Digital images

Images in the manual arts classroom can be a very powerful tool. By showing students a number of images then asking them to analyse, interpret and evaluate the images will invoke higher levels thinking. In the design phase of the manual arts project, images can help students analyse and evaluate four of the seven elements of design: points, lines, shape, forms, colours, tones and textures.

Not only can students view and analyse digital images to provoke higher order thinking in the classroom. Students also have the ability to create their own images using a digital camera. In the classroom students are able to take photos of their project at different stages, at the conclusion of the project the students are then able to create a power point presentation or a digital video which can be a component of their assessment.

According to JISC, (2010) digital images can be used in the classroom in the following ways:
• To inspire discussion of a topic, looking at multiple aspects and contexts.
• To enforce and extend language and common terms of the object being discussed, using subject-specific terminology.
• To categorise within a subject discipline and potentially build reference collections for student project work and research.
• To teach diagnosis and treatment.
• To lead onto extension exercise tasks, e.g. research and source other images of that topic.
• To stimulate students writing a story/poem about that image - enhancing creative and language skills.
• To encourage team work and foster collaboration and the sharing of learning experience.
• To encourage students to become independent learners.
• To encourage critical thinking skills (e.g. describing a photograph from many different viewpoints)
• To illustrate case studies (e.g. where text may prove to be slightly ambiguous an image can define points)
• To enhance visual communication skills (e.g. decoding the message from a photograph)
• To help identify emotions and mood (e.g. from documentary evidence)
• To document an event and analyse practice (JISC, 2010)

References

JISC Digital Media. (2010). Practical Ways to Use Digital Images in Teaching and Learning. Retrieved 28 November 2010 from: http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/stillimages/advice/practical-ways-to-use-digital-images-in-teaching-and-learning/