"In the scholastic world's quest to pinpoint new "literacies," one of the most essential skills in a student's toolkit isn't new at all. "Graphicacy" is the vital proficiency with visual inputs that all learners must master in the modern classroom. Graphicacy refers to the encoding and decoding of images, particularly in the close examination of details that construct visual meaning. It stands with literacy, oracy, and numeracy as one of the four indispensable corners of education."
Via Beth Dichter
In education we talk about a variety of literacies, and one that comes up more often today is visual literacy, which may also be referred to as graphicacy. This post explores this concept providing a historical perspective as well as links to a number of excellent resources.
There are also many visuals with the post, including the one above that looks at the many forms of graphicacy that we see in our classrooms (and provides a number of definitions). Many of these forms may be created by students using technology.
There is also a short video, To Understand is to Perceive Patterns, that looks at how patterns in nature are repeated.