The importance of visual education in e-learning

Abstract

In the rapidly changing learning landscape of modern globalization emerging distance learning technologies constitute valuable innovative educational methods that create new possibilities for learning and knowledge. A key feature of the material is the visual representation of information both in print and digital form. The resolution of an image is constructed by (re-) composing the multiple parameters affecting communication. The image is the message in the process. Our motivation for investigating the dynamics of visual culture in relation to the educational material used within e-learning springs from: (a) the specific nature of the information that represents the educational material that is organized and applied in the context of distance learning, and (b) the absence of visual culture in almost all levels of education, which is full of visual representations both in print and digital forms. The structure of the paper develops around two thematic pillars: (a) presenting criteria that examine the appropriateness of visual material of MOOC courses, (b) examination (through bibliographical review) of key visual elements and techniques necessary for the acquisition of skills and the development of visual intelligence through the subject of “History of Art”. In all cases of visual stimuli and all levels of visual intelligence, meaning exists not only in individual representational data and symbolic and verbal material but also in the composing forces coexisting with the actual visual description.