve as an inadequate foundation for collaborative, community-engaged arts projects. Further, the 2011 Standards and the proposed “Framework for Visual Literacy in Higher Education” (ACRL-VLRT, 2021) currently under review may not go far enough to model a more inclusive and egalitarian approach to community-engaged work. We hope that by calling attention to the implicit Eurocentric bias inherent in the 2011 standards, we can make a small contribution to the ongoing efforts within the visual literacy community to support “social justice through visual practice” (ACRL-VLTF, 2021).

Keywords: ACRL, Community-Engaged Art, Competency Standards, Eurocentrism, The Holding Project

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Nikolay Selivanov
Studio of art designing, Moscow, Russia

Abstract:
Great Museum Game (GMG) are short-term art educational projects carried out directly in museums in the context of museum collections. GMG is a synthesis of tabletop and role-playing game forms designed to immerse participants in creative activities, providing mobilization of cognitive motivation and creative will, activation of imagination. The games have no competitive purposes. The participants create their own artistic reality in the context of the museum, give birth to new ideas, metaphors, and images. The games are aimed on motivated teenagers from 14 to 18 years old, engaged in artistic activities on a permanent basis. Five GMG-format projects will be presented in this research.

Keywords: museum pedagogy, game technology, immersive projects in a museum, contemporary art in a traditional museum, creative education, epistemological constructivism

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Eric Zeigler
University of Toledo, USA
Aaron M. Ellison
Sound Solutions for Sustainable Science, USA

Abstract:
Visual literacy takes for granted that humans are the main perceivers and decipherers of visual stimuli into meaningful information. The focus of this paper is to introduce the idea of a non-anthropocentric visual literacy and explore how it could help us better understand the myriad species that coexist with humans on Earth, their interactions with one another, and our interactions with them. Our work attempts to visualize the world beyond our vision — in the infrared and the ultraviolet. Using photography, we have imaged our world to translate what is visible to non-humans into the visible for humans. The information contained in these images reveals “hidden stories” about how organisms interact and make decisions, perhaps helping us to envision a more responsible future not only for our own species but also for the tens of millions of other species with whom we share the Earth. In sum, we propose that learning to see the world as other organisms do should be a part of visual literacy study and practice.

Keywords: Anthropocene, cognition, photography, non-visible spectra

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