Image Collage

What I Learned

This activity mostly lead me to reflect on the activities I choose to do in a day. Why did I choose to do these things? What makes an activity satisfying? What activities did I avoid doing on this day? Why did I avoid them?

Viewing the image as I am now, at a later date, I notice that I cannot tell in what order these photos were taken. Fisher & Frey (2008) note that "Images ... are simultaneous - [everything] becomes part of the picture at the same time" (p. 8). There is no way for a viewer to tell that I spent the afternoon making curtains while watching episodes of The White Queen, made macaroni and cheese from scratch (except for the pasta) later in the day, and wrapped it up spending time with the dog on the couch.

What the viewer can see, is the relative size of the images which show their relative importance to me, the creator. My dog, Freddie, consumes much of my time and gets a lot of my love. Freddie is in the collage twice. The curtains are next in size, reflecting the amount of time they took to make. Food is important enough to be included but not so important as to be made large. Finally the show, The White Queen, while excellent, is made small to reflect that the choice of programming is not paramount to the day's activities.

Focusing on the relative size of each image is part of what Fisher & Frey (2008) describe as "discernment" (p. 21), breaking down the visual and looking at its components. While I was not conscious these effects in the creation of the photo, it is clear through this process that my subconscious knew what it was doing.

Use in the Classroom

I think it's important for students to have a similar reflection on their days and that the act of making the collage would make this reflection a lot easier. As noted in the first chapter of Fisher and Frey (2008), what we can describe using an image might take two pages of writing. That is, a picture is worth a thousand words. The act of putting a personal collage together can also teach students how to use a particular tool. The tool I chose, www.photocollage.com, does not have a cropping or photo editing tool, so this would be a good opportunity to teach students how to use things like screen shots, the snipping tool (Windows), and basic editing software available though apps they already have access to like SnapChat. It's also a good opportunity to discuss file transfers between devices (I use Google Photos) and copy-right issues. Framing this activity as a personal collage will draw many more students in as I know there are many students who like to document their lives extensively via selfie. Later, students might do this activity again but with course-specific imagery instead of personal photographs. At this point, however, they will already have learned how to use the tools available to them. Completion of such an activity aligns nicely with the idea of story-mapping and similar concepts discussed in chapter 9 of Fisher & Frey.

As an example: My students already complete a "getting to know your partner" activity at the beginning of the year where they each draw a chip with a branch of science out of a hat, then write a paragraph together on what each branch is and one example of how they are combined (e.g. astronomy studies space, botany studies plants, together they might study growing plants as food on other planets). As a visual literacy extension, students will create a collage of their paragraph and share with another pair of students the next day. The paragraph should be finished before students leave. Ideally, students should complete 1 & 2 below before leaving while the remaining tasks can be completed as homework (or in class if time allows).

1. Access
   • Students will use www.photocollage.com for this activity or may find and use another collage tool of their choice
   • Both partners should use the same tool to enable better sharing
   • If a student chooses to use another tool, they will share it with their partner.
2. Analyze & Evaluate
   • Look at sample collages unrelated to the task
     • How has the creator made use of things like color, size, and framing?
   • What images best represent the selected fields of science? Why? Is it clear that a leaf and microscope are botany and not biology?
   • How should images be arranged to best represent the separate fields while also showing how they combine?
3. Create
   • Use the chosen collage website or app to act on the choices made in (2)
4. Reflect
   • Pair and share with another group
     • Each group should look at the other team's collage for 3-5 minutes before sharing their thoughts with the collage creators.
   • What do the images seem to say? Can you spot choices in size, color, or tone? What about framing and lighting?
   • Can you tell, without asking, what the fields of science are? Can you tell what the combined example is meant to be?
   • When sharing with the creators, what is different between what was intended and what is actually seen? What changes might be made to better get these ideas to the viewer?
   • How has creating this collage helped you understand the content?
   • How could viewing a collage help someone else understand the content?
5. Act
   • As a class, discuss commonalities among collages
     • Was it easy or difficult to interpret the collages?
     • What were some features of well-made collages?
     • What were some common improvements that might be made?
   • Were the examples chosen relevant to the past or to the future?
     • How might today's advances influence the future of each field?
     • What discovery or progress needs to be made before the futuristic examples can be realized?

References

Frey, N., & Fisher, D. (2008). Teaching Visual Literacy. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Hobbs, R., The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program, Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action, Washington, D.C.: The Aspen Institute, November 2010.