Research Guides: Visual Literacy: Visual Literacy Resources

Visual Literacy Defined

Visual literacy involves the abilities to both decode (make meaning from visual messages) and to encode (compose meaningful visuals). Visual literacy also involves the ability to effectively find, interpret, evaluate, use, and create images and visual media.

Sample Activities

The Power of Images
From Facing History and Ourselves.
Analyzing Images
From Teaching History and Ourselves.
Crop It Teaching Strategy
From Facing History and Ourselves.
Visual Literacy Modules
From the University of Toledo
Visual Literacy Toolbox: Learning to Read Images
From the College of Arts and Humanities, University of Maryland College Park
3 Questions to Ask Yourself Next Time You See a Graph, Chart, or Map
Finding Public Domain and Creative Commons Images
What's Going on in this Picture?
Via New York Times

For Further Exploration

Visual Literacy Standards for Highere Education
From the Association of College and Research Libraries
Periodic Table of Visualization Methods
Visual Literacy in Math and Science
Visual Literacy: A New Prerequisite for Health Sciences Education?

Creative Commons and Image Attribution

Finding Creative Commons and Public Domain Images

Pixabay
Over 1.8 million+ high quality stock images and videos shared by users in the Pixabay Community.
Pexel
Collection of free stock photos with a emphasis on diversity.
Wikimedia Commons
A collection of 64,449,116 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute.
Flickr Creative Commons
Many Flickr users have chosen to offer their work under a Creative Commons license, and you can browse or search through content under each type of license.

Image Licenses & Attribution

About Creative Commons Licenses
Creative Commons licenses give everyone from individual creators to large institutions a standardized way to grant the public permission to use their creative work under copyright law. From the reuser’s perspective, the presence of a Creative Commons license on a copyrighted work answers the question, “What can I do with this work?”
Best Practices for Attribution
You can use CC-licensed materials as long as you follow the license conditions. One condition of all CC licenses is attribution. Here are some good (and not so good) examples of attribution.

Tools for Visual Creation and Collaboration

Canva
Use Canva's drag-and-drop feature and layouts to design, share and print presentations, infographics, brochures, and posters.
Piktochart
Create presentations, flyers, posters, and more with no design experience necessary.