Teaching and learning with images
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/03055720210474235 |
| Date | 01 September 2002 |
| Pages | 5-13 |
| Published date | 01 September 2002 |
| Author | Elaine Mowat |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
Teaching and learning
with images
by Elaine Mowat, Tertiary Education
Officer, SCRAN
Keywords: Digital libraries, Learning,
Education
Abstract: Digitisation initiatives have
produced a wealth of high quality digital
images for educational use. Illustrated by
examples from the SCRAN digital library, this
article describes some of the ways in which
images can be used to support innovative and
effective learning and teaching in further and
higher education.
In the past it was not always easy for educators to
make good use of images in their teaching.
Pictures photocopied from books and stuck on to
hand-outs for further photocopying did little to
enhance the quality of learning materials and it
was difficult to project full colour high quality
images during lectures. Nor did students have
much opportunity to locate and integrate images
into their own coursework and projects.
Over the last few years there has been a dramatic
change in this situation. Digitisation initiatives
have produced hundreds of thousands of digital
images for educational use. From cartoons to
artwork and from documentary photography to
digital reconstructions (Figure 1), lecturers and
learners now have unprecedented access to high
quality, easily manipulable and reusable visual
content. Moreover, other new technologies such
as virtual learning environments and online
conferencing provide exciting opportunities to
publish and interact with images in educational
settings.
What difference can these resources make to the
learning experience? Many might see them as no
more than making materials more attractive or
enlivening lecture slides. In fact, as this paper
will aim to demonstrate, images can be powerful
tools for learning, providing a unique kind of
course content, important opportunities for
discussion, analysis and group activity, with a
large measure of enjoyment along the way.
This discussion of the pedagogical potential of
images will be illustrated with examples of how
visual resources from SCRAN are being used to
enhance learning and teaching across a range of
subject areas. SCRAN is a subscription-based
multidisciplinary collection of digital objects
drawn from cultural institutions such as
museums, art galleries, media organisations and
archives. Over 180,000 digital images can be
downloaded from the SCRAN Web site at
www.scran.ac.uk All these resources are
copyright-cleared for educational use.
SCRAN is currently working with lecturers and
learning resource staff in further and higher
education to explore and evaluate the potential of
its digital resources to enhance learning and
teaching. Through the SCRAN Awards initiative
funded by JISC, small grants have been provided
to individual lecturers to support the
development of teaching and learning materials
based on resources from the SCRAN database.
The aim is to investigate as many different uses
of images as possible and the range of materials
under development is wide: from simple hand
outs created in word-processing programs to
sophisticated interactive Web-based resources.
Some of these projects will feature in discussion
throughout this article.
Ways of using images
As part of course materials
One obvious use of images is to enhance the
presentation of material and there is evidence that
this is educationally effective. Reviewing a
generation of research into learning with text and
pictures, Levin (1989, p. 83) concludes that
``pictures interact with text to produce levels of
comprehension and memory that can exceed
what is produced by text alone.'' Only the use of
pictures as decoration with no relevance to the
text has been found to produce no learning gain
(Levin, 1989).
Images can achieve a number of effects in
illustrating material. In the first place, images
attract the learner's attention, provoke curiosity
and help bring material to life. Looking at a
picture usually involves some kind of response
#MCB UP Limited, ISSN 0305-5728, DOI 10.1108/03055720210474235
VINE, Volume 32 Number 3 2002, Issue 128 Ð 5
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