Video in the classroom

     When we walk into a classroom and see students watching a movie we immediately think that the teacher is slacking that day and needs to relax. We rarely believe that true learning can come from a movie such as Robin Hood or The Messenger. The truth of the matter is that it can. For our children of the 21st Century we have to give a visual representation of all that we teach them. They have to understand how what they are learning in the classroom is situated in their reality. This is what videos bring into the classroom, especially for history when concepts of the past seem to not relate to the present. The use of video is medium to bridge the past with the present. It also helps them to understand the importance of people, documents, and events of the past and how they in essence helped to shape our future. So the next time you walk into a classroom where the teacher is showing a video ask why the students are watching a video vs. assuming it is mind junk.

As Eisner says literacy "is the ability to encode or decode meaning in any of the forms of representation used in a culture to convey or express meaning."