In order to better understand our capacity to compose and comprehend, it is important to consider the dual-encoding nature of how our brain functions. Visual thinking is one of the composition skills deeply impacted by a left-brain/right-brain duality. The historical impact of our primary technology for live and archived communication, that is language and text, however may have been to favor one type of thought to such a degree that it suppressed other important intellectual capacity, including visual thinking. The economic restrictions and technical requirements of publishing articles and books on paper further contributed to a discrimination towards certain types of mental capacity. Mioduser, Nachmias and Forkosh-Baruch (2008) note a distinct gap between an inner world of print based educational and academic systems and an outer world of a media rich culture and a growing Web-based knowledge society. This chapter will examine ways that digital communication, supported by a wide range of software tools, can not only liberate the intellectual nature of image processing, but enhance many other forms of thought, providing new routes for educational practice.
There are important exceptions to the generalizations about the hemispheres. Though about 95% of right handed people have their specialized language functions in the left brain, about 20-30% of left-handed people have their language areas in the right hemisphere or have bilateral functioning (Holder, 2005; Taylor, 1990). Of the left-handed thinkers, studies range from 61% (Taylor, 1990) to 73% (Knecht et al, 2000) that have left hemisphere dominance, which still indicates some language processing on both sides.To refer to brain lobe dominance may be a more accurate reference but the short-hand of left-right brain thinking may be adequate if we acknowledge the imperfect nature of the generalization. Hemisphere specialization has a number of implications for education as well. For example, reading scholars have continued Pavio's research (1986) on vocabulary development through dual-encoding theory.
The "gift" Einstein was referring to in his famous quote at the beginning of this essay is the right brain's creativity. Einstein revolutionary thesis in physics emerged from playing imaginatively with the idea of riding on a beam of light. Taylor's intution developed through imagery that emerged in the silence of the left hemisphere. The process of articulating and verifying occurred after the creative idea had emerged. Is one more important that the other? Is either sufficient unto itself? With these thoughts in mind, we will explore further
problems and issues with multimedia communication in the context of two-dimensional
images.
Culturally we commonly use two-dimensional images in a wide variety
of ways. Another term for this topic is "still image" to contrast it with
image movement in animation and television. It is difficult to imagine
any instructional event in any hour of the school day without the display of a still
image being usefully involved or image composition being employed. But reading an image is just one side of the coin. Even more neglected is the perception shift of vision required to draw. It is the ability to ever more fluidly shift to different perspective that is at the heart of creativity in all fields of study and endeavors in life.
What methods might be used to accent or heighten image composition and thinking? In her book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (1979, 1989, 1999), Edwards noted the need for exercises and activities which quieted the language activity of the brain and stimulated the visual in order to make a mental shift to see as an artist sees. The shift is similar to the feeling of image synthesis when the hidden images of a stereogram emerge into view (click author names for examples: Walde, 1993; Ventures, 2008). In fact, it is helpful to try meditative activity to reduce verbal thinking in order for the stereogram images to appear. This approach may be useful for beginners, but this does not imply that both hemispheres cannot be highly trained in many perspectives and function simultaneously, one famous example from history being Leonardo Da Vinci. This exceptional mind clearly had exceptional educational experiences that stimulated a wide range of perspectives. As education is able to teach and provide a greater range of composition skills that are stimulated by the nature of composition on the Web, it holds out the possibility of a new wave Leonardo's with a new level of diverse ability.
How might Web design and communication better balance the relative capacity of the two hemispheres of our brain, or more importantly the more suppressed forms of intellectual activity? The chapter focuses on one element of that answer. The walls of our classrooms, halls, and homes
as well as textbooks, magazines and our children's books are covered with
still images. Where do they come from? What role can computers play in
their creation? Why do we value images so highly yet attend to them so lightly? One of the implications for Web design is that the juxtaposition of text with image may contribute to the suppression of visual thought for which digital systems provide some effective options, which will be considered further under the heading below of Output.
A good beginning point is an understanding the image composition process, of working through the basic steps in the
creation and sharing of images. Three stages are useful here: input, manipulation,
and output. These cannot be considered totally distinct stages however,
for input and manipulation are controlled by the purposes of output
or audience.
Input Tools
There are many choices. The more choices studied and used, the more powerful
your use and composition of imagery becomes.
draw by hand
pressure sensitive graphic tablets (Wacom
tablets and pens; examples )
a painting or sketch drawn on paper (then scanned into the computer)
Cell phone cameras
Users can use the cell phone to send images to email accounts and to
web sites. However, the impact of combining a camera with a highly portable
cell phone connected to the Internet goes far beyond the concept of our
general concept of a digital camera. The phone is becoming a multimedia
device of extraordinary cultural power. On the simple concept side, the
color display cell phone becomes a replacement technology for those wallet
photos and other documentary activities such as: a delivery person using
the camera phone to keep a record of deliveries; agents emailing house
photos to clients; police recording accident scenes; or shoppers sharing
images with others before making purchasing decisions. On the "coming soon"
side, cell phones are being designed with camcorders for videoconferencing.
- NBC
Today: Cell Phone Cameras
- Cell
phone cameras spread new brands of mischief July 13, 2003 Can you say
"digital shoplifting"?
- Police:
Teen abduction foiled by cell phone cam August 2, 2003
- Mobile
Cameras and the Nature of Snapshots June 16, 2003
- Capturing Stills from Video Sources: videotape, videodisc, camcorder, TV
- iMovie available (Mac OS)
- Windows Movie Maker 2 (Win OS). To
capture a still shot, as the video is playing, click the Camera icon in
the Recording window. This places a still image of that video as a pict
file in the Recording folder.
- Final Cut Pro for
still capture tutorial
- Apple's
Quicktake 150 tutorial (RAM storage of images)
- Sony
Mavica tutorial (saves to .bmp format on Win formated disks)
- Photo Vaults
Memory cards fill up quickly when a digital camera owner actively
shoots. The small and thin memory chip cards used as storage are fragile, relatively
limited in storage and
easy to lose. Hard drives make a better choice than memory cards. As hard drives have been shrinking in size too, there are several names for
these pocket sized and smaller devices that store large numbers of
digital photos: photo vaults, photo wallets, digital photo viewers and mobile
media hard drives.
Once images are transferred to the photo vault, the memory card can be erased
and used again for more shooting. Some of these devices also have display screens for
quickly viewing collections of images. Selected devices include these examples: Epson P-2000, Jobo GigaVu Pro, Archos AV420, SmartDisk FlashTrax and iPod Photo, and Sony
Photo Vault.
- Capture Computer Screen Images
- Macintosh
Computers tutorial (capture full screen, window, or any part of window,
to clipboard or to disk)
- An example of this technique is used in the Apple Video Player tutorial
above. Screen images were captured and pasted into Clarisworks Draw for
the insertion of pointer arrows. Clarisworks 5.0 converted the enhanced
images to JPEG files which were linked to the HTML tables. This procedure
makes extremely small files sizes that transfer quickly over the Internet.
- Windows
Computers tutorial (capture full screen or window, to clipboard)
- Screen images to Powerpoint.
- An example of this technique is used in the HP Scanjet 6100c tutorial above.
Screen images were captured and pasted into Powerpoint. Powerpoint converted
this to HTML files for web publication. This procedure makes very large
file sizes that transmit slowly over modems commonly used on the Internet.
- Capture
screen images and edit with Windows Paint tutorial
- Search Images Locally
- Search Image databases on the Internet
Shooting an Image
Standard and digital cameras are readily available to anyone. There are many
major considerations in camera work. These include: lens quality, lighting,
and framing. The quality of the camera lens is the most important single
factor in comparing the quality of one camera with another. But once the
camera of whatever quality is in your hands, there are two critical factors
for which the knowledge of the shooter makes a greater contribution than the
quality of the lens. Lighting is one. Not only is the amount of lighting
significant to the meaning and clarity of your image, but the direction of
this lighting is also very important. Framing is the second. Framing of the
shot, including both a foreground with focal point and relevant background is
just as important. The frame of the camera excludes far more than it includes.
Where you point the camera reveals only a small portion of the overall scene,
a fact taken advantage of in every movie production. Further, the components,
including foreground and background of an image, rightly or wrongly, are
generally guilty by association. That is, if the Mayor has her picture
published which shows her next to a trash can, that creates a very different
set of associations and meanings than if the Major appears in the photograph
next to the governor of the state. Context is important. The background of an
image can be just as important as the foreground and its focal point.
In the best images, all of the elements contribute to an overall meaning.
From the perspective of foreground and focal point and background, examine the photos of the Shooter Sample Images link below and determine
what the shooters did right and wrong and what they could have done to
improve their shooting through the use of frame and light.
- Shooter
Sample Images Page.
Lighting
Whether shooting with a camera or working with watercolor, the positioning of
the light is critical to the composer of an image. Lighting a scene in a
controlled way is a topic of considerable depth and importance. Whether shooting
outdoors with a camera or painting by hand with a graphic tablet, the location
of light sources can be controlled to varying degrees.
See Jerry Birn's excellent discussion of three point lighting, a foundational
set of principles for many fields and many types of compositions. Whether
lighting an object in a 3D software application or working in the real world,
the principles of three point lighting or the same. Every time you work with an
image, whether using someone else's work or composing your own, the composer
should be conscious of key, fill and back (rim) light. When in possession of
lighting kit or studio light sources, the key light and the fill light or fill
lights come from the front side of the subject. The fill light should be around
half or less of the intensity of the key light, while the intensity of the back
light or back lights should be whatever necessary to achieve a rim of highlights
on the top edge of the subject to provide a strong sense of the three
dimensional depth of the subject. The boundaries of these principles are then
pushed to achieve different effects for artistic and aesthetic purposes. When
not in control of multiple light sources, use the natural light and the focus of
the camera to works towards a similar effect.
The subject of lighting should
not be taken lightly. If one explanation of three point lighting such as Mr.
Birn's does not work for you, there are many others. See Google search for 3 point lighting. Numerous books and articles are
devoted to just this subject. The Library of Congress devotes many terms to
this subject, several of which are relevant to this discussion and important
to keep in mind as need for further knowledge grows: photography lighting; portrait photography lighting; stage lighting; video recording lighting. The general subjects of lighting, architectural and decorative and interior lighting become important when working with scenes for 2D and 3D
imagery and for animation scenes. Entire careers in the industries of film,
television and theater are built around just the work of lighting a scene.
This triangulation of a subject with contrasting lights, with different intensities and different
angles of light, can also be seen in a more philosophical and theoretical
sense. From it one could conclude one shoul not expect one source of
information to fully reveal the truth of a subject. This makes it important to
seek multiple perspectives of different intensities. Further, this means that
there is always another perspective that could "light" a subject in a
different way to reveal new truths. This thinking is an important part of the
thinking in discussions of social diversity such as racial, economic and
cultural diversity.
This thinking will become increasingly important as multimedia composers
become more capable of working in multiple forms of composition. From this
perspective, media composers can think of a seven point "lighting" system,
seeking unity of purpose (the real meaning of unimedia) when presenting and
providing interaction with text, still images, audio, video, 2d animation, 3D
animation, and live information through electronic remote control and sensors.
The goal should be to create a unified whole in which all angles of information
support each other. The very act of blending different types of media forms
another way to "light" or think about the subject being explained or taught. The
question of accent and balance is as important to teaching and learning as it is
to photography.
Should uni-media composition also appropriate the thinking of
lighting experts and repurpose the terms of key, fill and back lighting? That
is, should one form of information presentation clearly dominate, forming the
equivalent of a "key light" such as explaining a subject primarily with
photography, then be supported by "fill lights" which might include text, 2D
animation, music and oral narrative, and then use "back" lights to "rim" or
bring highlighted depth to narrow parts of the subject which might, for
example, include 3D animation, remote sensors and viewer feedback or
commentary? Given the interactive nature of the computer environment, should
not the input of the viewer be considered an equally valid and important part
of the overall composition that one creates?
Does a unimedia composer have a
seven, eight point or more "lighting" system? With media, how many points of
intellectual light are there? What is the rationale for the defense of your answer?
Manipulation
There are a number of fine computer tools for the creation
and manipulation of images. At a very basic level is the Paint program
which is included free with the Windows operating system. Microsoft
Office 95, 97 and 98 included some basic draw features in its Word processor.
More powerful and school affordable are the draw and paint tools in Appleworks
(formerly Clarisworks), a program that runs on both Macintosh and Windows
computers. The 5.0 and later versions of Appleworks save files in a wide
variety of formats of use for both print and web display. Professional
users, however, work with a series of programs that vary in their emphasis
of tools for painting, drawing and image manipulation. The features
of even these professional programs are well within the range of the ability
of K-12 students once they have had some initial training. This first level
of this knowledge base requires understanding of a few concepts.
- What kinds of analytical skills enable the development of stronger images?
One place to begin is with different concepts about the elements of an
image. This knowledge is also basic to the construction of other visual
constructs such as animation, video and 3-D and virtual reality.
- R.
Varkki George's slideshow uses these concepts: Paths, Edges, Districts,
Nodes, Landmarks. (This starts on slide five but click the "I" button to
reach the first slide, then view the entire slideshow.) Place two
or three images in view. Consider the role of each of these 5 concepts
in the images you selected.
- Draze and Palouda (1992) reflect on images with the concepts of (1) unity;
(2) repetition; (3) variety; (4) movement; (5) balance; (6) emphasis; (7)
economy; (8) proportion; (9) color; and (10) space. Place two or three
images in view. Consider the role of each of these 10 concepts in the images
you selected. If these terms need further expansion, the complete publication
by Draze and Palouda is on microfiche in most University libraries. The
bibliography below contains the relevant citation information.
The creation of images involves building or shooting. Keep these
frameworks for the elements of an image in mind during this activity.
Building an Image
- Computer based image creation tools have employed two general strategies
for image creation: vector
and bit mapped.
- Since each software tool for image manipulation has an impressive number
of features, an initial strategy is to pick one and work through several
tutorials on its features. Start with Appleworks as the easiest and most
complete beginning level program. It will meet a surprising number of your
most frequent needs. Choice of the best professional tool is open to fierce
debate. Decisions about what to use will depend on your degree of skills
and knowledge and the tutorials that are available. This will require experience
with a wide range of applications. The link below provides a large table
that lists applications and web sites with further useful information.
For each of the selected programs, use this table page to: download or
obtain as many free demo versions as possible to store on your ZIP disk;
find the current educational price of the program; find tutorials; read
reviews; consider books; and participate in discussion groups based on
a given tool. Elements of the table remain incomplete or links with the
cells no longer connect because of many reasons, including: the information
was there but conditions change forcing its removal and I have not had
time to find the correct current information; web sites relevant to a cell
come and go. Multimedia is a very dynamic area of development. Please,
when your research leads to relevant information for a given cell, please
send it through email.
Manipulation Tools
Output
Output of image processing goes to two primary forms in the 21st century, paper and screen displays.
Printing Output
The type of output chosen depends on the way the audience will view the
work. Printers may produce work from the size of a sheet of paper to 50
foot billboards. Printers print in black and white and in color and on
a variety of different types and thickness of paper. Other output devices
include: slide shows (both analog and digital); projection systems to large
screen and video walls of dozens of large TV screens; color plotters, cutting
knives that cut floor tile, sign printers, overhead transparencies and
a wide range of posters that can be scaled to the size of highway posters
and larger. Scanners can reproduce work in a wide range of resolutions
whose output may vary from 72 dpi (dots per inch) to 4000x3000 dpi.
PhotoCD technology promoted by Kodak digitizes images and puts them on
CDs in a variety of different pixel densities and graphic formats including
JPEG. Different software applications specialize in display for computer
screens and computer projection systems. On non-networked computers, the
Powerpoint application is perhaps the most commonly used for image display.
Among networked computers, browsers for the World Wide Web system on the Internet are
most common application for the display of information.
Web Output
The Internet and its WWW (World Wide Web) have introduced a whole new set
of image output considerations: blind users; speed; within-image control
(image maps); limited color selection and methods for highlighting non-verbal communication. How might Web design and communication better balance the relative capacity of the two hemispheres of our brain, or more importantly, enhance the more suppressed forms of intellectual activity? A few options exist. The use of classroom projection systems can also further enhance non-verbal thought.
- Organize a web article into a series of linked files, so that screens in the sequence are dominated or exclusively given over to non-verbal forms of expression.
- Create links in the text that put non-verbal elements in pop-overs that cover the sequential text below, requiring their observation and removal before the text sequence can continue.
- Use frame pages so that the different elements of the frame can be hidden by the viewer to shift focus from verbal to other forms of communication.
Blind
For users of the Internet who are blind, a special technique is employed.
An HTML special tag can be used to create a textual description of an inserted
image that is hidden from sighted users but displays in text browsers,
the ALT command. In Netscape Composer and other web editors, the commands
that allow image insertion also have a special field to enter the descriptive
text for the ALT (alternative) command. The ALT command then holds text
that describes the image and if the browser is a text only browser, the
text is transmitted, not the image. The text reader of the blind user then
speaks this text or perhaps converts it to braille for a braille reader.
Speed
Because it takes much longer to transmit images than text, the WWW system
require special handling of images. Another meaning of WWW is World Wide
Wait! Multimedia elements such as still images are a major source of the
wait. In the years ahead, fiber optic lines will make concern about waiting
obsolete, but for now most users of the Internet are using standard telephone
modems. If several images are included, one page could take several minutes
of transmission on such modems before the page is complete. The smaller
the image, the less data it contains and therefore the faster it transmits.
Slow loading pages chase newcomers away from further exploration of a web
site.
The first strategy is to make the image smaller by scaling or cropping
or both in a way that makes the file size of the image smaller. This is
not the same thing as using small height and width commands when inserting
an image in a web page; this has no impact on the size of the file being
transmitted. The more images that will appear on one web page, the more
the file size of the image needs to be reduced to speed up loading of the
web page. In addition to making the image smaller so that it contains less
data, different compression formats are used to optimize the transmission
speed of the image. Pay close attention to the file size of your images
to gain an appreciation of what happens as an image moves through different
stages for different forms of output. A second strategy is to use the concept
of thumbnails in which a set of very small images is displayed. Each small
each clicks to a much larger version of the image. This could also be graduated
in which each image links to an ever larger version of the image. Search
the web for "thumbnails" to find examples and further information.
Hotspots can connect parts of a single image to other files. The underlying
structure of every web page is HTML or hypertext markup language. HTML
code allows specific parts of an image to be designated as a link point,
so that a click of the mouse can connect with and force the display of
another file.
Study this example. Explore
Sabrina's Web Site through the use of a clickable web site map.
The web site map clicks or links to other web pages that make up Sabrina's
site. These clickable areas are referred to as hotspots. The more technical
term is image map. There are many examples scattered across the Internet:
The most efficient approaches to image map creation are built into the
better commercial web editors. Specialized and free approaches are also
available.
Commercial Software
- MapEdit
- Commercial web editors can also create client side maps: Macromedia Dreamweaver,
Macromedia Fireworks, Photoshop, Adobe Cyberstudio, Page Mill, Claris Home
Page and many more.
How To Make Client-Side Image Maps
- Web
Hotspots 4.0 is a package of three programs that create interactive
graphics and animations for the Web. The programs generate Web implementations
by writing standard HTML imagemaps, with Javascript extensions where applicable,
into new or existing pages.
- For additional information on hotspots use web search engines for "image
map tutorial" or "web hotspots"
Limitations in the Color Range
Even though current personal computers can display millions of colors,
a significant number of older computers still in use around the world can
only display 256 colors. This will be called the 256 color palette. Macintosh
and Windows computers running in 256 color mode share 216 colors while
varying on the remaining 40. By not using the 40 variable colors, web designers
have a palette that can be used to create images without fear of an image
drawn on one platform being hurt by a missing or poorly substituted color
on another platform. This also applies to background colors and the color
of text. Reducing the number of colors used in an image also allows better
compression of the file and therefore faster transmission over the Net.
If a computer cannot find a color that it needs it can dither the color.
That is, it takes pixels of different colors and puts them next to each
other so that they blend in our eye to form a new color that should be
close to the color that is missing. Sometimes dithering fails spectacularly.
In these cases the color of the text cannot be easily discerned from the
background color. Staying with the Browser-Safe Palette eliminates this
problem.
As the quality of computers in homes and offices are upgraded and the
speed of the Net increases, the importance of this issue will fade and
disappear. In an increasing number of cases the problem has disappeared.
If the image creator knows that the images are designated for use by a
particular institution that uses more recent computers with a broadband
network that runs at 10 MB ethernet or higher, the problem is gone. In
the meantime, there are a variety of ways to express what colors can be
safely used on the large number of computers that can only display 256
colors:
Computer
Color Matters (this site is also provides a wide range of excellent
information on the nature and use of color)
Web or Browser
Safe Colors (understandable by most computer users;
Colors
and RGB Hex Numbers (understandable by graphic designers)
No Dither
Netscape Color Palette (understandable by those working in HTML code)
What
is Gamma? (not just an issue for engineers)
The
future of color on the World Wide Web
Multimedia - Text-Merge
We have seen many factors that must be considered during the
output stage of image processing. Output, however, is far more than technique.
Ultimately it is about the image designer's intention. Why is a particular
image chosen? Which images have what effects? Once these questions have
been answered, an image is created and a new problem emerges. The relationship
between the media of text and the media of the still image must be considered.
This might be called the issue of text-merger. The joining of image and text is one form of multi-media. What strategies
can we bring to determining the best balance or the relationship between
image and text? How does the nature of the Internet change these strategies? In later chapters, it will be useful to consider whether this concept can be applied to other media as well.
A classic example of image-text balance is in articles by National Geographic.
Their articles often begin with a four page foldout, then facing pages
of two page spreads. These images start with text of large fonts
and few words that are placed over an image. Then later images use a few
more words in a smaller font over the image. These images are followed
by images covering a full page, then half page and quarter page images
which include several sentences of description under or next to
each picture. As images cover less than a full page, standard size text
fills the remaining space, until near the end of the article their full
pages of text intermingle with pages with quarter and half page images.
That is, they begin with an opening that is heavy with image, then ends
heavy with text, with a gradient between these two points. This concept
can be expressed by this image.
Electronic slide show tools can easily use the same strategy, e.g.,
Powerpoint, Hypercard, Hyperstudio and Toolbook. Do you think this strategy
is effective? Why or why not? Can you think of other strategies? Play with
the two-triangle image in your mind and others approaches will occur to
you.
On the Internet, the larger the image, the slower it transmits. An ideal
page takes under 3 seconds to load. This has forced the adoption
of an image-text balance that is somewhat the reverse of print technology.
An opening page to a site needs a small amount of text with a very small
image or an image format that transmits very quickly. Once interest has
been built, the next set of pages linking from that page have more text
and slightly larger images; third tier pages have even more text and/or
larger images. This is an issue that will increasingly go away as the viewer's
speed or access to the Internet increases. For the foreseeable future however,
this will remain an important consideration.
These strategic considerations are also used in the teaching of very complex
topics that take years to master, for example, reading. Two and three year
olds sit in our laps "reading" picture books with us. The earliest books
for children to read, early readers, are primarily image with just a few
words per page. (The electronic age will soon produce "books" which will
still include just a few words at the bottom, but most of the display space
will include all of the other elements of multimedia beyond the static
image including 3-D and video with audio.) As readers and learners become
more sophisticated, the ratio of image to text changes in favor of text.
This suggests that educators should weigh this strategy in all of their
educational decisions. What we know about text-image relationships implies
that learners of any age need more image when they first encounter new
ideas. The need for something other than text such as image is proportional
to the complexity and difficulty of a topic. It also implies that this
lessens over time.
First hand or direct experience provides the ultimate input. Multimedia
is the first level of abstraction after direct experience. Why does this
work? If we hypothesize that the brain is less a word processor and more
an image processor, the initial instruction is teaching the brain a set
of images for basic manipulation. As the learner becomes more sophisticated
and can attend to the nuances of finer detail, the brain can use the information
compression efficiency of text to stimulate and transform those images
for higher levels of thought. That is, even though the text is so dense
as to obliterate the image from the display area, the mind does its real
and perhaps unconscious thinking in media (e.g., images, sound), not the
high abstraction of words and numbers. If the fundamental image (media)
capacity is not in place, throwing more text at a problem of mis-understanding
does not help if there is no image capacity to stimulate. Different words
may still help if they can stimulate a deeper level of experience, but
without some experience, the words have no meaning. Adult readers may go
right to the text and have something to hang the text on thereby concluding
that imagery and the pictures adjacent to the text are not so valuable
for them. It is true that the images next to the text may be ignored by
many, but the text functions for them because the necessary images (or
other media forms) are already within the brain and available for use.
In later chapters we will evaluate the degree to which this concept
transfers to other media beyond the still image. This hypothesis has other
implications.This would also mean that the most powerful educators are
those who can readily reach back to "older" forms of learning in our developmental
biology. A teacher's skill includes providing such structures for text
to activate. The skill is in teaching the learner to recognize the link
between the media structures embedded in long term memory and the right
text. However, it is the nature of professional training that this education
ends in works dense with text, works with the compressed abstractions of
word and number. The danger is that the text which professionals know so
well is seen as the place to start instead of the place to finish. The
answer to curriculum problems is often seen as a rewrite of complex text
to simpler text. If it is true that text works by stimulating deeper and
older structures, then text is of marginal initial value without these
deepers levels of awareness and experience. Now that computers provide
so many ways and so much power to create and manipulate the missing image
(and other sensations), there is both great excitement and great potential
for addressing curriculum problems in new ways.
Copyright
Output is also more than just what you can do. It also involves
consideration of what is legal and ethical. Many composers and designers
have spent long hours perfecting their creations and expect remuneration
and attribution for their effort. Legal issues over the use of images involves
U.S. copyright law, its Fair Use provisions and some general agreements
between publishers and educational institutions. There are two critical
conclusions to remember. First, whether you are invoking the Fair Use Provisions
for Educators or not, the source of your text or any medium must be cited.
Always give attribution. Second, the Fair Use provision does not apply
to open distribution across the Internet. For example, Fair Use would apply
to a properly cited image or multimedia resource in a Powerpoint slide,
but it would not apply to that same image on a web page that can be seen
by anyone with access to the Internet. If your use is educational, and
if your web distribution is to an audience that has been limited, such
as a class of students, then copyrighted images may appear on web pages.
This limitation might take the form of an Intranet within the school that
others outside the building could not see. Web designers can also use password
protection, carefully distributing their password to only the students
in their course or institution. The limits of class size for such distribution
have not been tested in a court of law to my knowledge. In case of doubt,
contact the creator of the image or whatever form the creation takes and
ask for written permission for the use that you have in mind. If it is
an email message, print the message. As with any such correspondence, keep
it on file.
The Image and the Internet
At first it would seem that the computer and the Internet's capacity to
link text and image on the same page adds little to the capacity that textbook
and paper technology have had for centuries. In one sense this is true.
This assumes though that every author, instructor and teacher has had equal
capacity for the creation and the publication of image and text. In fact,
the creation of color plates has been an extremely costly, sophisticated
and time consuming process. Even with excellent low cost color printers,
the cost of color image handouts is high and therefore seldom used in classrooms.
The Web (with its supporting technology of computer and Internet) has effectively
erased the cost problem of color display for the composer. (This of course
assumes that the cost of the display station has already been addressed.)
The Web has also effectively obliterated the time from the creation of
the image to the sharing of the image and eliminated the cost of reproduction.
Once an image is completed it takes but seconds to save a file and upload
it to a web server with a distribution capacity greater than the broadcast
footprint of any single orbital satellite. The only remaining limitations
are the resolution of computer display screens and the time that it takes
to put sufficient image creation ability in the hands of the author. As
the experience of working with these chapters increases, you will have
a deeper appreciation for just how long this takes.
Educational Implications
Computer composition software and the web have dramatically
and irreversibly changed the nature of composed communication. Capable
software for image composition and editing comes included in the price
of current computers or is available for free downloading from the net
and much more capable software is commonly available commerically. This
sea change calls for a re-examination of the language arts (reading and
writing) curriculum for the purpose of integrating other common and future
standards of communication. As a beginning point, giving much greater attention
to image creation would provide the opportunity for numerous changes to
school curriculum. These suggestions come with the understanding that a
broad range of scope and sequence issues would need to be addressed to
better incorporate image composition. Later chapters will consider the
impact of increasing access to a wide range of linking (multimedia) tools.
If pre-school and primary grades (BK-3) students were given as much
access to computers with drawing and painting programs as to other forms
of writing and drawing, many of the concepts of the writing process curriculum
could become part of their thinking and habits before they learn to write.
That is, instead of pre-writing, composing with text, editing/revision
and publishing, the process would include pre-drawing, composing with images,
editing/revision and publishing. Writing would be but another more abstract
way to use an old and familiar process. Elements of such a strategy are
already in place with an early childhood emphasis on art and with early
readers using a heavy balance of image and little text, then an increase
in text as readers gain more experience. Since the process has a long successful
history with teaching reading, there is reason to believe that a similar
process could be effective with writing.
At the intermediate grades, better readers of text may not miss composing
with images, but late developing writers will have a means and process
of communication from which they can continue to draw parallels as they
struggle to become comfortable with text composing. At this age, composition
assignments should include many different variations of the NG Strategy
as explained above in the section on Multimedia - Linking Text and Image.
Applications with electronic slideshow composition tools that work across
different computer platforms are excellent tools for such composition.
For example, this would include current versions of Appleworks and Powerpoint.
Based on the knowledge acquired in elementary grades, older students
would be in a position to increasingly turn out publications that match
the professional but every-day standards of current print standards and
web publications with their balance of image and text.This would also set
a foundational level of experience from which many other forms of communication
would be incorporated in a given publication, including video, music, animation
and more. This would increase the relevance and status of the nature of
student learning, an important factor in motivation for teaching and learning.
Summary
This chapter has covered both practical and conceptual considerations
with images. Imagery is a critical and basic part of communication systems
at this point in the history of our culture. Especially for educators,
this means that basic skills with image composition are just as important
to current and future standards for public communication as skills with
the reading and writing of text. The number of skills involved are many.
The depth and complexity of these skills means that instruction and mastery
over such skills will take some time to acquire. In turn, this would require
integration into the scope and sequence of school curriculum over a number
of years. Fortunately, computers have greatly expanded and accelerated
our capacity to work with and communicate with images. Further, a claim
has been raised that image is a primary and text a secondary consideration
in the development and understanding of a new idea. The more that students
can be involved in the creation of their own meaning through composing
in media other than text, the more effective multimedia and learning efforts
become.
Next
Having completed this review of concepts in still images, click the start
button in the top left frame and click through the menu choices, exploring and
completing steps and activities as assigned. Continue with this overall
pattern in the chapters that follow.
Still Image Bibliography
Bibliographies: Still - Audio - Video - 2D - 3D - Sensor - interact - MM
Coleman, Andrew M. (2001). dual-code theory. A Dictionary of Psychology. Retrieved December 14, 2008 from http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O87-dualcodetheory.html
Dehaene S, Spelke E, Pinel P, Stanescu R, Tsivkin S. (1999, May 7). Sources of mathematical thinking: behavioral and brain-imaging evidence. Science, 284(5416), 970-4. PMID 10320379.
Dehaene, S., Piazza, M.; Pinel, P. & Cohen, L. (2003). Three parietal circuits for number processing. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 20, 487-506.
Edwards, Betty (1979). Drawing on the right side of the brain. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. (later editions in 1989 and 1999)
Golby, Alexandra J. 1,2; Poldrack, Russell A. 3; Brewer, James B. 5; Spencer, David 4; Desmond, John E. 1,3; Aron, Arthur P. 6; Gabrieli, John D. E. 1,3,5 (2001, September). Material-specific lateralization in the medial temporal lobe and prefrontal cortex during memory encoding. Brain. 124(9):1841-1854.
Holder, M.K. (2005). What does handednes have todo with brain lateralization, and who cares? Retrieved December 10, 2008 from http://www.indiana.edu/~primate/brain.html
Knecht S, Dräger B, Deppe M, Bobe L, Lohmann H, Flöel A, Ringelstein EB, Henningsen H. (2000). Handedness and hemispheric language dominance in healthy humans. Brain. 123(12), 2512-2518. http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/123/12/2512
Levy LM, Reis IL, Grafman J. (1999, Aug 11). Metabolic abnormalities detected by 1H-MRS in dyscalculia and dysgraphia. Neurology. 53(3), 639-41. PMID 10449137
Mayer, R. E. & Moreno, R. (2003). Nine ways to reduce cognitive load in multimedia learning. Educational Psychologist, 38(1), 43-52.
Mioduser, David; Nachmias, Rafi, Forkosh-Baruch, Alona (2008). New Literacies for the Knowledge Society pp. 23-42 in (eds), Joke M. Voogt, Gerald A. Knezek, International Handbook of Information Technology in Primary and Secondary Education. Springer. Retrieved December 8, 2008 from http://books.google.com/books?id=X2dIYc5PpTkC&printsec=frontcover#PPA23,M1
Moreno, R., & Mayer, R. E. (2000). A coherence effect in multimedia learning: the case for minimizing irrelevant sounds in the design of multimedia instructional messages. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92, 117-125.
Paivio, A (1971). Imagery and verbal processes. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
Paivio, A (1986). Mental representations: a dual coding approach. Oxford. England: Oxford University Press.
Pink, D. (2006). A whole new mind: Why right-brainers will rule the future. New York:. Penguin Books.
Sacks, O. (1986). The Man Who Mistake His Wife for a Hat. Picador.
Sacks, O. (2008). The Man Who Forgot How to Read. Thomas Dunne Books.
Taylor, Insep and Taylor, M. (1990) "Psycholinguistics: Learning and using Language". page 362.
Ventures, Inc. (2008).Retrieved December 11, 2008 from http://www.eyetricks.com/3dstereo.htm
Walde, Scott (1993). Random dot pictures. Retrieved December 11, 2008 from http://scott.saskatoon.com/code/rdot.html
Chapter Parent Frame | Textbook Home | Page author: Houghton - Web Office
Original Pub.1.20.99: Version 3.05 Updated 1.1.2009.
As with the illustration of the brain on the left (Luciano, 2008) which should be clicked for a larger view and better study, there are some generalizations that have been reached about the specialization of the two sides of the brain, also called lateralization of brain function. The right hemisphere specializes in objects, events, synthesis of the present moment, musicality, emotional overtones of speech and generation and in many forms of non-verbal creativity. 
The left hemisphere has specialized more in perceiving and generating language, time sequence, categories, details, consciousness and more (Coleman, 2001), and this also includes the processing of numeric manipulation and mathematical concepts in the left temporo-parietal area (Levy, Reis & Grafman, 1999). Other functionality including emotions, sound localization and arithmetic are under more bilateral control (Dehaene et al., 1999; Dehaene et al., 2003). These two hemisphere are in constant communication through the some 300 million axonal fibers of the corpus colossum, yet they have distinct characteristics and personalities (Taylor, 2008). Taylor characterized the left brain as a serial processor and the right brain a parallel processor. The photo on the right of the front view of an actual human brain (clickable for larger view) shows the interior connecting corpus colossum area (Taylor, 2008). To say that the sides of the brain are specialized does not mean exclusivity, but rather that one hemisphere sometimes helps with other side in ways not yet understood. For example, scenes and faces are processed simultaneously on both sides (Golby et al, 2001), though we cannot examine in what way that information is being processed. This duality has implications for thinking visually. To fully activate our visual capacity to think, compose and edit would appear to require some degree of quieting of the left hemisphere for the right to excel when we are awake. Sleeping and dreaming may play and important role in allowing the right hemisphere time to more fully function.
Which comes first when a new idea comes to mind, the words or the picture?
What is the relationship between text and image? How does this relationship impact the learning process
and major subject areas?
What impact should this have on future curriculum development?