Visual literacy and painting with technology: observations in the early year’s classroom

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Description/Abstract

When a child paints, when a child draws and when a child pastes they participate in Piagetian concrete activity. The activities are concrete because they are the combination of mental processing and physical activities. On the computer the situation is similar. The extent to which painting, drawing and pasting are concrete activities is reflected in the way in which young children can learn and apply their learning with relatively little reinforcement. Our research work suggests that the icons associated with the computer activities of painting, drawing and pasting are remembered more easily than the verbal oral instructions and perhaps as easily as the practical objects themselves. The work therefore shows the importance of computer based painting both in the expressive and artistic development of the child and his or her computer awareness and computer skills education.

By using a range of stimulating materials on the screen and by giving the children opportunities to move and organise those images, we are helping to develop their visual literacy. These activities are enjoyable and educative. They remain in the concrete domain yet use tools that can equally be used to support cognitive developments. The computer can also be used to present the child with a range of images and visual devices to support pre-reading and literacy development. The means by which teachers can assess the skills, knowledge and understanding within the expressive and computer domain are discussed along with how those skills and assessments relate to other areas of the curriculum or other aspects of education of the young child.