Legal History as the Perfect Vessel: Teaching with Infographics for the Development of Digital Visual Literacy Skills in Law Students
Digital literacy development must be regarded equally essential as the development of other literacies and critical thinking skills in Bachelor of Laws students. Because law teachers do not include visuals in learning materials, law students do not develop the skills to effectively interpret them....
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | Afrikaans |
| Published: |
North-West University
2023-11-01
|
| Series: | Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://perjournal.co.za/article/view/15664 |
| _version_ | 1827673596446638080 |
|---|---|
| author | Andrea Bauling |
| author_facet | Andrea Bauling |
| author_sort | Andrea Bauling |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description |
Digital literacy development must be regarded equally essential as the development of other literacies and critical thinking skills
in Bachelor of Laws students. Because law teachers do not include visuals in learning materials, law students do not develop the skills to effectively interpret them. Digital visual literacy (DVL) is one of the core digital literacies law teachers can advance in their students to prepare them for our visually-driven world. Legal historical course material is the perfect vessel for visual learning materials in law, as these can effectively communicate the spacio-temporal aspects of legal history and legal historical development. A recent empirical study of the views of South African students of legal history indicated their positive sentiments toward a wide variety of visual learning materials and the inclusion of instructor-generated summary infographics in online learning materials. They were also in favour of the
inclusion of descriptive visuals like timeline infographics containing additional visual elements in legal historical course content. The study also indicated that reading and interpreting infographics aid the development of DVL skills, and the more infographics students interact with, the better they become at interpreting them. Since the instructor-generated summary infographic can be designed to communicate information about a specific module, it is suited to teaching any legal content. Visual learning artefacts can be created and sourced in numerous ways, but the process can be time-consuming. Sharing these amongst colleagues and institutions as open educational resources (OER) will ultimately aid a collective project aimed at the development of the DVL skills of South African law students. The article provides examples of instructor-generated summary infographics based on legal historical course content, distributed as freely available OER.
|
| first_indexed | 2024-03-10T04:26:57Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-9a337aeb55d74a208fe5969cc38419a3 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1727-3781 |
| language | Afrikaans |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-10T04:26:57Z |
| publishDate | 2023-11-01 |
| publisher | North-West University |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal |
| spelling | doaj.art-9a337aeb55d74a208fe5969cc38419a32023-11-23T06:41:25ZafrNorth-West UniversityPotchefstroom Electronic Law Journal1727-37812023-11-012610.17159/1727-3781/2023/v26i0a15664Legal History as the Perfect Vessel: Teaching with Infographics for the Development of Digital Visual Literacy Skills in Law StudentsAndrea Bauling0University of South Africa Digital literacy development must be regarded equally essential as the development of other literacies and critical thinking skills in Bachelor of Laws students. Because law teachers do not include visuals in learning materials, law students do not develop the skills to effectively interpret them. Digital visual literacy (DVL) is one of the core digital literacies law teachers can advance in their students to prepare them for our visually-driven world. Legal historical course material is the perfect vessel for visual learning materials in law, as these can effectively communicate the spacio-temporal aspects of legal history and legal historical development. A recent empirical study of the views of South African students of legal history indicated their positive sentiments toward a wide variety of visual learning materials and the inclusion of instructor-generated summary infographics in online learning materials. They were also in favour of the inclusion of descriptive visuals like timeline infographics containing additional visual elements in legal historical course content. The study also indicated that reading and interpreting infographics aid the development of DVL skills, and the more infographics students interact with, the better they become at interpreting them. Since the instructor-generated summary infographic can be designed to communicate information about a specific module, it is suited to teaching any legal content. Visual learning artefacts can be created and sourced in numerous ways, but the process can be time-consuming. Sharing these amongst colleagues and institutions as open educational resources (OER) will ultimately aid a collective project aimed at the development of the DVL skills of South African law students. The article provides examples of instructor-generated summary infographics based on legal historical course content, distributed as freely available OER. https://perjournal.co.za/article/view/15664Legal HistoryInfographicsDigital visual literacy online legal educationvisual learning in law open educational resources |
| spellingShingle | Andrea Bauling Legal History as the Perfect Vessel: Teaching with Infographics for the Development of Digital Visual Literacy Skills in Law Students Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal Legal History Infographics Digital visual literacy online legal education visual learning in law open educational resources |
| title | Legal History as the Perfect Vessel: Teaching with Infographics for the Development of Digital Visual Literacy Skills in Law Students |
| title_full | Legal History as the Perfect Vessel: Teaching with Infographics for the Development of Digital Visual Literacy Skills in Law Students |
| title_fullStr | Legal History as the Perfect Vessel: Teaching with Infographics for the Development of Digital Visual Literacy Skills in Law Students |
| title_full_unstemmed | Legal History as the Perfect Vessel: Teaching with Infographics for the Development of Digital Visual Literacy Skills in Law Students |
| title_short | Legal History as the Perfect Vessel: Teaching with Infographics for the Development of Digital Visual Literacy Skills in Law Students |
| title_sort | legal history as the perfect vessel teaching with infographics for the development of digital visual literacy skills in law students |
| topic | Legal History Infographics Digital visual literacy online legal education visual learning in law open educational resources |
| url | https://perjournal.co.za/article/view/15664 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT andreabauling legalhistoryastheperfectvesselteachingwithinfographicsforthedevelopmentofdigitalvisualliteracyskillsinlawstudents |