Digital Video Cameras, Main Ideas, and Supporting Details: The Process and Potential

Abstract

Understanding and explaining the relationships between main ideas and supporting details are well-known and necessary processes in transitioning adult learners to college-level literacy abilities (Neufeld, 2005). The use of digital video cameras, which students operate to film each other, offers a dynamic 21st-century option to investigate and teach critical thinking, reading, and writing processes.In this article, we present pedagogical examples from an ongoing action-oriented research project for integrating digital video cameras into the instruction on reading and writing processes in pre-college courses. We first provide a brief explanation of a theoretical approach grounded in older Vygotskian and newer semiotic approaches to adult literacy, all of which support the idea that social interaction is germane to understanding human cognition (Tbmasello, 2003; van Lier, 2004; Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch, 1998). We then present a specific process-Main Idea Video Presentations-for integrating digital video cameras into students' productions of summaries and responses to readings. Finally, while referring back to the overall theoretical approach, we present a brief summary of student exemplars from our data pool to demonstrate the process and potential of these methods. We begin with our overall theoretical approach.Signification, Mediation, Pointing, Intention-Reading, and Joint Attentional FramesOf particular importance to our action-based research and classroom procedures are the processes of signification, mediation, and the concepts of intention-reading and Joint Attentional Frames (Tbmasello, 2003). Each of these processes and concepts are inseparable from the act of pointing, which is a crucial part of communication and language learning, and emerges early in human development; pointing also develops as part of the many semiotic systems that are a part of human existence (Kita, 2003; Tbmasello, 2003; Vygotsky, 1978). Before providing more on the act of pointing and the creation of Joint Attentional Frames, we first present signification and mediation.SignificationSignification can be generally understood as the process of assigning meaning to objects, ourselves, and the world around us (Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch, 1998). One illustrative paraphrase of a well-known Vygotskian (1978) description of signification is the idea of tying a knot in rope to indicate the number five, as in the first duck farmer who ran out of fingers and toes to count her ducks. Suppose she grabbed the nearest vine, tied a knot, and assigned each knot to mean five ducks. The knot is now a sign that stands for five ducks, and this is precisely the kind of mind-inseparable-from-sign cognitive relationship that is prominent in the field of semiotics (see Eco, 1976; Peirce, 1991), the process of creating and using signs (see van Lier, 2004, p. 57).MediationSignification is also inseparable from the process of mediation, which can be described as the use of concrete objects and abstract signs and concepts to regulate and monitor mental activity. This idea can be illustrated in the use of knots as mediational means (Wertsch, 1998, 2007) for the farmer who needs to calculate how much grain she needs for her ducks. Perhaps the farmer will also draw a map to mediate a plan for how much land she needs to clear for grain. As the farmer creates additional mediational means for regulating her physical activity with the world, she works with more complex, layered systems of mediational means (see also Davydov, 1999), including language.The Act of PointingKita (2003) argues that all pointing activity is foundational to human communication and cognition (see also Goodwin, 2003; McNeill, 2005; Tbmasello, 2003). Concrete and abstract deictic gestures (i.e., pointing gestures) are ubiquitous in our everyday communications. For example, when asked the question, Do you live around here? it is very common to see people in a conversation point at the floor, and perhaps in the general direction of another town, or over their shoulders to indicate a past event (see McNeill, 2005). …