Digital Cameras and Visual Literacy

My father-in-law, Barney, has a new toy - a Canon Rebel SLR Digital Camera. He couldn’t have been more pleased by the shade of green I turned with envy when he showed it to me.

I’ve loved taking pictures since my baby brother was born. At age nine, my camera was a Brownie, if I remember correctly. I still have some of those affectionately taken 2×3 snaps around somewhere. I graduated to an Instamatic (remember flashcubes?), to a Polaroid, to a used Pentax SLR in grad school, to a new Pentax and big zoom lens that I used to shoot Kodachrome slides while on vacations.

But there was no looking back when I used the first QuickTake digital camera we purchased for the district. Wow. The pure luxury of shooting dozens of photos and tossing 98% of them without additional cost was intoxicating. iPhoto and Adobe Elements were a huge bonus - quick reliable photo editing. And more recently, the ease of using photo sharing sites like smugmug and give friends and relatives the ability to see and download photos as well. (On a recent bicycle tour in France, many of us riders swapped sharing sites.)

Digital photography seems to be one of the first and most simple technologies adopted willingly by classroom teachers. Simple cameras, simple editing software and cheap color printers have allowed teachers to create personalized booklets, posters, timelines, and bulletin boards, often with pictures taken by the students themselves. Powerpoint presentations with photographs help reach those visual learners.

I like the ways our clever T-Ls in the district use digital photography as well:
- to illustrate presentations to the school board, PTOs, and community groups with pictures of happy, productive, library-using kids (HPLUKs)
- to illustrate their parent newsletters with pictures of HPLUKs
- to promote reading by creating personalized “READ” posters of both kids and the role model adults in the buildings hold favorite reads

I am concerned whether we are doing enough to teach some basic principles of visual literacy - or at least, what are the qualities that make a photograph a good photograph. Like teaching a word processing program and ignoring good composition and editing skills, are we asking kids to take pictures, but not showing them how to compose and edit the images they create?

When we think about “integrating technology into the curriculum,” I hope we remember that digital photography is a simple and effective way to do this.

What are some ways you’ve seen digital photography being used productively in schools?

Comments

[digital camera]

Great blog on visual literacy. Thanks for sharing. This helps to increase awareness among public about photography.