The Eyes Have It

If you haven't faced it yet, it's time to take a good look at the students you're teaching. Students sitting in classrooms today are members of the Eye Generation. These students are multi-taskers of their digital, visual tools such as cell phones, ipods, computers and television. They transition from tool to tool without interruption of thought passively taking in their environment's visuals. These students need to be taught to critically examine the images they are encountering on a daily basis in order to come to important conclusions.

In her new book, Engaging the Eye Generation, Johanna Riddle shares her visual literacy strategies for teaching in the K-5 classroom.

Her entire book is available for FREE DOWNLOAD here.

Our friends at Stenhouse Publishers have invited the readers of Once Upon a Teacher to participate in a conversation with author, Johanna Riddle about her new book. What an opportunity! Being able to ask Johanna something about her book or just about teaching visual literacy strategies. And she will answer! Let's take advantage of it.

In her book, Johanna challenges us to all consider a broader view of literacy. Consider the following eight essential categories of literacy in today's knowledge-based society:

* Basic Literacy: The language and mathematics skills needed to function successfully on the job.
* Scientific Literacy: The ability to understand scientific concepts and processes to make good personal and social decisions.
* Economic Literacy: The ability to identify and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of public policies and economic conditions.
* Technological Literacy: The ability to understand and use the tools of technology to reach identified objectives.
* Visual Literacy: The ability to "interpret, use, and create visual media in ways that advance thinking, decision making, communication, and learning."
* Information Literacy: The knowledge and skills necessary to find, analyze, and synthesize information using technology.
* Mulicultural Literacy: The ability to understand and respect differences among cultures.
* Global Awareness: The ability to understand the world's interconnections. (Weis 2004)

Our conversation with Johanna will be posted on March 13th, so now is the time to send me your questions, wonderings or reflections. Please use the comment section of this post or email me to let me know what you think. Let's dig in and really think about how we're addressing the needs of our 21st Century Learners. Free learning, instant access to material and questions answered...what are you waiting for?!?

Looking forward to the conversation...