Incredible Images

Images! There is so much that can be said about the use of images in the classroom - whether the students are using a digital camera to create an image or browsing one of the many free websites to select an appropriate image, using images in the classroom is essential. Our classrooms are becoming increasingly dominated by visual learners and according to Sankey (2002.), visual images are becoming one of the most common forms of communication.

When thinking of images for use in the classroom it is important not to limit your thinking just to visual art. While of course visual art plays a major role in the classroom, images have so much more power beyond this KLA. Have you thought about using images when planning for the NAPLAN literacy topic "Persuasive Texts"? What about the all important diagram that explains your science observation? What would data collection be without a graphical representation? And how can our students really understand the impact of poverty when studying SOSE if they cannot see what it looks like?

Children need to be taught to be visually literate. They need to know the power images can have in persuading, influencing, evoking emotion and explaining. As Cameron Gibson said in his blog about images "A picture speaks a thousand words" and students need to know why this is the case and how to use it to their advantage. Can you imagine a world with no images? No colourful pictures in your storybook, no paintings on the walls, no photographs to explain the words and no image to describe the advertisements. Students need to know and understand images and accessing them on the web is a quick and easy way to find some of the most useful, thought provoking, incredible images.

I found two images that caught my attention on istockphoto. I feel these two images could be used in a number of ways in my current year 4 prac class and would provide for much discussion and debate.

I also found the below image from earthwisevalley.org and it is taken from Jeannie Baker's book 'Where the forest meets the sea' . What a wonderful book for amazing images and lots of her artwork can be found on google images.