This article describes a paradigm shift in which faster technologies impact the way we perceive and interact with the world. The effect of the speed aesthetic is not only that electronic technology has created a world with a different pace, different problems, and different interests, but also that visual forms of entertainment and information media have changed the way we anticipate, process and react to visual information. With speed, how we see and think has changed, and the balance between emotional process and cognition has shifted in favor of right-brain, visual stimulation and emotional learning. But this is more than a trend toward speed; it is a paradigm shift in which the pursuit of pleasure, faster technologies, and a disinclination for following long complex strains of thought have combined to alter the way we think.

This article presents a brief overview of our efforts to design and implement a web-based portfolio as part of an on-line instructional tet hnology graduate program for practicing professional educators. The role that these electronic portfolios have played in the design, implementation, management, and assessment of achievement in the program will be described. In addition, a mid-program formative evaluation “report card” presenting the overall strengths and areas for continued improvement will be reviewed.

Hypermedia computer programs (including the World Wide Web) are an important part of today's educational curricula, and the computer interface plays a critical role in the interpretation of information in these programs. Students are fascinated with the amount of information that is available, but they often feel overwhelmed because they don't know how to organize the information into a coherent whole. They get caught up in the process of navigating to various locations in a multimedia environment, and the continuity between ideas is obscured. This paper discusses the semantic structures in various forms of electronic art and makes recommendations for using these structures to create interface designs that symbolize the integration of multiple relationships in complex information spaces.

(1999). Review of Robert E. Horns Visual Language. Journal of Visual Literacy: Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 225-226.

Pictures and figures are not “visual” in their own right. Moreover, letters and numerals are not “verbal” in their own right. When the meaning of a sign is understood, we regard it as “verbal.” When the sign is not understood so that its meaning must be construed by the interpreter, then we regard it as “visual.” If this conclusion is logically correct, then visual literacy can be recognized to be an indispensable ability for children and, indeed, for all of us because we will be able to consider visual literacy the ability to construe and/ or create the meaning of signs by ourselves.

This article considers the style, patterns, and purposes of information graphics while tracing some common elements and uses of such graphics in an historical sense. It considers some similar features of information graphics at the beginning and end of the 20th century, and comments about the influence of posters on our current information graphics. The term “everyday graphics ” is introduced as a subcategory of information graphics.

Abstract Many people assume that editorial cartoons are easily understood by the bulk of the population. For this reason, editorial cartoons are often used as teaching materials in the classroom. Recent research, however, raises doubts as to the effecUveness of this practice.The cognitive style of the participants was examined to determine if different teaching strategies were differentially effective vis-a-vis field dependence and field independence.Two presentations (treatments) were designed to model methods of reading editorial cartoons. The Whole Cartoon Analysis presented 25 editorial cartoons along with a 100-200 word interpretation of each cartoon. The Parse Analysis Treatment was accomplished In three steps rather than the one for the Whole method. In step one. the whole cartoon is presented with a short gloss of the meaning.The dependent variable of the investigation was a two-part Edi torial Car toon I n le rpre ta t ion Task. Part A asked each participant to enumerate the symbols in the cartoon...

(1992). Reflections on “Comments on Hlynka’s Much Ado about Educational Technology: A Response to Moore and Garrison: An Existential, Postmodern and Postliterate Visual Parable.”. Journal of Visual Literacy: Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 73-80.