Group+7

Comprehension through visuals

Brianna Scott scottbm@staff.ednet.ns.ca Lisa Hartery lharterycameron@hotmail.com James Flynn flynnjs@staff.ednet.ns.ca David Fisher fisherd2@staff.ednet.ns.ca Eric Storr storre@staff.ednet.ns.ca Andrew MacNeill macneilla@staff.ednet.ns.ca

Don't forget to include your eddresses....

Research question: How do students use visual products to facilitate deeper meaning?

Research Problem: to engage students with difficulty decoding text and concepts

Research aim: to understand how students process and use visual information



Research objectives:

1. Article on videos improving comprehension in middle school literacy: []

2. Article on impact of videos on 2nd language learners: []

3. Article on education impact of visualization: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.10.3141&rep=rep1&type=pdf

4. Article on dynamic visualizations: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.88.3276&rep=rep1&type=pdf

5. Importance of visual and auditory Modality http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED024525&site=ehost-live

6. Deep Learning http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ683028&site=ehost-live

7. Video production in Social Studies: []

8. Visualization in Science Classrooms http://nautilus.fis.uc.pt/personal/jtrindade/~jtrindade/pub/5.pdf

9. Articles on Educational Frameworks / Assessment theories - Vygotsky, Piaget, Skinner

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=19&hid=7&sid=7b343f4b-277b-4d99-8308-c75d6bdd3ab6%40sessionmgr13 http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=17&hid=7&sid=7b343f4b-277b-4d99-8308-c75d6bdd3ab6%40sessionmgr13 http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=21&hid=7&sid=7b343f4b-277b-4d99-8308-c75d6bdd3ab6%40sessionmgr13

Framework of the Research Proposal: Introduction ** -students have difficulty decoding text and concepts -how do students decode text and concepts? - Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligence/ student learning styles -(Personal Connection) to improve teaching strategies to increase student success by using varied forms -perhaps a comment on the fact that we will use visuals and all are technology-based - To understand how students process visual information - Students construct meaning from visual info - How do students use visual products to facilitate deeper learning? - To discover how our students construct meaning from visual products which will influence our teaching (variations of presentation) - To observe students interacting with visuals
 * Area of interest **
 * Aims and objectives **
 * Research question **
 * Intended contribution to Knowledge **
 * Lit review: **

- Qualitative research o Reflective feedback from students (oral and written) o Anecdotal reporting from teacher o Observational data o Conversations with students that elicit the processes they went through to make sense of the data and then categorize it o Conversations with students to determine if visuals are increasing their deep learning? o Make a distinction between what students are comprehending- the bigger picture (concepts) or the text?
 * Methodology **



DRAFTING

Framework of the Research Proposal: ** **  Introduction:  **  One modern view of the teaching profession is one where teachers use different strategies to impact as many students with different learning styles (Howard Gardner reference needed) as possible. Our common interest as teachers concerns students who have difficulty decoding traditional texts across a variety of subject areas. We wish to consider alternatives to text-based curriculum. The purpose of our study is to introduce students to technology-based visuals (both interactive and non-interactive) and develop a better understanding of how students process visual information. We also wish to consider the difference between deep learning and surface learning when using visuals. Our research question is How can (do?) students use technology-based visual products to facilitate deep learning? We will monitor students interacting with visuals through a variety of means and better understand how students construct meaning from visual products. Each researcher will conduct qualitative research within their own classrooms and assess the students’ comprehension, specifically their understanding of the concept versus the text.

Excellent statement of question. The findings of our study will influence our future teaching practice and allow us to employ better teaching strategies to meet the needs of our students. **Literature Review:** As researchers, we are each focusing on different subject matter (from junior high to senior high across areas such as English, Math, Science, History, and English as a Second Language (ESL)). Our classrooms, however, all have one commonality: students who are comfortable interacting with technology. These students are classified as digital natives while we, as teachers from another generation, are on the border between being digital natives and digital immigrants (Marc Prensky citation needed). One of our common goals is to reduce the digital divide by bringing technology-based visuals to our teaching and making our subject areas more meaningful to students. As with other conscientious teachers we wish to stay current with what students want and expect (Prensky, Wood, etc). We need to respond to the generational and digital divide because “Digital natives approach learning as a plug-and-play experience. They use interactive games for enjoyment, challenge, and learning. Viewing interactivity as a key component of technology-based learning activities, they expect those types of activities in their [classrooms].” (Black citation needed). According to Considine, Horton, and Moorman, recognizing the importance technology plays with our generation Y students is necessary to engage them in learning, but technology in and of itself is not the answer. Teachers needs to respect the prior (digital) knowledge of their students and work with it to ensure students have media literacy skills that will allow them to engage in the traditional curriculum with their technological skill set. This process allows students to become fully engaged and connected to learning. As you know, some people query the hard and fast generational stuff, so you might want to just recognise this but say that there are nonetheless important trends that can be picked up upon usefully for guiding research.

It'll be good to see your concept accounts emerging -- e.g., "deep learning" (which has quite a history).

Okay, again it's still in draft form, but here's what I've got for visual literacy in the lit review. Visual Literacy

Defining visual literacy is not a simple task. Braden and Hortin note in their 1982 article that, “[t]he persistent and descriptive problems that have plagued the visual literacy movement have, as often as not, been related to the matter of definition”. Brill, Kim, and Branch note that despite many attempts, there is no one definition that has been agreed upon by academics who work in the field of visual literacy. They claim that in order to move forward, a definition is needed. Though these two articles are separated by decades, they along with others in the field, note the problem of defining visual literacy. Since our study relies heavily upon the use of visuals, we felt it would be worth exploring the concept in order to arrive at a better understanding of visual literacy. Clearly, however, our research did not lead us to one accepted definition of visual literacy as it appears various individuals and groups are still hashing out what is included in visual literacy and what is not.

That being said, we did find many attempts to define visual literacy. Understandably, some of these definitions attempt to separate the visual from the linguistic. Rezabek, for instance, “purports visual literacy is the ability to both accurately interpret and create messages that are transmitted through the sense of sight, with an emphasis on using communication systems that do not rely primarily on traditional text based alphabetic or numeric codes” (Brill, Kim, Branch). Interestingly, we found that some of those who focus on the sense of sight in visual literacy, describe it in terms of the linguistic. For instance, Deborah Pratt Curtiss outlines visual literacy as the ability to: “•Navigate gracefully and safely in the world (analogous to speech) •Understand visuals in at least one medium (analogous to being able to write) •Create visuals in at least one medium (analogous to being able to write)”. In describing visual literacy, Curtiss relies upon comparisons to skills associated with the linguistic. It is this link between the visual and the verbal that we found most interesting about visual literacy.

Jeanette Bopry also uses verbal/linguistic language to describe visual literacy noting that a visually literate person can “ ‘read’ visuals with skill’ and can ‘write’ with visuals expressing oneself effectively”. Unlike Pratt Curtiss, however, Bopry makes a more direct link between the verbal and visual. According to her, to be visually literate, an individual must be “able to translate from visual language to berbal [sic] language and vice [sic] versa”. This ability is the basis of dual coding theory. According to this theory, “verbal and nonverbal information are processed in functionally independent but interconnected systems” (Hodes). Hibbing and Erickson use the example of a hot dog to explain how dual coding works. Upon hearing these words, a person may connect with them verbally by calling to mind phrases like “something you eat in a bun”. An individual may also connect with the words nonverbally, which would involve making connections to images of hot dogs, the circumstances in which they have been encountered, an emotional connection, etc. Essentially, as Hodes notes, “the nonverbal code can be thought of as a mental image”.

Because it involves two representations (the verbal and the visual), dual coded information is easier to remember. This means that information that is “imageable (concrete)” (Hodes) is easier to remember than the abstract because our brains can store concrete information in two forms as opposed to the abstract form, which relies on only one representation. Hodes argues that educators should take advantage of this process by utilizing the visual, which stimulates dual coding. Using effective visuals helps students to recognize what information is important, aids in retention of material, and also “encourages a higher quality attentional state and the use of strategies that result in better learning” (Hodes). While all students would benefit from increased attention, better learning, and improved information retention, we believe that those students who are the focus of our research problem, students who have difficulty decoding text and concepts, will gain the most from our utilization of technology-based visual products. **Methodology:** Our group will use qualitative research methods to investigate how students use technology-based visual products to facilitate deep learning. Student comprehension of the concepts versus the text will be a key element to understanding the effectiveness of our research. Each researcher will conduct individual research (see appendices) within their own classrooms and disciplines. Previous to this undertaking each teacher has had experience teaching a curriculum concept in a traditional (non-technology, non-visual) format. These same classroom lessons have been modified by the teacher researchers to include the addition of technology-based visuals. The strategy of using multiple researchers, methodologies, or mixed methods research design increases the validity of research findings and is referred to in social sciences as the process of triangulation. Our research proposal will use multiple researchers in different subject areas. This process is defined by Denzin (2006) as //Investigator Triangulation.// Having multiple researchers working with a common methodology in search of a common research question will increase the validity and reliability of the assessment of our common results therefore allowing us to feel confidence in our common research findings. (added by Lisa but it could be transferred to the lit review if it ends up fitting better up there) Each group member will use their current curriculum content and classrooms to conduct their research. Qualitative data will be gathered in the form of: reflective feedback from students (oral and written); anecdotal reporting from teachers; observational data; conversations with students that elicit the processes they went through to make sense of the data and then categorize it; conversations with students to determine if visuals are increasing their deep learning; and, of course, reflections from the teacher researchers. Specific attention will be given to developing an understanding of the student’s comprehension levels. Our focus is to distinguish if students develop a comprehension of the concept (bigger picture) being taught or merely the text. Following the completion of the individual research the results will be brought together to give an overall view of the connection between using technology-based visuals and deep learning. In our post- execution group meetings we will focus on assessing the processes used to gather data, the results obtained, commonalities found between researchers, and future considerations. Through prior knowledge of student learnings within our classrooms and reflections on the new strategies being employed we will assess the impact on technology-based visuals and share our findings within our group. Our expectation is that the group findings will have similarities that will allow us to make generalized statements about the usefulness and impact of technology-based visuals in better engaging students and achieving deep learning while meeting curriculum outcomes. Specific attention will be focused on comparing successes and failures across classrooms and making improvements for future adaptations.

You've hit a nice mix of generic statement and strategy for getting the individual variations in place.

 research in relation to the group focus will be in assessing the comprehension level of the students with respect to concept versus text. Due to the limited language level of the student participants an understanding of the text is satisfactory for the purposes of my implementation. Those who grasp the bigger picture (concepts) may be more difficult to determine in a short period of time given their limited ability to express themselves and their learnings.

**Expected Outcomes:** This is **really** rough (as the Yadda Yadda Yadda might tell you). I plan to print it off to do revision and insert proper citations, but I thought I'd put this up so I can check that my outcomes make sense. It's a bit tricky doing this piecemeal, and I'm worried I may have gone off on a track that doesn't work for the group. So I know the construction is very early draft, but do the general ideas work for everyone?

“From print materials to computer-based presentations and the myriad of graphical sites on the Internet, image-rich curriculum reaches and teaches more students more quickly and more meaningfully than traditional written student reports and text-based, talking-teacher instruction ever could” (Burmark). Yadda Yadda Yadda

Students will have a more positive reading experience:
 * 1) Students will be more interested and more motivated to engage with the material.
 * 2) Students will feel they better comprehend the text/concepts because of the visuals.
 * 3) Struggling readers will gain the most from the addition of visual supports.

According to Lazear, “the human brain naturally thinks in images. Capacity to form images or to visualize is one of its most basic mental processes” (Carr). By tapping into the visual aspect of learning using technology-based visual products, we feel we will increase student interest in the material being covered. Because they are more interested, we believe that students will be more motivated to engage with the material being covered than they would if the material were simply presented in text or oral form. Various studies have claimed increased engagement as one of the products of the introduction of visuals into text and conversation. David Sibbett, for example, examined the impact of interactive graphic visuals within meetings at a Japanese/Chinese human resources development consulting firm. Within this group, he noted three results that he claimed were typical for groups using this kind of visualization: “1. People became more highly engaged....2.The group moved to big-picture thinking....[and] 3. Everyone could remember the conversation.” (Sibbett) While it is perhaps beyond the scope of our study to assess student retention of the material covered, it is likely we will find students more involved in learning the material. This is further supported by the results of the study conducted by Levie and Lentz. Their 1982 study involved measuring the impact of illustrated text. They “reported findings from 55 experiments comparing learning from illustrated text versus text alone. They noted that illustrations contributed to reader interest and enjoyment [and] affected attitudes and emotions...” (Burmack). // [if I could find Levie and Lentz, that might help to flesh this out] //

We believe that our research will result in similar findings as those found in the studies conducted by Sibbett, and Levie and Lentz. In both studies participants were increasingly engaged in the material because of the addition of graphic visual representations. We expect that our students will also respond positively to the technology-based visual products we intend to utilize in our classrooms. We expect the added visual dimension will heighten student interest and motivate them to participate in the lessons. While we will not be assessing student comprehension, we will be assessing their perceptions of the impacts visuals have had on their understanding of the material. Sibbett notes that the participants in his study had better retention of the material being discussed at the meeting. The Levie and Lentz study found “that groups using illustrated texts performed 36 percent better than groups using text alone on measured criteria” (Burmack).

Again, while it is outside the scope of our research, Levie and Lentz found those working with the illustrated text improved student performance, while Richard Mayer found a forty-two percent increase in the information student retain. (go into his book for this) While we are not making assessments of students comprehension beyond their perception of the impact visuals have on their understanding of the material, the fact that numerous studies claim increased performance makes it probably that students will feel they understand the material better. Indeed, this was the finding for struggling readers, which we will examine with our next projected outcome.

Struggling readers, and here we include English as Second Language learners, are likely to benefit most from our introduction of visual products into our teaching. Hibbing and Rankin-Erickson note that despite the increasing role of visual images in today’s schools, educators should not assume that all students are able to effectively utilize visualization as a reading comprehension strategy. This inability to create visual images based on text can result in a student who struggles to make meaning of text. They note that many struggling readers are unable to describe what they see as they read, and some claim they do not see anything. That these students can not visualize is not surprising as they are likely impeded by things like “limited vocabulary [and] little background knowledge about many topics”, and many lack an understanding of the importance of visualizing while reading.

As we discussed earlier in our paper (address this in the visual literacy lit review), people rely on a dual-coding system to process information. Knowledge exists in verbal and nonverbal representations, and these representations are linked. This link allows us to create images based upon words and words upon images (picture 1000 words/visual lit journal 18-2). Successful readers do this automatically and use this skill to monitor their comprehension. The inability to make these connections may have some relationship with learning disabilities (1000 words). Such students may be too busy decoding to make the connections, or they may lack vital information needed to form understanding. For instance, the limited vocabulary of a struggling reader such as an ESL student, may create confusion. In their study (1000 words), found that one student pictured a flying saucer when reading the phrase “cups and saucers” while another pictured an insect instead of a piece of machinery when he read the word Caterpillar. Both students were able to make meaning once these vocabulary mix ups were corrected. (1000 words). They further cite a number of studies that found strong readers will often skip over illustrations, but that weak readers will move in a text to pictures to text to pictures pattern in order to understand a piece of text. (1000 words). These findings make it likely that our struggling readers will be the most likely to benefit from our visual supports. While we expect our work to benefit all students, it makes sense that the students who have difficulty with text will be most assisted by the addition of a visual component to the content being studied. These visuals will help to fill in vocabulary and information gaps that pose problems for these students, and it also appears that they will be more willing to utilize the visual supports in order to create meaning.

(1000 words) cite Peeck’s assertion that pictures can make reading more enjoyable, create a more positive attitude toward reading, and influence the time readers are willing to spend on a text. Various other studies, some of which we cited previously, found similar results, so we feel comfortable asserting that our technology-based visual products will interest and motivate our students. Schallert claims, “Pictures help the reader learn and comprehend a text when they illustrate information central to the text, when they represent new content that is important to the message, and when they depict structural relationships mentioned in the text.” Our goal is to ensure that our visual additions perform these various functions, and, if we effectively use technology-based visual products, we expect that students will feel they have better understood the material being covered with these visual tools. Given that we will be taking away the reliance on text in order to comprehend the content, we suspect struggling readers (including ESL students) will have an additional tool to help them make meaning. Given that they are the ones most likely to struggle dual coding information from a written or oral source, we suspect they will be the group to most benefit from our inclusion of visuals.



 In order to explore the research question in depth, we will need to collect evidence of students’ comprehension of course material, and how that comprehension is related to the technology-based visual products that the different teachers in the study have created. However, we should first discuss the limitations that we face in our data collection process. The data that we will be collecting is related to specific classroom activities designed to cover curricular outcomes in each of the participating teachers’ classes. As such, the time frame available for data collection will be relatively brief (as long as a curricular unit, or less). Also, the data collection will only be occurring within the participating teachers’ classrooms, so the amount of data collected will be limited in size. Taking these limitations into account, we have decided to discuss our research question with largely qualitative supporting data. To describe our data collection rationale, we follow the format outlined by Lankshear and Knobel (2004)  //Data to be collected //
 * Data Collection Rationale **

//Students: // The focus of the research is student comprehension, so we will need evidence showing the level of student comprehension of particular subject matter. It will also be helpful to have student feedback on the efficacy of the classroom activities. //Teachers: // The participating teachers will be the primary assessors of student comprehension. The teachers will also provide observational data as well as personal reflections on how well the classroom activities led to student comprehension. //Data collection methods //

//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Students: //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Student comprehension will be assessed by examining both student products (created within the structure of the classroom activities created by the participating teacher) and traditional assessments (tests, quizzes, papers, etc.) that would have occurred regardless of the research activities. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">It should be noted that assessment of comprehension is a substantial field of study in its’ own right. Each teacher involved will need to formulate assessments suited to their own subject area. In the next section we will describe a set of guidelines each participating teacher will follow in creating their assessments. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Student feedback on any visual presentation/comprehension links will also be gathered, in the form of questionnaires and student-teacher interviews. //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Teachers: //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Participating teachers will collect the aforementioned data. They will also keep a record of classroom observations in the form of fieldnotes. Teachers will also keep a journal record of personal reflections during the research period. //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Justification: // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The products created within the context of the teacher-created classroom activities will provide immediate insight into how the students form understanding from the presentation of visual activities. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The traditional assessments can give opportunity to probe comprehension on a deeper level than products generated directly from classroom activities. They provide an insight into the level of understanding that has remained with a student over time. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Getting student input on the activities presented provides us with a different point of view on the learning process, from stakeholders that are not invested in the same way as the teachers who created the educational activities. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The main goals of the teaching profession include the encouragement and assessment of learning. Thus, teachers would be the logical choice to observe students as they engage in educational activities. Further, the reflections of teachers would provide valuable insights into the efficacy of the developed activities. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; line-height: normal;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Since our research question is try to understand how students use technology-based visual products to facilitate deep learning, we recognize the importance of understanding the different cognitive effects of visual products. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The visual products we will employ, and have our students produce, in our classrooms include two major variations; dynamic and static products. Traditional static visual products like photographs, charts, and diagrams can now take on a dynamic interactive quality with the introduction of powerful computer visualization technology. Photographs and video clips can be altered and edited, giving the student ownership over the content. According to (Hammond & Lee) the most powerful way to immerse students in critical thinking is to engage them in student authorship. Since technology has empowered students to work interactively with static and dynamic media this raises the question of which media is better to use in education. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Dynamic displays would appear to have a dramatic advantage over static displays, especially when dealing with dynamic phenomena. Imagine how more powerful a time-lapse movie of a flower bending towards the sun is to a photograph of this event. Hegarty (2004) however states that the first phase of research comparing static to dynamic displays failed to show a clear advantage for dynamic displays and improving education is not as easy as adopting a new technology. As rationale for dynamic displays’ poor performance Hegarty (2004) states realistic dynamic displays can distract learners, place heavy cognitive demands on students who lack the cognitive tools to understand the display, and reduce the student’s own need to create mental visualizations that are critical to learning. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> It appears evident that dynamic displays need to be used constructively, in an interactive manner so as to not create student coach potatoes. Educators need to think critically about the role the visualization will play in the cognitive development and not get swept up in the assumption that all dynamic displays foster learning. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Without interactivity dynamic displays demand heavily on a good working memory, since information presented earlier in a dynamic display can be pertinent to the understanding of a later concept, also the speed and order in which information is presented is predetermined by the author and not necessarily tailored to the viewer. Static displays allow the viewer to revisit any part as many times as necessary, therefore reducing the demand on working memory. The same might be said when a dynamic display has the added ability of interactivity by the viewer. The viewer can speed up or slow down the presentation to match their comprehension speed and view and review any parts in any sequence, tailoring the instruction to their needs. This interactivity also makes the learner more active in their learning process. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Although we must be aware of the cognitive demands that the interactive interface puts on the viewer and may detract from their ability to learn from the dynamic visualization. While some programs have a very user-friendly interface, as the information presented becomes more complex the task of developing a natural interface that facilitates learning also becomes more challenging. Studies by Lowe (1999, 2004) and Zahn, Barquero, and Schwann (2004) have actually shown that the amount of interactivity between the viewer and interactive dynamic displays is highly predictive based on the metacognitive skills the learner already possesses to be able to use the interface and thusly the amount of learning accomplished by the viewer. This factor was actually a bigger influence than changing the media or the interface in their studies. An interesting area of research suggested by Hegarty would be to track the different methods by which users interact with these interfaces to gain perspective into their cognitive reasoning to be shared with others who have difficulty learning. Hegarty also states that since it is clear that not all students have the necessary metacognitive skills to learn effectively from interactive media, teaching students to use interactive media effectively may lead to greater improvements in learning outcomes than changing the medium of instruction.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Dynamic vs. Static, interactive vs. non-interactive (types of visualizations and their cognitive effect) **

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Hegarty (2004) argues that one main reason why static diagrams are often more effective than animations is that people are able to mentally animate static diagrams. This ability was actually used more frequently by expert meteorologists than interaction with external dynamic visualizations when studied by Bogacz & Trafton (2002). We should not forget that dynamic visualizations are often expensive to create and should be avoided when they provide no additional educational value. The ability to mentally animate static visualizations also suggests that the person has formed a heightened level of understanding of this concept. It is clear that development of this ability should be as important an educational goal as developing external visualizations. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> A highly popular form of static visualization used in many classrooms is graphic facilitation. David Sibbett (2008) describes graphic facilitation as the graphic recording of an interactive presentation. Sibbett asserts that graphic facilitation leads to more engaged students who think more about the big picture and have better recall of the lesson. According to Sibbett there are seven types of graphics that are used in classrooms. Ranging from least complex to most complex these include; poster, list, cluster, grid, diagram, drawing, and mandala. As we incorporate more complex diagrams into our classrooms, we move from merely focusing students’ attentions on one idea to seeing unity between many ideas in a large context. It is the creation of this visual that engages the learner actively in the learning process. These types of visuals are now easily created with technology, and can be saved for future reference as artifacts of achieved outcomes. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> As important to education as static displays are, there are some fields that cannot be properly demonstrated with simple static displays. For this reason dynamic interactive virtual environments are becoming more popular in science classrooms today. They allow for educators to illustrate abstract science concepts by altering the time and space in which they occur. Trindade, Fiolhais, Almeida (2002) assert that virtual environments might facilitate the formation of conceptual models since they immerse the student in the environment that might be physically impossible. They also allow for the vital student interaction that moves students from passive observers to active thinkers. The experience and empowerment of the student in these virtual environments also brings a unique engagement to the learning process according to Trindade, Fiolhais, and Almeida (2002). <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Hegarty (2004) also suggests that instead of looking for types of interactive dynamic displays that facilitate all types of learning, we should focus on the learning styles of the students and the intended learning outcome. This focus along with an understanding of the affordances of different types of visualizations for different types of learning and content allowed Narayanan and Hegarty (2002) to develop multimodal visualizations that were more effective in teaching mechanics and computer algorithms than those currently available. While the jury might still be out on whether or not dynamic visualizations can be the revolutionary pedagogical tool they have been hyped to be, we as educators need to be cognizant of our students’ needs and abilities and let this govern our choice of educational visualization.

**References:** Alison Black: [] Marc Prensky: [] Marc Prensky: [] Howard Gardiner: Grace Wood: [] Considine, Horton, and Moorman: [] Denzin, N: Denzin, N. (2006). //Sociological Methods: A Sourcebook.// Aldine Transaction. [|ISBN 9780-202308401]. (5th edition).

<James> I'm not sure if this is the best way to group-edit or not, but I suggest we try to write in in different colours for commentary, and keep the black as our working manuscript. I have a couple of points on the intro...

1) Lisa, thanks for putting this part together. It looks clear and concise. 2) I wonder if we might get nailed for trying to say that the practice of teaching is one set thing. Maybe a statement like "One modern view of the teaching profession is..." would leave us a little less open. 3) In the second sentence of the opening paragraph, we might want to be specific and say "... difficulty decoding traditional texts..." so as not to be confused with alternative texts.

Other than that, it looks good to me. I hope I'm not being too nit-picky. Thanks James! I like the feedback and it makes sense. I made the changes you suggested above. Keep them coming folks....don't be shy!- Lisa Okay folks, I have also added a section of the literature review. I was supposed to be researching the differences between using technology and just watching a visual. Somehow everything led to the digital divide- so I went with it. We can pull it or alter as you like.- Lisa