What have we lost between the visual and textual
media?
The mental discipline it takes to grasp a concept in
text is far more demanding than a picture. However
pictures, graphics and videos communicate ideas faster.
Thus the student is able to grasp more information in an
allotted time. But do they remember it as easily? Will
they have the ability to figure things out as easily in
the future. Is visual learning good or bad? Is it
productive or non productive for education?
A combination of both text and visual is necessary
but are we loosing the mental agility of the textual
media as we move into the visual media in education?
It's great to see a video of a car repair when your
doing it for the first time. Haynes and Chilton's were
able to get away with unimaginative documentation, before
the days of the internet, but now their inadequate work
is exposed. Amateur web sites and now videos show step
by step details on the exact same repairs I've had to do
on my vehicles.
Japan's educational system has moved online faster
than any other country in the World. Scripted learning
tools are assisting the student with progress and
learning. Not only can the student see where they are on
their journey to learn a new subject, but they can get
feedback on areas they need to cover again. That's
something textual learning was unable to do without the
expensive aid of a teacher.
