In class this week we explored the power of images to help get across concepts and ideas to learners. This idea definitely resonated with me; my entire undergraduate degree seemed to be getting lectured at with slides so full of information I scrambled to write everything down and frequently had to stop listening to the professor in order to do so. This really showed me that more writing did not equal greater transfer of knowledge. The use of images can both help students understand more challenging topics, and help them grapple with the concepts for assessments.

During one of my Wednesday observations, I saw a teacher who was using Canva with her students. Apparently Canva has an opportunity to let your students use its features for free through the teacher’s account, which I thought was pretty cool. At the same time I am conscious that Canva (and other tech organizations like it) are doing this to get children comfortable and interested in their product so they become paying members once they graduate. I’m not sure where I fall on this ethically as a teacher; it’s a great tool to make high quality posters, but I don’t like the idea of being a salesperson in my classroom.

Something that I frequently find is missing in classrooms, is supporting students with how to use the tools effectively. For instance, teachers may say “for this project, you can make a podcast, a video, a poster, etc.” but there may not be support for how to use any of those tools particularly effectively. Because of this, I think students likely fall back on what they’re most comfortable with, and often don’t branch out of their comfort zone. I think a great alternative would be to have resources / class time devoted to training on the tools. And I don’t just mean how to technically use them, but how to utilize the different mediums well. For instance, when students are using Canva, teach them some basic principles of graphic design and implement that into the rubric for assessment. That way, they aren’t just using the tools, but they’re learning about more universal concepts through the tools. I think this is what my group for the Ed Tech Resource is going to research and build out for our final product.

Another thing that we didn’t really get into class around images is their power to elicit metaphorical thinking. When we ask students to relate concepts to images, we can encourage deeper thinking and connections. I have a great book called “Intention: Critical Creativity in the Classroom” that gives lots of ideas for how to do this. For instance, ask students to come up with a GIF Dtory based on what they’re learning (e.g. choose a different GIF to illustrate each stage of mitosis that you’ve learned about). Or tell students they must explain the concept of X to aliens who don’t speak their language, and so must choose five images that best encapsulate it. Or you might have students take their camera phones around their neighbourhood to take photos of two contrasting ideas that they see (for instance where traditional meets modern).

Ultimately I think images provide a great avenue to facilitate student learning and I’m excited to practice and explore some of the tools we learned in class!