Guest Editors

Dr Julie-Ann Sime and Dr Chryssa Themelis,

Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning, Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University, UK.

Background

Studies in Technology Enhanced Learning is a peer-reviewed, open, online journal.  This special issue focuses on the intersection of visual literacies and visual technologies for teaching, learning and inclusion.  This includes papers that focus on theory, methodologies and empirical studies of teaching practice in any educational setting.

Visual literacy can be said to encompasses visual thinking, visual communications, visual perception, visual language and visual learning (Avgerinou & Pettersson, 2011).  These components are all relevant in the context of technology-enhanced learning, where visual literacy is a key competence or ability for participation in technology enhanced learning and online citizenship.  For the educator, visual literacy is not just about media literacy, it is also about having an understanding of how to use visual technologies in teaching, learning, reflection and evaluation. For example, through visual storytelling, visual identity and visual thinking strategies.

Technologies that use visuals to enhance learning are increasingly used in teaching, e.g. virtual reality, augmented reality, videos and animations, video-conferencing, digital comics, images, infographics and mind maps.  Strategies for the use of emerging technologies such as virtual and augmented reality are less well understood but have great potential to create innovative and immersive experiences for learners, e.g. virtual museums.  These technologies present additional challenges to online educators, e.g. how to design learning experiences that are inclusive; teacher presence and immersion.

This special issue aims to include inter-disciplinary perspectives and foster dialogue among educators, researchers, learning technologists and instructional designers on the role of visuals in technology-enhanced learning in formal, informal and non-formal settings, e.g. schools, higher education, vocational training, foreign language learning.

Scope of papers

The scope includes, for example:

• Case studies on the use of comics and graphic novels in education;

• Supporting inclusion with visual literacy & visual technologies in education;

• Cultural differences in visual literacy and use of visual technologies in education;

• Accessibility and design issues in visual communication in education;

• Teaching and learning with emerging visual technologies (such as virtual and augmented reality);

• Theory and methodologies relevant to research on the use of visual literacy and technologies in distance, online and flexible learning;

• Case studies of visual learning, visual thinking or visual communication in any educational setting;

• The effect of visuals on teacher presence and identity;

• Evaluations of tools for visual learning in schools;

• Immersive technologies for foreign language learning;

• Inclusive perspectives on technology-enhanced learning;

• Theoretical issues around inclusive and democratic teaching practices.

Papers

• Full papers should be 4000-7000 words

• Papers should follow the manuscript guidelines.

Dates

• Deadline for submission of full papers 15^th December 2020.

• Expected date of publication of Special Issue – June 2021.

Questions

If you have any questions, please email Julie-Ann Sime: [email protected]

Authors do not pay any article processing charges. 

All articles in this open, online journal will be published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.