Infographics

Infographic

Creating a Infographic

Creating an infographic was difficult and time consuming, but... worthy! This time it was an experiment and it took a while for us to manage new tools. If we work as a team I am confident that we can create an archive full of awesome material including visuals, videos, graphs, and sure, infographs that can serve for our students. As a teacher I am always looking for new materials to share with my students, challenging readings, photos, videos... it would be great that part of that material can be created by me and by my colleagues  but again, working alone is hard, it is difficult to find the time to do so but working collaboratively as we did this time we can have rich and value PLNs!



Information taken from:

http://www.uis.unesco.org/

stats.uis.unesco.org/...document.aspx

Magazine Cover

Dogs Illustrated Magazine

Who is the publisher?

The publisher of Dogs Illustrated Magazine is PAPA (Pet Association Promoting Adoption) a non profit association that promotes the adoption of dogs instead of buying them. It is a International Association widely spread in the United States and recently in México.

Who is the intended audience; what do you (author) hope the audience will do?

The publisher intends to promote the well care of dogs by kids and reinforce parents to encourage their kids to be responsible for their pets.

What is appealing in the cover?

Two kids taking care of a puppy. They are having fun and showing care and love for a puppy.

How are headlines, colors, and font styles and sizes used?

The fonts and colors are attractive to children but it is not intended to look "childish" as it is intended to be attractive for kids and also for parents. 

What are two adjectives that could describe how you look on the cover?

Caring, tenderness and responsibility

What are you trying to communicate? 

The love of kids for pets, specially dogs and how they can be responsible for taking care of them. It tries to promote the adoption of pets by showing a tender image of two kids taking care of its newly arrive adopted pet to home.

Stereotype, Bias and Representation

Am I able to find representation, bias and stereotypes simple by looking into a magazine?

Just by browsing a typical teenager magazine, TeenVogue, it was relatively easy to find pictures with representations and stereotype.

The first one that I found was a picture of two girls jumping into the water, just by the smile of their faces, the posture of their body and the background I can asume it is a representation of freedom or happiness. In reality it is a picture if two young ladies jumping, but I could say the representation mentioned is clear, if not evident.

Picture taken form Vogueteen, April, 2012, p. 10

Looking for stereotypes is kind of easy if we are talking about teenagers. As a Middle School teacher I know this age is full of stereotypes,  like being young means being happy or that you are pretty if you are skinny. The picture that I found that represent a stereotype for me is a picture of three teenagers going to a party and being fully happy,like if going to a party is happiness it self. There are perfectly dress  makeup... and happy. That is the way teenagers are represented in commercial, magazines, pictures...

Picture taken from Vogueteen, April 2012, p. 71

Finding a picture of bias was not that easy for me. I looked over a Sports magazine, Sports Illustrated, and even though I barely know something about Football, I saw a picture where they represent a team as a winner, the other team looks small and insignificant near the other. They are presenting the "New York Nets" clearly as winners for the next season. Every newspaper, magazine have a clear tendency, but in this picture they really represent "their team" as the best one. It can be considered as byas as they do present just one side, they present their tendency as the correct one.

Taken from Sports Illustrated, September 2011, p. 41-42

Definitions:

Bias.- Particular inclination or tendency. In favor of it/opposed to it without having full knowledge of it.
Representation.- Give or serve as, picture, sign, symbol or example of.

Stereotype.- Fixed phrase, idea, belief used and represented without charge.

Oxford ESL Dictionary

Ser críticos ante los medios

SER CRÍTICOS ANTE LOS MEDIOS

Pregunta esencial :

¿Cómo podemos ser críticos ante los mensajes que los medios pretenden transmitir?

Objetivos :

Lograr que los alumnos desarrollen una actitud crítica ante lo que los medios les presentan

Duración:

Dos sesiones de “advocacy” de 30 minutos cada una.

Materiales necesarios:

Proyector y dispositivos electrónicos de los alumnos

Procedimiento :

En la primera sesión (30 mn)

1.- Abrir la clase con la presentación de varias imágenes y videos, buscando provocar el análisis de éstas.

2. Exponer a los alumnos la pregunta de la lección:  ¿Cómo podemos ser críticos ante los mensajes que los medios pretenden transmitir?

3.- Escuchar lluvia de ideas por parte de los alumnos, si la tecnología lo permite, escuchar las opiniones de los alumnos a través de Todaysmeet

En la segunda sesión (30 mn)

4.- Previamente, el maestro tendrá preparado carteles con los diferentes conceptos de los códigos de tecnología los cuales no se enseñará al alumno hasta que se concluya el paso 6.
Ver imagen adjunto sobre los códigos de tecnología.

5. Se presentarán a los alumnos 6 imágenes específicas: dos anuncios de revistas, dos comerciales y dos cortos de película.

6.- Los alumnos escribirán en post its características de lo que perciben en los mensajes.

7.- Se presentarán los carteles con los conceptos de los códigos de tecnología y se les pedirán a los alumnos que clasifiquen sus post its de acuerdo a los conceptos.


8. Una vez reunidos los post its clasificados pegados en los carteles correspondientes, se les explicará cada concepto, buscando que entiendan qué es un código y cuál es el impacto de éstos  a través de los diferentes medios.

Evaluación:

Los alumnos escribirán una reflexión sobre la importancia de ser críticos ante los medios de
comunicación.

ANEXOS:

TV Ads


http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/11/nascar-twitter-tv-commercial/

http://www.examiner.com/article/local-presidential-tv-ad-spending-soars



Movie title sequences

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-walking-dead-unofficial/

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/walle/

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/gattaca/


Anuncios en revistas









Reflexión de grupo:

Como grupo observamos y analizamos varias imágenes, dos de ellas de revistas, dos de anuncios de televisión y dos de entradas de películas.

En las revistas las imágenes y textos sugieren un diálogo entre el lector y el producto. Buscan crear un vínculo directo entre producto y consumidor. Se exhiben los objetos para expresar un fin práctico de ellos, integrando un mensaje textual y la imagen. En cuanto a los colores, es notorio el uso de los contrastes, en particular blancos y negros. En ambas imágenes se busca crear en el receptor una respuesta ante la imagen: orden ante el caos y diversión ante el aburrimiento.

En cuanto a las entradas de las películas, llama la atención como detrás de las simples letras se transmite todo un mensaje que posteriormente estará implícito en la película. En el caso de la película “Gattaca”, se ven las letras que aparecen y desaparecen como si se estuvieran escondiendo, eso es justamente el tema de la película, es decir, una persona “de segunda categoría” que se esconde tras una falsa personalidad. La música, la velocidad de las letras y su paulatino esconderse transmiten misterio y manipulan al público.

Después de analizar los anuncios de televisión podemos concluir que los mensajes sugieren diversos puntos de vista manipulando así la información que arrojan. Pudimos percibir que los mensajes están dirigidos a cierto público y con un propósito específico, sin embargo no siempre se llega a este. En las imágenes que analizamos se puede percibir claramente la intención por las que se presentan.

Reflexión personal:

Como profesora de alumnos de secundaria, mi responsabilidad va más allá de enseñar historia de México. Tengo la enorme responsabilidad de dar herramientas a mis alumnos para desarrollarse satisfactoriamente dentro y fuera de la escuela. Los profesores somos un eslabón en su desarrollo personal y eso va má allá de enseñar contenidos. Así como ellos deben ser críticos con la información académica, deben aprender a ser críticos con las imágenes que los bombardean día a día. ¡Qué mejor que enseñarles como ser críticos!. Un plan de lección como este que se puede aplicar en un grupo pequeño como el de "advocacy" nos permite poner nuestro pequeño grano de arena.

Book covers

 "The first impression matters"

After watching the video by Chip Kidd and then trying to choose and analyze three book covers from the book cover archive  I realized how important is the image you get from a book just by its cover. Either if you read a book by recommendation, as a task or by pleasure, the first impression of it comes by the way it is presented.- its cover. It is the impression you will keep of the book while you are reading it and after it. 

As said by Chip Kidd, book covers matters the author, the publisher and the reader. So it has an impact in the way it is sold, the way it is read and the way it represents the authors vision of it.

The first book I chose is the biography of Mandela. For me this cover talks of a serious book, where they show Mandela just as he is. He does not need any logos, phrases, flags... to represent him, he is just Mandela. I would say by this cover that it is not a book of a polical party or tendency, but it is the book of a man who promote freedom. The colors of the flag of South African are presented just tiny in a corner of the cover. For me it reinforces that it is a book of a international man, a Nobel Priced man. 

Truth, hard work

The second cover that called my attention "About a Mountain" and what resonated to me is that there is no mountain in the cover but the words in a descendant line. As Chip Kidd says in his video, words and images together can talk to much about something , so here we can see only words so  "mountain" without the picture of it, can refer the reader to a "huge amount" of something, to  a pile. For me the simply ausence of the picture refers to some "mystery" and maybe even to a  novel involving lawyers, police men...

Legal conflict?

  

Mystery, suspense 

A mystery novel, suspense, highly hidden secrets.... that is what I would expect to read in this third book that I chose. Just by the blurry presence of the man in the cover and it small proportion with the letter and the size of the cover itself I can feel it is a book of mystery, suspense and even sadness. 
I would love to read or know the authors thoughts about their books. Does the covers really represent what they want to transmit to the reader? 
I can perceive the making of a book cover as a huge responsibility from the publisher and author to the audience. I can compare it to the movie making of a book, it needs to respect the content of the book and at the same time it needs to be attractive, balanced...


http://bookcoverarchive.com/book/mandela

http://bookcoverarchive.com/book/about_a_mountain

http://bookcoverarchive.com/book/presence_stories

New and Traditional Media

New and Traditional Media

Based on UNESCO, Media Information Literacy, 2011

There is no doubt that new technologies and the constant and immediate access to electronic devices and to internet, have made traditional and new technology to go in the same path. Recently is almost as common as to have access to a newspaper that to an electronic one. I would say that the main difference between traditional media and new media is the prompt access to it and also its “democratization” meaning that anyone with a mobile device can have access to the information, and most of all, almost anyone can publish, so it ii is no longer privilege of a few.

El Reforma Online.
Picture taken from an IPhone

That is the democratization of the media, that anyone can post or publish “news”  without having to go through an editorial process which is most of the time very expensive and selective. But “going back to basis” it the fact of credibility. Newspapers and magazines have a broad process before publishing and that is exactly what makes them more reliable. In Mexico for example, you know what kind of information you can find in “El Reforma” or in “La Jornada”, you know the angle or tendency of each newspaper, and despite the tendency people tend to trust that what they publish is based on real facts or based on real data. Today, we can see blogs and tweets that are changing the way news are spread. You get to know the information before it it is "officially" published in the news.

New technologies and its immediate access by readers, it has had a huge impact in to education as we have studied in the Master courses. Students have all the information in the palm of their hands, so their students can question the teacher immediately. Years past, the teacher was “the owner of the information” and it was difficult to validate what he was saying. The teacher as a speaker lies in the past. What is important? Not the content it self, but the way we can teach the students on how to interpret, analyze and study the information. It is very important now a day when we are in a “open content” (Universal Access) tendency that allows democratization to be more focused in teaching thinking skills in teaching how to interpret the information. We have the huge responsibility  of teaching our students in when and what to trust, which sources of information are reliable, to read in between the lines, to recognize an author’s point of view.

Is traditional media really outdated?
Photo courtesy of definitionabc.com

Yes, new technologies have made information more accessible, but that is not all teachers need. Technology is a fantastic tool that can put all the world`s information in the palm of our hand and our student's hands, but the role of the teacher remains the same.- to teach thinking skills, to help them be better readers, to be good at researching and to be better prepared to face their future, no matter if the information comes from digital sources or traditional ones. We need to question and to teach students to be inquisitive in the source of information, the author and the content. 

Innovation Through Technology

Rethinking how students learn

Image created using Wordle.net

After reading Cheryl Lemke article: InnovationThrough Technology, it is very clear to me why do our schools need to embrace the innovation of visualization, democratization of knowledge and participatory cultures of learning. Lemke present a variety of data, sources and examples, always revealing and supporting that technology has become a very important piece of our students and our own lives’. If we live in this highly packed of visual information and technology surrounding, we as teachers need to transport it to our classrooms.

Making reference to the first innovation, visualization, I think it is hard to perceive a student who is exposed constantly to visuals, videos, media, internet, interactive games…, to learn in an austere and static environment. Also it is very important to teach them in how to be “literate” to be involved in that surrounding. “They need to learn to become informed viewers, critics, thinkers and producers of multimedia. Just as there is grammar an syntax for text literacy, so there is for multimodal literacy”. (Lemke 243)

The second innovation we need to be aware of, is the democratization of knowledge, where teachers and students need to be aware that school is only a “slice” of the learning context available for our students. They learn all day long from different sources at home, practicing their hobbies, being connected through the Internet, so it is ours the responsibility in how to teach them to better browse in the internet, how to use it ethically and whom to trust. What a huge responsibility!

Picture courtesy of http://es.123rf.com/

The third innovation talks about participatory learning. Students are expected to be participants in virtual communities, and they are not only observers. We can mention some examples such as twitter, facebook, social bookmarkers, Painterest amongst many others. They can participate “socially” in these communities, but our challenge as teachers is to include it more and more as a resource in our daily teaching.

It is hard to decide which one of this innovations is more likely to be address in my classroom, I really enjoy using technology and virtual communication in my teaching but I think my biggest responsibility should be directing and constantly encouraging my students in ethically using the internet, in being conscious if their digital footprint. I have observed that they now the basic concepts, they have been taught in ways to look for reliable sources, (Destiny Quest as an example), but when they are in a hurry for information, they simple go to Gooogle and browse in the first sources displayed. It is a huge challenge and teachers need to work collaboratively and all of us be aware of the use of internet and the sources they are using. This will help them be more conscious, principled and ethical life long learners.

Visual literacy Standards for Higher Education

How to integrate Visual Literacy to Enhance Learning

                                   Taken from Hattwig, D., Burgess, J., Medaille, A? Visual Literacy Competency Standards  for Higher Education. Association of College and Research Libraries. 2011

We are surrounded by visual information and it is imperative to incorporate it in our daily teaching. Our students have been bombarded constantly with images, videos, movies and we cannot exclude it in our classrooms. 

Its important to reinforce 
learning using images

I think the essential skill that represent my strength in order to engage in a visual oriented society would be in  integrating images in my daily teaching, I constantly try to reinforce what I teach either with powerpoints, where I balance the text with the images, posting images related to the topic all around the class, so if a students comes into my class, the setting “talks” about what we are learning. It can be either students`work, posters, photos… Maybe because I was taught in a very “austere” environment, I try to make it visually friendly to my students. We cannot take for granted that students learn only by hearing, we need to consider the multiple intelligence, so reinforcing learning with images should be even more frequent in my classes.

Classroom surrounded with visual information 
about what is taught

                                                                                               In the other hand, I am not an artistic person, for me it is even difficult to create stick figures, I do not have a good sense of perspective, three dimension... so I almost never draw for myself, even less for my students. Some times I encourage them to draw what they are learning and I got amazed of what they can do, it is also a way for us teachers to have a better sense of how students perceive-process-express what they are learning but, again, I admit this is a handicap that I need to work on it, and not only because it is not my strength I should leave it aside.

Working as a teacher is always a collaborative work, for sure we spend hours isolated in our rooms with our students, but for making lesson plans rubrics, common assessments, sharing best practices, working with peers is essential. Now, if it comes to implementing strategies for building lessons that involves visual literacy, for me it would be a must to work with peers as I do not master this, I need feedback from my peers, I need to hear experiences from others, I would love to know more innovating ideas in this matter. It would be great to work collaboratively in this masters’ class so we learn how to integrate visual literacy in our classrooms and then we can expand our own lesson, we can adapt and modify them, enrich them and then the rubrics as well.

Also I think it would be very important to work with librarians. In the MS  library the have a lot of visual materials and I am confident they can orient us in how to use them and also, in learning how to “quote” them and give credit to their source, as they teach our students in how to do that with internet and book sources.