One popular art course, The Photographic Vision, employs virtual field trips to enhance the student experience. Primarily an overview of photography, its history and the many genres it encompasses, this course also teaches hands-on techniques. The field trips are designed to expose students to a wealth of historical, educational and artistic knowledge directly related to each module’s topic. A visit to the American Museum of Photography provides a history of the discipline, as well as unique exhibitions and research resources. The websites of individual photographers and galleries offer high-quality, contextualized images and lessons in presentation. These in turn assist students as they complete their own photographic assignments for group critiques.

Throughout the course, students take full advantage of experts working in diverse photographic specialities such as journalism, portraiture and documentation.  At the National Geographic Magazine site, students find professional advice on specific topics such as “Taking Photos in the Rain” or “Shooting with Available Light” in addition to the vast archive of the magazine’s renown images.

During an exploration of nature photography, students visit the website of master Ansel Adams. In a culminating module on fine art photography, inspirational examples include the modern color work of Chris Enos as well as the dreamy, black and white images of Dianne Duenzl, both of Box Set Gallery.

Virtual field trips offer countless pedagogical benefits, the results of which are often evident in lively online discussions grounded in shared experience.

Glogging allows the expression of opinions, feelings and ideas in a way that isn’t possible with the use of mere words. Students can add background images and themes, graphical representations, photos, titles, audio, links and videos.  After a Glog is created, students publish and share theirs with classmates.

The slideshow shown here relies on interactive media to provide a visually-rich approach to the subject matter while giving students freedom to explore a variety of resources and topics at their own pace. While browsing the digital photos and portraits of historic and contemporary political figures, students can read notable quotes and follow links to biographical information.

In foreign language courses at CDL, we encourage students to interact with visual content in order to immerse them in the language by providing context and meaning to their learning experiences.  

The traditional ‘flash card’ approach to teaching and learning foreign language  relies primarily on memorization and subsequent translation.  Through the use of visual and dynamic content (shown above), instructors and students can rely on ostensive learning.  That is, students are able to manipulate and change visual images in order to learn, define and translate any given vocabulary word or phrase.

The use of visual tools can augment the curriculum of any language course by offering students a chance to interact with the language, and derive meaning through the provision of familiar context.