A Perth professor is calling for the teaching of graphics to be given equal importance to literacy and numeracy in response to the "enormous communication revolution" that is being dangerously ignored by educators and politicians.
Curtin University Professor Richard Lowe said the use, complexity and variety of graphics had soared in the past 15 years and would be one of the most important languages in the 21st century.
But most people did not properly understand or know how to produce images, diagrams and animation, putting them at risk of falling behind the rest of society, similarly to those who were illiterate.
1 - Imagine you are a visitor to France and you see this display in a railway station. Should you:
a. Catch a taxi because your train has been cancelled
b. Use the stairways to find a coffee shop while you wait for your delayed train
c. Rapidly escape from the station because there is a terrorist threat
d. Change platforms to find your replacement train service.
"Because people today live in a very digital world, we're constantly surrounded by images and graphics," Professor Lowe said.
"It's penetrating absolutely everything. It really has just exploded in its variety and its impact and how widely it's being used.
"That's not to say that literacy and numeracy aren't important, because they are, but really the scene has moved along considerably."
Professor Lowe, who has analysed the use of graphics for 20 years, said "absolutely everything" now required the ability to interpret graphics, from watching weather and financial presenters on television to following Ikea's wordless instructions for do-it-yourself furniture projects.
2 - This diagram shows the internal workings of a traditional piano. Which of the following best describes what will happen when you press the right hand end of the key?
a. The hammer and damper both move to the left
b. The hammer moves left and the damper moves right
c. The hammer moves right and the damper moves left
d. The hammer and damper both move right
Public health campaigns also were taking advantage of animation to present visually emotive messages, such as anti-smoking TV advertisements that took viewers inside a smoker's body, while images were vital for portraying transport-related information.
"Visualisations are no longer just nice to have but they've become absolutely crucial to the way we communicate," Professor Lowe said.
"They're not just decorative or nice things to break up a block of text or to entertain people; now they're essentially a very, very important form of information that's used widely across the professions."
As well as interpreting graphics, it was essential to be capable of writing and producing images and diagrams that communicated clearly and effectively.
"If graphic information is wrong, you can have all sorts of things misinterpreted, you can give the wrong impression, you can create dangerous situations ... so it's really, really important," Professor Lowe said.
Yet politicians and the general public continued to "beat the literacy and numeracy drum", failing to recognise how computers and electronic technology had rapidly transformed communication.
"They're really preaching about things that were the most important information types of the past but are largely unconcerned with the sorts of information that will be the future of society," Professor Lowe said.
"It's really taken people by surprise. They're not ready because they're so focused on 'everyone needs to read and write and do sums'.
"It's a bit like the elephant in the living room; it's not being noticed but boy it's going to have a huge impact."
3 - In which season would we most probably have a weather map that looks like this?
Murdoch University senior lecturer in media studies, Dr Josko Petkovic, said as images continued to become increasingly vital in communication, "'diagrammatic' and 'artistic' thinking will be judged ahead of 'analytical' thinking in tertiary institutions for no other reason than because it works better".
"This is another way of saying that in a world which is ever more reliant on images and image-based communication, academics who do not have such skills may well be considered to be intellectually handicapped compared to those that are able to communicated with images," he said.
"The flourishing media and new media programs are already an evidence of this trend."
Curriculum Council acting chief executive officer Allan Balgaich denied the state's schools did not adequately teach graphicacy.
"Even though the term graphicacy is not used in syllabuses, it is seen as an important aspect of literacy and is the responsibility of all the learning areas from pre-primary to Year 12," Mr Balgaich said.
"Students are taught to navigate, interpret, design and control visual and graphic information. The visual representations can often help explain complex concepts."
1. d) Change platforms to find your replacement train service
2. b) The hammer moves left and the damper moves right
3. a) Summer
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