Visual Literacy and the net's impact

Visual literacy is a needed skill for all students.  If a student is visually literate, they are better prepared to succeed in school and society.  I think the impact on teaching with the use of internet and visual learning is profound. In using visual organizers in class via Kidspiration or Inspiration software, for example, students are scaffolded into the automatic process of thought that most adults use.  An online thesaurus called Visual Thesaurus at http://visualthesaurus.com looked promising as a visual resource my students could use and it even had multiple meanings divided into parts of speech.  But honestly, the overall layout was not age appropriate and a little overwhelming.  I really like the tutorials offered at my curriculum website for math at http://www.macmillanmh.com because it is age appropriate and the "teachers" work through the problem step by step for each chapter and you can pause it whenever needed.  I have decided I want the Internet to play a large role in my classroom as I am more willing to try new things right away and not get discouraged if one doesn't work well.  Our attempt at a fable WebQuest today went very well and the feedback and enthusiasm was terrific.