What do you see when you view this image? Is it a rabbit turned to the right, or a duck turned to the left? Which animal did you see first? Did you see both animals without prompting? Educators can use images in a multitude of different ways to help teach their students, convey an idea, and influence their students' feelings and thoughts about a topic. As the saying goes, "a picture is worth a thousand words." As cliché as this sounds, displaying images can sometimes convey more than what teachers are able to convey verbally. Illustrations and images are also unique because, similar to our duck-rabbit, each student may have a unique interpretation of their meanings or messages. Visuals can be used as an open ended question or concept that facilitates higher order thinking skills. Simply asking "what do you see?" will inspire many different perspectives, attitudes, and values within a single class which can spark meaningful conversations among students and educators.
I love using images in my own teaching! They link concrete visuals to educational concepts which help students make meaningful and personal connections. For my young students, many of whom cannot read, visuals are imperative. For example, on our reading workshop anchor chart, each idea that we add is accompanied by a small illustration. Many of my students cannot read the words, but the illustrations help them understand and interpret the ideas. Also, in our beginning-of-year writing workshop, many of my students cannot express themselves using words. They primarily use illustrations to convey their ideas, and they often verbally share their thoughts with me. Throughout the year, the kids add labels, small words, and finally sentences. Illustrations, however, serve as the foundation of their reading and writing knowledge.
Visuals also help to support ELL students. This year, I have 9 EL students in my class, some of which just moved to the United States in the past few weeks. Visuals are so helpful to allow these students to be engaged and active participants in learning, even with a language barrier.
I enjoyed using the various apps to create visual literacy resources. It was fun for me to make a meaningful image that could be used for educational purposes. When adding words to text, I used Google Slides. It's amazing how adding words to accompany an image can change and even enhance the meaning of the image.
I used Canva.com for my science poster. I have just recently started using Canva, and it is amazing how professional looking the visuals turn out! I have not used Canva for educational purposes, but after this activity, I think I will begin to do so!
Finally, for the comic, I used storyboardthat.com. I know my students love looking at comics for fun, and I think using comics as educational tools can be really engaging. SEL (social emotional learning) lessons are really important in kindergarten, and rather than just using words to convey my ideas verbally, visual comics could aid students in understanding more difficult or abstract concepts. I created an SEL comic strip that I may even use in my own teaching in the near future!
I am excited to explore other websites and apps to expand my knowledge in implementing more visuals in my teaching to aid in my students' overall success!
https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Rabbit-DuckIllusion.html
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