 |
|
 |
|
The research is in. Humans process images 60,000 times faster than text.(1) With visually rich multimedia, students learn faster, remember better, and can apply their understanding and skills to new situations.(2) Illustrations contribute to interest and enjoyment, affect attitudes and emotions, and provide spatial information that is difficult to express in words. Groups using illustrated texts (versus text alone) perform 36 percent better on tests!(3) Even better: when teaching is based on appropriate images with voiceover narration, recall and retention are boosted 42 percent and transfer is increased a whopping 89 percent!(4)
We all know that when you're trying to convey an object, using a photograph (or showing the actual object) is going to be more precise than describing it in words. In fact, at times, the words may conjure up a completely different image than the object(s) they were intended to evoke. For example, ask a group of students to make a picture in their heads when you say "hot dog." Then show them the photo below and ask how many saw exactly that.
Based on their life experiences, whether you're asking just before lunch, whether they have a dog and live in a warm climate, they are going to see different things.
The words "hot dog" do not create the image. Words can only recall an object, image, or situation that the students have already seen and experienced. (Most American students will see some variation of the classic Oscar Mayer wiener.)
The old adage "A picture's worth a thousand words" misses the point. Actually, pictures and words serve two different functions. As little Eugene wrote after viewing a sunset like this:
|
Dear God, |
|
I didn't think orange went with purple
until I saw the sunset you made on
Tuesday. That was cool. |
|
– Eugene |
"I didn't think . . . until I saw."
Eugene takes us to the heart of visual literacy. First the image, then the words. We can only verbalize what we've already seen.
Students today are used to learning in a visual manner. By the time the average American reaches the age of eighteen, he or she has watched 22,000 hours of television.(5) And then there are video games, movies, DVDs, and the rest of the visual barrage. As Dr. Lee Pulos explains, learning is enhanced by this kind of visually rich environment. Comparing multimedia to traditional lessons, one student explained: "It was like the difference between driving down the highway at 30 miles per hour and experiencing meandering distractions versus driving at 80 miles per hour and taking in everything because you have to focus or you'll crash and burn."(6) There is also the paradigm shift in attention spans. Silicon Valley corporate leaders are bemoaning the demands of what they call the new "attention economy,"(7) in which the time allowed to engage interest grows shorter and shorter. Web designers try to create "sticky" sites where visitors will stay long enough to make purchases online. Web design guru Jakob Nielsen warns against overly long download times because "10 seconds [is] the maximum response time before users lose interest."(8) Look at billboards and print advertisements. A compelling image will grab the viewer and just enough text will caption it to identify the vendor or the 800 number where you can purchase the product or service. This is the world of the digital natives. Why would they leave the color, the drama, and the ease of comprehension and retention to struggle through a world (the world most of us educators grew up in) where black text rambles endlessly across a white page, where white chalk screeches relentlessly across a black board?
Please understand that I am not lobbying for the death of text. On the contrary, the real power comes when we process the linguistic labels for visual representations, when the independent and yet interdependent verbal and visual systems work synergistically to engage our students and encode and elucidate the concepts and processes we need them to learn and master.(9)
Where does this synergy reach its pinnacle? In the very medium where our students live: full-motion film or video. The images are as close as we can get to the real world. And the words, the voiceovers, encode those images for later recall. How does this impact learning? Consider, for example, an elementary school classroom with students from ten different countries and it's your job to explain about seasons. Which approach do you think would be more successful? Have your students
- a) Read text-only descriptions of the four seasons.
- b) Watch a DVD like the Four Seasons with music, breathtakingly beautiful video footage, and animated charts showing how the earth rotates around the sun?
Which lesson would the students be more apt to recall in detail? Which method would reach all the students regardless of language barriers and/or lack of experiential background knowledge?
In the seminars and presentations I do around the country, Visual Literacy and The Power of Images in Testing and Learning are popular topics. Educators understand already (or comprehend quickly when shown the research and examples) that we must begin our lessons and infuse our content with images, with visual experiences. They agree that in the best of all educational environments every lesson would be not just enhanced but actually anchored by multimedia content. When I ask educators what concerns they have, what would keep them from using something as powerful as multimedia in the classroom, the number one response is "Time!" I can certainly understand the time constraints. If you throw yourself into cyberspace and float around hoping for just the right visual resource, you will surely drown in the sea of possibilities. Type "seasons" into the Google search engine and you get 167 million hits! So how can we make the search process less time consuming and more efficient? Where do we get good material? And how do we integrate it into the classroom?
First, we've come a long ways since the AV cart with the 16mm film projector. While I must admit remembering with some nostalgia and longing those darkened classrooms and those 60-minute naps, I am ready to give that all up for the power of today's multimedia. Teaching in elementary school? Take a tour, for example, of the excellent offerings from 100% Educational Videos. There are hundreds of titles for early reading, award-winning videos on citizenship, weather and erosion, classification of living things – just about every theme and concept you need to teach! And, good news for educators, these high quality films are priced so reasonably that you'll want copies of your favorites to keep in your classroom. (NOTE: If your district subscribes to Discovery's unitedstreaming™ you already have access to the entire 100% Educational Videos collection along with a ton of other great content.)
Once you have the visual-video resources, you still have the challenge of integrating that media into the classroom. In this regard, I'd like to direct your attention to the two DVD series appropriately entitled Integrating Media into the Classroom from Cambridge Educational (part of the Films Media Group). With the video walkthroughs of "Theory and Research" and "Practice and Case Studies" plus the complementary workbook, you have a complete package for a staff development course and lots of ideas for your own personal applications.
(NOTE: I had the privilege of contributing to this series, so my enthusiasm for it is based on first-hand knowledge of the content! Check out how to get it for FREE on my Website.)
As educators, we've always known in our intuitive professional guts what advertisers and marketers get paid the big bucks to exploit: We remember what we see. If we as educators want to have a lasting impression on our students, if we want the skills and concepts we've taught to serve them throughout their lives, we must go with our guts and move from being talking heads into narrators of great images. We must integrate powerful film and video into compelling and memorable lessons that bring together our diverse student populations and support the flowering of every learner. The research is in. The tools are available. Why would we teach any other way?
1. Research from 3M Corporation cited in "Polishing Your Presentation,"
2. Pulos, Dr. Lee, Quantum Learning.
3. Levie, W. H. and Lentz, R., "Effects of Text Illustrations: A Review of Research," Educational Communication and Technology Journal, 30 (4), pp. 195-232.
4. Mayer, Richard, Multimedia Learning, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2001, pages 72-80.
5. Dunn, Judy Lee, "Television Watchers," Instructor magazine, April 1994.
6. Pulos, ibid.
7. Hernandez-Ramos, Pedro, Business Development Manager, Worldwide Education, Cisco Systems, Inc., interviewed May 2000.
8. Nielson, Jakob, "Top Ten Mistakes in Web Page Design,"
9. Paivio, Allan, Mental Representations: A dual coding approach, Oxford University Press, New York, 1986.
Lynell Burmark is the author of the award-winning textbook, Visual Literacy. Related articles are posted on her website: www.lynellburmark.org. She may be contacted at lynell@lynellburmark.org.
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
