Reading Blog #1

This reading on Visual Literacy was extremely interesting and relevant to the times we're in today. This article was written in 2009 and many of the author's predictions about how the learning landscape would change, and what young people should be learning in order to adapt to a new visual/digital age have come true. I agree with most of the key skills the author suggests young people should be learning, but had she written the article in 2024, she would've certainly added the use of AI, something that wasn't around in 2009.

Although in my education as a Product Design student we have a heavy focus on visual literacy, visual communication, and design, I think the author would be surprised by how little most disciplines have changed in a university setting away from the typical left-brain way of thinking. I still have a significant amount of learning that is done through the typical process of reading, retaining information, and test-taking. Many of my friends studying less atypical subjects such as engineering and economics experience this type of learning to a much higher degree.

Educators are, and should continue to push their curriculum more towards being an effective mix of multi-media that will increase visual literacy. For our generation, the combination of developing our own visual communication skills through existing software's combined with understanding and being able to harness AI will result in a vastly more productive workforce. While there's certainly a need for today's student to be proficient in the typical "left-brain" style of learning and communication to be able to fit in to areas/careers that haven't begun to make a shift towards visual communication or perhaps don't need to, visual literacy and communication skills will be a necessity in 10 years from now.