New Literacies

Visual literacy is basically being able to read a map, decipher a picture or interpret symbols. If somebody can do this, then they're visually literate. After doing some research on this topic I realized that it might be hard for me to teach visual literacy through my chosen technology- a website. I have a small amount of background knowledge about making websites, so im not worried about that, but I really want to think of a good way to use a website to teach this.

We're surrounded by visual images almost everywhere we go. In order to drive a car, people have to be visual literate enough to read all the signs we pass. With books, television, on packages, all these contain visual images that we need to be able to interpret. Many of these images come without words, but some also contain words that might give us a hint or a clue about the meaning. The easiest way to teach this to my students would be to compose a collection if images/symbols and teach the children the basics of what they mean. For instance, a red circle with a cross through the middle means 'not allowed'. However, if I made a website and put this collection of pictures on the website, this might be too boring for the students and I would lose their interest, but possibly it may be cool to the students also. Someway and somehow I will eventually have to use images, but im possibly thinking that there may be a better approach to teaching this. This 'better' way may be a Powerpoint presentation using images, or maybe even a digital storyboard with words. Many of the tools we were given including the storyboard stand as visual literacy in its own. This is a graphic organizer, the storyboard, diagrams or tables. Students will eventually be introduced to all of these, but to use one to specifically teach about visual literacy seems difficult.