Visual Literacies
Visual literacies are rising in importance for educators in Higher Education and vocational training, as online technologies are transforming, modernizing and internationalizing education. The UCISA surveys of Technology-Enhanced Learning show that there is increasing use of video technologies to support teaching, learning and assessment in Higher Education. Video technologies and virtual spaces are also becoming central components of many informal learning communities for peer-to-peer learning online, such as twitch (social video platform and community for gamers), YouTube, Tumblr (video blogging).
What is the ViLi project:
The ViLi project aims to improve the competences of educators in Higher Education and vocational training. We will be researching into how experienced educators are using visual and video technologies and analysing interview data using Informed Grounded Theory to produce a new theory. We will design, develop and refine a range of open educational resources (OER) for educators to use free of charge, and deliver a massive open online course (MOOC) on visual and video literacies, open to all.
Join us to explore how educators are making teaching and learning more visual with new technologies like infographics, comics, holograms, virtual and augmented reality.
The Project
Start: 31-12-2016 - End: 30-12-2018
Project Reference: 2016-1-UK01-KA203-024462
EC Grant: 155.080 EUR
Programme: Erasmus+
Sub-programme: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices
Action: Strategic Partnerships for higher education
Video is ubiquitous, two thirds of knowledge on the internet is now in video format and YouTube statistics (“Statistics”, 2015) reveal that, since March 2014, there has been a 40% increase in the number of people engaging with video - either producing it or viewing the content.
Videographics (the use of visual images) and infographics (the visual representations of data) are areas of increasing importance.
Forbes Insights (“Executives embrace non-text world”, 2010) highlight that executives and business people prefer using non-text formats for a wide range of goals.
Visual thinking strategies, video storytelling and Vlogs (video diaries/blogs) for reflection are also on the rise.
The National Commission on Writing (2006, p.15) says "Thinking on the screen" is as important as "thinking on paper" in the 21st century.
This under researched area is rising in importance and competence in video and visual thinking is crucial for communication in education and business.
In Higher Education(HE), the EU is lagging behind the rest of the world in modernisation and internationalisation, e.g. in the UK the bienniel UCISA Technology Enhanced Learning survey (2014) found that Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have made little impact on HE however, video recording of lectures is increasing.
Video technologies are being increasingly used in online learning and particularly in MOOCs.
MOOCs have great potential for opening up education and making it accessible to all irrespective of institutional boundaries, national borders, or educational context.
The need for competences in video/visual thinking is increasing and especially useful for supporting dyslexic learners.
