Improvable objects and attached dialogue: new literacy practices employed by learners to build knowledge together in asynchronous settings

Asynchronous online dialogue offers advantages to learners, but has appeared to involve only limited use of new literacy practices. To investigate this, a multimodal approach was applied to asynchronous dialogue. The study analysed the online discussions of small groups of university students as they developed collaboratively authored documents. Sociocultural discourse analysis of the dialogue was combined with visual analysis of its structural elements. The groups were found to employ new literacies that supported the joint construction of knowledge. The documents on which they worked together functioned as ‘improvable objects’ and the development of these was associated with engagement in ‘attached dialogue’. By investigating a wider range of conference dialogue than has previously been explored, it was found that engaging in attached dialogue associated with collaborative authorship of improvable objects prompts groups of online learners to share knowledge, challenge ideas, justify opinions, evaluate evidence and consider options

Typography Design’s New Trajectory Towards Visual Literacy for Digital Mediums

Typographic elements have a huge impact on how designed mediums affect visual literacy. This paper reviews the principles, perspectives and approaches in the production and function of typographic design visual media (print and digital), with the aim to understand the relationship between typographic design on digital mediums, with the aim of examining its influence on people’s ability to communicate ideas, meaning and messages effectively, while reflecting on its commercial implications for brands and marketers. Research via survey and a focus group implied there is a positive association between literacy and the application of graphic design and typography on digital communication mediums. Findings revealed that type design complements textual word elements to enhance cognition and understanding of messages. The integration of visual and texts facilitates reading, and for digital mediums, both legible layout and engaging typefaces are equally crucial. Graphic typeface for digital media, from smartphones to e-texts for learning, should apply visual hierarchy arrangement to achieve these objectives. Findings show typographic design is an essential aspect of social communication today, and digital designers play a fundamental role to enable audiences to improve their economic and social participation and gain its full advantages

Marking and making : a characterisation of sketching for typographic design

This research rests on the premise that sketching in paper and pencil is crucial for typographic designers when designing documents. The aim has been to derive a characterisation of the salient aspects of sketching, through an ethnographically-oriented study of designers' use of paper and pencil. The people studied were professional typographic designers, but both the motivations for the research and the characterisation deriving from it relate to other design disciplines, notably industrial and engineering design and architecture. The goal was to identify the underlying functionality supported by sketching, in order to inform the design of future tools for document creation. The characterisation is presented as a framework, with seven main categories: visual characteristics of marks; basic semantic units of design; visual features of sketches; visual and tactile features of sheets of sketches; affordances of sketching; functionality required to support sketching; capacities of the traditional medium. The first four categories deal with the visual qualities of sketches, such as image quality within the line and recurring features in sketches such as different scale, closure, and degree of detail. The functions supported by sketching are suggested to be: interpretability, focus, comparison, simulation of experience, ideas capture and record making. The functionality identified as necessary to support sketching includes the appropriate speed of image generation, image emergence, image manipulation, and image capture and record making. Also necessary are high speed and ease of switching between all the strands mentioned above, and singularity of focus. The supportive capacities of the traditional medium include a rich vocabulary of marks, high image definition, and the continuum-of-activity through the continuity-at-medium, i.e. the natural progression from sketching on paper to making simulations out of paper. In recognition of the respective strengths of the traditional and electronic media, integration between the two is recommended for the design of optimal document creation systems

Use of visual analysis to investigate networked learning in online forums

Asynchronous online forums such as FirstClass are frequently used in many educational settings to link networks of learners. They offer opportunities for knowledge-building dialogue and for the exchange of learning resources, but many students struggle to make effective use of them. Researchers have therefore been concerned to investigate how learners successfully build knowledge together in online forums and which skills and literacies are likely to help users to learn in these environments. To date, much of this research has focused on the textual elements of online forum dialogue. This paper acknowledges the importance of studying these textual elements, but presents visual analysis as a complementary tool that can significantly extend understanding of activity in these forums. Asynchronous dialogue, like written text, is typically both verbal and visual, with much of its meaning carried by a range of visual features, including layout and typographical elements. These aspects of forum data require analysis of the composition of the dialogue alongside its content. In the case of such composite texts, with meanings realised through different semiotic codes, visual and verbal elements interact and should be analysed as an integrated whole. This semiotic approach draws attention to the syntax of images as a source of meaning and to the structuring principles that enable viewers to make sense of the layout of text and images. These principles include salience, frames, vectors and reading paths. This paper demonstrates ways in which analysis that makes use of these structuring principles can increase understanding of online exchanges between learners. It takes as an exemplar a series of forum postings that were shared in the formal setting of an online course at the UK’s Open University. It shows that the construction of knowledge in an online forum is heavily reliant on visual elements of the online interaction, and that a focus on words alone does not make it clear either how this construction takes place or why it fails to take place on some occasions. Visual analysis shows that groups of learners use affordances of forum software to increase the salience of some elements of the dialogue and to increase the coherence of their discussion

The adoption and impact of computer integrated prepress systems in the printing and publishing industries of Kuwait

This research is aimed at developing a comprehensive picture of the implications of digital technology in the graphic arts industries in Kuwait. The purpose of the study is twofold: (1) to explore the meaning of the outcomes of recent technological change processes for the traditional prepress occupations in Kuwait; and, (2) to examine the impact of technology on Arabic layout and design. The study is based on the assumption that technological change is a chain of interactions among the sociological, cultural, political and economic variables. The prepress area in Kuwait has its own cultural, social, economic, and political structure. When a new technology is introduced it is absorbed and shaped by the existing structure. Based on such a dialectical conceptualisation, four major levels of analysis can be distinguished in this study: (1) technological change in the graphic arts industries; (2) the typographic evolution of the Arabic script; (3) the workers themselves as individuals and occupational collectives; and, (4) technology's impact on Arabic publication design. The methodological approach selected for this study can be defined as a dialectical, interpretive exploration. Given the historical perspective and the multiple levels of analysis, this approach calls for a variety of data gathering methods. Both qualitative and quantitative data were sought. A combination of document analysis, participant observation and interviewing allow to link the historical and current events with individual and collective actions, perceptions and interpretations of reality. The findings presented in this study contradicts the belief that the widespread adoption of new production processes is coincidental with continuous advances in scientific knowledge which provide the basis for the development of new technologies. Instead, the changes have been hindered by the lack of untrained personnel, the Arabic software incompatibility, and the lack of informed decisions to successfully implement the technology. Without any doubt, the new technology has influenced Arabic calligraphy, but this does not mean the decay of Arabic calligraphy as an art. As this study shows, the challenge is not to the art, but to the artist

Simplicity in Visual Representation: A Semiotic Approach

Simplicity, as an ideal in the design of visual representations, has not received systematic attention. High-level guidelines are too general, and low-level guidelines too ad hoc, too numerous, and too often incompatible, to serve in a particular design situation. This paper reviews notions of visual simplicity in the literature within the analytical framework provided by Charles Morris' communication model, specifically, his trichotomy of communication levels—the syntactic, the semantic, and the pragmatic. Simplicity is ultimate ly shown to entail the adjudication of incompatibilities both within, and between, levels.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68281/2/10.1177_105065198700100103.pd

A National Survey of Teachers on Their Perceptions, Challenges, and Uses of Information and Communication Technology

This study had five main purposes: (a) to investigate the extent to which literacy teachers nationwide integrate information and communication technologies (ICTs) into literacy instruction; (b) to investigate the extent to which ICTs are utilized in ways that promote the acquisition of literacy skills within digital environments; (c) to identify the perceived obstacles and challenges teachers face in their attempts to integrate ICTs into instruction; (d) to determine how literacy teachers define ICT integration and how they perceive the importance of ICT integration into reading instruction; and (e) to identify the distinguishing characteristics of teachers who report no or minimal integration of ICTs in their literacy instruction when compared to teachers who report extensive integration. These issues were addressed using online survey methodology with a national sample of literacy teachers (n = 1442). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), and regression analysis. Results indicated that: (a) literacy teachers use ICTs relatively little in instruction and with little variety; (b) they typically do not use ICTs in ways that enhance skills for reading in online environments; (c) lack of time, lack of equipment, and lack of professional development are major barriers to ICT integration; (d) a majority of teachers have an incomplete or narrow view of what constitutes ICT integration; and (e) professional development factors, teaching experience, beliefs about technology, technology skill, technology access and support, and perceived obstacles all predict teachers\u27 ICT use at statistically significant levels. Implications for professional development and educational policy are discussed

Evaluating information design: An Online study guide designed for a new distance learning course

This thesis focuses on the creation of an online module for a new course offered by the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), titled Twentieth Century Information Design. As an information design product, the module\u27s intent is to enhance a student\u27s perspective on the evaluation of information design through the presentation of a range of theories and their relationship to the processes of graphic design. This course, for which the online module was designed, has been developed jointly by the Department of Graphic Design and the Office of Distance Learning (ODL), and is sponsored by the Center for Digital Media. The creation of such a complex product necessitates a strong awareness of process. There are eight distinct phases of process that this thesis report will discuss: thesis project definition, research and analysis, synthesis, ideation, evaluation, implementation, dissemination, and retrospective evaluation

Eminents observed: a century of writing, lettering, type and typography at the Central School, London

This study surveys teachers of formal writing, lettering, type and typography at the Central School, London, from its early years until the 1990s. Featured individuals include Emery Walker, W. R. Lethaby, Edward Johnston, J. H. Mason, Graily Hewitt, Nicolete Gray and Nicholas Biddulph. The study constructs a continuous ‘lineage’ of teaching in these areas, by these individuals, in part through the consideration, analysis and interpretation of the ‘forms’ this teaching took, whether as illustrated lectures, published works, graphic and typographic practice, or as an archive of exemplars. In addition to its historical concerns, the study provides context for the ‘Typeform dialogues’ CD interactive interface (presented elsewhere in the published PDF document), whose editorial conception and design was informed by the lineage and tradition of teaching the study addresses