In the article A Teacher’s Use of Digital Video with Urban Middle School Students: Expanding Definitions of Representational Literacy by Jayne Beilke and Matthew Stuve, the authors tell of a case study in which a teacher in an inner city Indianapolis school used digital video to create interest in student reading. The teacher had students create videos of themselves playing basketball. But in order for them to have the privilege of making these videos they had to read a book every three weeks.

     A statement that I found interesting stated “the challenge for teachers…is to provide students with the tools to tell their own stories.” Students need these tools in order to create “a narrative through representational literacy that will close the divide between text-bound classrooms and meta-textual worlds” (Beilke and Stuve, 2004). Essentially teachers need to be able to teach their students how to tell their own stories by using representational literacy. Once students are able to create this narrative, they will close the divide between the traditional classroom and the classroom that utilizes the latest innovations in technology for learning.

     Another concept that I found to be interesting was that visual literacy consists of the ability to understand and express something in terms of visual materials. In essence, visual literacy is the idea that there is meaning within visual materials that can be manipulated and presented in such a way that a specific meaning is conveyed to others. In the case study of the teacher in the school who used video to create interest in reading, the students were using visual literacy to create the videos. The students saw meaning and information being conveyed through their actions, the images, the surroundings, and other elements. They used the video as a visual element to convey a message of how important basketball was to them.

     However, it is interesting to think about how these videos may be viewed by others. In Learning by Visualizing With Technology: Recording Realities With Video the author discusses how television has been used as an educational device for students. In the early 1980s, a problem was found with the current state of television in education. “Students realized that they would not be responsible for understanding any of the information contained in the television shows.” As a result television became an “electronic baby-sitter or substitute teacher.”

     In the videos made by the Indianapolis school students there was no direct educational information presented. These videos were made with the intent that it was an incentive for students to read and hopefully create an ongoing interest in reading. If these videos were shown to other students it is highly likely they would perceive them as entertainment. They would not notice the educational content. There probably wasn’t a direct educational message presented in the videos made by the students but it is almost certain that there were educational elements that were inadvertently included in the videos. However, as other students watched these films they would view them as a form of entertainment because they knew that they would not be tested on the information being presented in them. Most of the students would view these videos in the same manner and mindset that they watch television at home, in a passive and non-cognitive mode of thinking.

     In the case study where students made videos of basketball and some moves they could perform, it was intended that students would become more interested in reading and want to read in the future. However, I doubt that the incentive of making these videos had little effect on creating a sustainable interest in students to continue reading. And even if other students were to view these videos it is doubtful that they would look at these videos as anything more than entertainment. Children have been conditioned by television programming to be passive recipients of information and do not actively engage themselves in the material being presented. With the students making the movies they most likely met the “criteria” in order to make these videos and after the project was complete they probably did not change to any new reading habits. It is almost certain that the majority of the students’ perspectives and views on reading were changed very little if at all.