Visual Ways of Knowing, Thinking, and Interacting

People can think and work visually, and computer graphics hardware and software are making important contributions to the visualization process. Visual thinking is a part of our basic perceptual and mental processes. Visual ways of knowing and working are important in our educational environment. They are partners to the traditional verbal and mathematical ways of knowing that we teach and encourage. The software that is being developed today and in the future must be very creative, interactive, and work with integrating multiple ways of knowing. It must be visual and use sound, sequence, and animation to communicate ideas. We must be able to manipulate and play with the form and content of our explorations and learning.