Assignment 8: Digital Imagery

I have used digital imagery in my classrooms for years; however, it has never been beyond simple decorations or representations. My students would use pictures from the web to decorate pamphlets or brochures they had designed on MS Publisher or Word. I also had them find clipart and pictures from the web and from program files to show representations of vocabulary words in content areas and in literary texts. Within the last few years, I have used digital images to represent steps in a process or classroom routine, putting them in daily schedules or checklists. My students were able to follow the class schedule, predict upcoming events and organize materials. I feel as if these strategies, especially the latter two, were enhancing my students’ learning, providing visual representations to help them understand and remember new concepts. I like encouraging my students’ use of these technologies because they almost never seem to practice these skills at home.

I think home is a great place to show your kids how to access digital images. All a household needs is a computer with an internet connection and a decent printer. Many reasonably priced models are photo printers/copiers. They can scan, copy, and print from computer files or directly from your memory card. There are also thousands of images on the internet to find. It seems to me that many parents are still uncomfortable with this technology and unsure how to use it at home. I have suggested to several parents at meetings that they could make checklists to help their children with executive functioning skills, using digital images to enhance the list. Also with my nonreaders, pictures alone represent the steps in the routine.

Getting images has never been much of and issue for me. I’ve used both photos and clipart in a variety of documents. I would also like to make more use of web cams and other applications like Google Earth. I have little experience with video and movie making. I would like to use this more in my classroom. Performing plays or recording presentations would greatly augment my instruction and enrich their experience.