We present an integrated theoretical framework guiding the use of visual narratives in educational settings. We focus specifically on the use of static and dynamic visual narratives to teach and assess inference skills in young children and discuss evidence to support the efficacy of this approach. In doing so, first we review the basis of the…

Some educators may view diagrams, pictures, and charts as nice add-on tools for students who are visual thinkers. But Steve Moline sees visual literacy as fundamental to learning and to what it means to be human. In Moline's view, we are all bilingual. Our second language, which we do not speak but which we read and write every day, is visual.…

When it comes to helping others learn, there is a simple piece of advice that is often recommended to educators: Show! Don't tell. While appealing to the visual learning style of an audience is always a good idea, there is a growing expectation for more than just static images. They want video, which can deliver more dynamic presentations with…

Sensory overload and split attention result in reduced learning when instructors read slides with bullet points and complex graphs during a lecture. Conversely, slides containing relevant visual elements, when accompanied by instructor narration, use both the visual and verbal channels of a student's working memory, thus improving the chances of…

PowerPoint and other visual technologies have become pervasive in schools. Adoption of these technologies is perceived as a necessary--or, at the very least, an educationally appropriate--innovation in UK schools, even though systematic examination of their use is relatively recent. On the basis of a wider ethnographic study of ICT use in one UK…

Few beginners find learning to program easy. There are many factors at work in this phenomenon with some being simply inherent in the subject itself, while others have more to do with deficiencies in learning methods and resources. As a result, many programming environments, software applications, and learning tools have been developed to address…