Abstract
From petroglyphs on cave walls to pictures posted on Facebook walls, images are part of our world. Today’s college students represent the first generation who have been raised in an environment of graphic-driven technology. From birth, they have been exposed to an image-rich environment. Portable devices, graphic interfaces, and visual content are an integral part of the lifestyle of today’s youth – the digital learners. Today’s college students are referred to as the digital generation, even as visual experts, and that they prefer their graphics over their text. But are they visually literate and to what degree? Educators have an urgent challenge to transform lazy looking into visual proficiency. Students need to learn visually, and teachers need to learn to teach visually. Leonardo da Vinci, in recognizing the impossibility of recording volumes of data, translated words into drawings. Visual Illiteracy damages a society as significantly as illiteracy of the written word. This paper offers a reconceptualization of the value of visual literacy in learning for today’s college student and their ability to recognize and understand meaning from images.
Presenters
Siu Challons-LiptonExecutive Director and Professor of Art History, Department of Art, Design and Music, Queens Univeristy of Charlotte, North Carolina, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2023 Special Focus—Images Do Not Represent Us, They Create Us: The Image and its Transforming Power
KEYWORDS
Visual, Literacy, Power, Education, Transformation, College students, Creativity, Digital generation
