Photojournalism: Microcomputer Text Editing and Photography—Synthesis and Divergence

Early in 1981 the Minnesota Alliance for Arts in Education funded a project in photography for secondary-level hearing-impaired students at Coon Rapids junior High School. Photography was used as a key component of the program; the other key instructional area was microcomputer text editing (or word processing).

Using branching networks as a curriculum guide, text editing and photography became the base from which nearly every academic area could be taught, reviewed, or remediated; and they provided goals and motivation for the students. The divergence was taking a specific topic (photojournalism) and breaking it down with the students into its component parts. Then, as synthesis, using those same topics to create something of their own—something different and new.

One of the initial goals was a major exhibit of photographic work at the end of the funding period; it urns the motivation during the photojournalism project that was even more significant, since it was not business as usual for a mainstream-basis junior high. It also gave the hearing-impaired students at least two impressive skills that few of their hearing peers possessed. In a school with 1,800 students, that was an important feature.

Beyond the scope of the project, students used the word processing system as a supplementary tool for academic classes into which they are mainstreamed. Timesaving, organization, future studies, and computer literacy were added benefits directly addressed within the period of the project. Using the branching networks, the project incorporated at least 40 separate units that supported mainstream classes, and yet still deviated from the “resource room workbook syndrome” in which many students unknowingly find themselves bound.