Conference Abstracts
Kirk St.Amant | Louisiana Tech University, LA, USA.
Sketching Literacy: Teaching through the Cognitive Connections between Literacy and Design
Literacy involves two kinds of knowledge:
· Knowing the processes for creating something
· Knowing about the topic of our creations
Individuals who are “literate” know the processes for producing a text, visual, or other object. Individuals who are “literate” know a topic well enough to effectively write about it, design for it, or create items that address it. Both aspects of literacy are connected to how the mind visually processes information. By understanding these connections to cognitive, or mental, processes we can use sketching and drawing to teach both kinds of literacies – knowledge of process and knowledge of topic – across different topic, in different settings with different students. This presentation will examine the visual aspects of literacy and how they work on a cognitive level. The presenter will explain how cognitive processes of visualization can allow teachers to use sketching and drawing to help students develop literacy in different classes and for different media – from texts, to visuals, to digital media.
Zoe Hurley | Zayed University, UAE
Theorising the visual literacies of augmented reality: a semiotic framework for supporting collaborative learning
Augmented reality (AR) apps like SceneCam; Augment and/or software including Spark AR Studio, etc., involve learners in developing visual literacies, including both the interpretation and production of immersive images and video. It has been suggested that AR supports collaborative learning and overcomes the barriers of outdated teaching methods (Martín-Gutiérrez et al., 2014). However, definitions of the types of collaborative learning activities required for AR learning or what is meant by pedagogic ‘barriers’ are thin. To address these theoretical gaps, the semiotic philosophy of the American pragmatist Charles Sanders Peirce offers an important framework. For Peirce (1908), all learning occurs through the exchange and interpretation of signs. Signs include, but are not limited to, written and spoken language as well as images, sounds, temperatures or anything communicating meaning. This goes beyond simplistic assumptions that AR visual literacies are a simple matter of reading/consuming visual media via AR codes. It also theorises the collaborative visual literacies necessary for creating AR content. The study takes the case of students at a university in the United Arab Emirates, who used the AR to support reading in English as a second language. The findings indicate that while sign practices are mediated via technologies including AR, this did not automatically facilitate collaborative learning. This suggests that developing collaborative visual literacies requires specific pedagogic scaffolding to support the integration of visual literacies within collaborative learning. This offers insights into the role that creating AR images and video content could play in supporting reading in a second language. Simultaneously, the study has broader philosophical implications for highlighting how written language has always been mediated by a range of semiotic signs and images that are culturally located. This suggests that visual literacies are not something entirely novel to AR or other immersive visual media, yet they need to be pedagogically aligned with collaborative learning.
Theodora S. Tziampazi | Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Virtual Reality and Digital Cultural Heritage: Designing and sharing a virtual gallery in the context of a primary school project
The aim of the talk is to present an interactive virtual gallery, as the outcome of a product-oriented activity, designed and implemented in the context of a learning scenario found in Teaching with Europeana blog. Teaching With Europeana (part of Europeana DSI-4 project) is an initiative aiming at encouraging teachers to incorporate digital cultural heritage resources in the classroom and share learning scenarios and stories of implementation. The gallery “Automata of Europeana” came into fruition using CoSpaces Edu, a tool for creating VR spaces with block-based coding and 3D graphic design. Children went to Europeana site, searched for photos of automata (ancestors of robots) and saved files in a folder. Next, they tried out 3D graphic design while building a virtual gallery to pin the images found. The block-based programming of the space allows visitors to interact with the virtual characters and items. What is more, this activity includes goal-setting for Languages curriculum. In order to program animated characters as speaking guides presenting the exhibits,students translated english texts with Google Translate app (translate from image feature), wrote summaries in their mother tongue (greek) and recorded them. Each member of the group undertook a task of a time-consuming process, realizing the amount of effort and the importance of cooperation in digital creative products. The outcome was enjoyed on screen or through VR glasses. Students were highly motivated; one of them was inspired to download a mobile app and make a screen recording of a virtual tour to make the project more easily accessible. The original work was presented physically in a school event (with attendees experiencing wearing VR headsets) and virtually in our blog and online networking spaces (e.g. Digital creation Festival). The educator found herself developing professionally by exploring new tools and making VR animation on her own as educational material.
References
Martin-Gutierrez, J., & Fernández, M. (2014). Augmented reality environments in learning, communicational and professional contexts in higher education. Digital Education Review, (26).
Peirce, C. (1908). The Essential Peirce. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.