EDUCAUSE | Library Items

Digital Visual Literacy: Interdisciplinary Skills for the 21st-Century Learner

As international culture and commerce become increasingly reliant on visual communications, visual literacy has developed into an essential skill for 21st-century college graduates. With advancements in technology and the digitizing of information, digital literacy has also grown in importance. Digital visual literacy (DVL) is the ability to critically analyze digital visual materials, create effective visual communications, and make judgments and decisions using visual representations of thoughts and ideas. These skills, which actively engage our cognitive processing of visual images, have evolved from concepts at the intersection of a range of established disciplines. This session will discuss this exciting new literacy, showcase the free materials developed under a National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education grant, and share recent feedback from instructors who have integrated these pioneering instructional modules into their courses. The discussion will benefit faculty, staff, and administrators infusing their curriculum with fresh IT skills.

Envisioning the Educational Possibilities of User-Created Virtual Worlds

Educational games and simulations can engage students in higher-level cognitive thinking, such as interpreting, analyzing, discovering, evaluating, acting, and problem solving. Recent technical advances in multiplayer, user-created virtual worlds have significantly expanded the capabilities of user interaction and development within these simulated worlds. This ability to develop and interact with your own simulated world offers many new and exciting educational possibilities. This article explores the technical capabilities and educational potential of these new worlds. Additionally, it presents and illustrates a model, which uses interaction combinations, to identify course content and topics having educational applications in virtual worlds.

Metacognition and Monitoring: Understanding and Improving Students? Skills for Learning

As educators, Lovett says, we tend to focus on teaching students "content," but we also want to help students develop as learners. Metacognition—thinking about one’s own thinking and reflecting on one’s own learning—is essential to achieving both goals, and yet instructors often feel they lack time or expertise to teach their students metacognitive skills. This presentation offers a second opportunity to hear Lovett’s popular featured session from the 2008 ELI Annual Meeting.

Framing the Cyberinfrastructure Discussion on Your Campus

Cyberinfrastructure (CI) has joined the lexicon of broad technology terms university leaders must now understand as they enhance campus competitiveness, innovation, and economic development. This discussion session will cover the campus drivers of CI, why it needs to be part of your long-term investment and strategic planning, and ways to frame CI’s importance when discussing the needs of scholars and researchers. Bring your experiences and thoughts to this lively discussion.