Week 4 - Images

Images have a fantastic ability to communicate messages without a word spoken. One message can be understood across the globe with no translation required. Look at any social networking site and you will the majority of posts are images. The popular smartphone app, Instagram is based purely on the sharing of images. On the other hand, an image can conjure many different thoughts, feelings and opinions that vary from person to person which can ignite discussion and understanding.

I have had lots of experience with uploading images to various places on the web such as websites, social networking sites, photo sharing sites and blogs (see week 2 of my blog) and know all about sitting and watching (for what seems like forever) as an image slowly loads. Resizing is a solution to this. In fact, many sites resize images automatically so they are quicker to open and view. This unfortunately means that if you want to save a picture from one of these sites it is no longer suitable for anything other than web use.

In the classroom, images can be used in many ways. A simple yet emotionally-fueled image can be a useful "hook" when introducing a topic. Stories can be shared using only pictures, such as a stop motion movie. Recounts and procedural texts can be presented in image form in as a powerpoint presentation.

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