Images+and+Contemporary+Literacy

Session Description:
This session is designed for those teachers who are already aware of some of the exciting software available for incorporating multimedia into their classroom, but who would like specific, tangible guidance on when to use that software and how to scaffold for it. The session begins with a brief overview of the guiding principles behind the use of multimedia in the classroom and then provides a space for the teachers to explore challenges presented by their individual curriculum.

We will be focusing on PowerPoint, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Premier, but the seminar is designed to address the use of images purposefully, so that the discussion will be useful regardless of the tools the teacher is currently using or will be using in the future.

Presenter Bio: Tex Tourais, St. Louis, MO
After getting degrees in both English and Marketing from the College of William and Mary, Tex Tourais choose to enter the business world and was forced to endure many, many interminable PowerPoint presentations and to correct many, many terrible product shots.

Once he switched to teaching, he vowed to produce students that could use images to convey their knowledge and beliefs effectively. As a result, he spent the next 8 years modifying his upper school English curriculum to model the effective use of imaging to convey content. He has also been trialing and erroring his way through several performance based assessments designed to allow his very different students to exhibit the very different skills and knowledge they have gleaned from his classroom.

His goals as both a classroom teacher and seminar facilitator remain: 1. avoiding tedium and 2. providing concrete guidelines and examples that are easily applicable to the lives of his audience members.