The online environment is a visual medium. Whether you are teaching a dedicated online course, using a hybrid format, or using your online course site (Moodle or Blackboard) as a resource and enrichment component of your classroom course, “style” and design matters. Make your course site beautiful.
One way to integrate aesthetic components into your Moodle course site is to incorporate art. Art can serve several pedagogical functions:
- Introduce an affective element to your course
- Provide a visual metaphor for a complex concept
- Illustrate a concept, experience, or event
- Depict a historical character, a historic event, or a narrative (e.g., a biblical passage)
- Provide an example of an interpretation of an experience, a biblical passage, an emotion, or a concept
- Provide an element of wonder
- Provide a visual prompt to aid in recall and retention
- Reinforce facts about a person or event with a visual placeholder related to a historical context
- Reinforce facts about a place with a visual placeholder related to a geographical context
- Serve as part of an induction exercise.
When using graphics and design elements be sure there is a specific pedagogical or design FUNCTION the image will provide for the student learning experience. Posting images of puppies or fluffy kittens adds no pedagogical value and merely confuses your students (unless you’re teaching about puppies and kittens, of course).
Here’s a great resource site for art and historical images: the Smarthistory from the Khan Academy is a leading open educational resource for art history. Their high-quality art history content is made freely available to educators. The site offers more than 600 videos and hundreds of articles in addition to hundreds of images.
The site itself is a great example of elegant visual design for an online learning experience.
Israel Galindo is Associate Dean for Lifelong Learning at the Columbia Theological Seminary. Formerly, he was Dean at the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond. He is the author of the bestseller, The Hidden Lives of Congregations (Alban), Perspectives on Congregational Leadership (Educational Consultants), and A Family Genogram Workbook (Educational Consultants), with Elaine Boomer and Don Reagan.
Galindo contributes to the Wabash Center’s blog for theological school deans
