If you know me you are use to seeing me with a camera. Yup, I am super sentimental and a compulsive photographer. I am also a digital scrapper. There, I finally admitted that.I have found millions of ways to use photography in my classroom. I know most bloggers are on board with this but maybe you use photography in ways I haven't thought of. Chapter two of Teaching in the Digital Age is all about this.
Here are some of the ways I use photographs in my classroom:
1. First day pictures which are used for labeling cubbies, making name charts, and cards for pocket chart work.
2. Often I use photographs to create thinking maps, sorting boys and girls, and worksheets to sustain student interest.
3. I use photographs to create emergent readers and Big Books ( Helpers At Our School and Stores In Our Community)
4. I use digital pictures to create Power Points of all kinds. Some of these are for building background in both Science and Social Studies. So I have one on the symbols of our country and use some animation to keep student interest high.
5. Often I make Photo Story 3 Movies so students can retell a special event in our classroom or a field trip wewent on. These can easily be sent to parents.
6.I use Smilebox and create simple little movies for the families I serve.
7. When I train teachers my Power Points are loaded with students doing specific activities and photos of their work. It really clarifies information.
8. Often I will email parents sight word PowerPoints or a simple movie of letters and sounds using my voice.
9. I take songs that the kids love and build a PowerPoint so they have the support of graphics and can see the text. Often I let the children work the computer while we all sing!
10. PowerPoint presentations can be printed out and made into books by just putting the pages into protective sleeves and binding.
11. The cutest thing I EVER did was take a video with my iphone of a child jumping rope successfully for the first time and I sent it to his mom. SHE LOVED ME FOR A LONG TIME.
Now technology is much more available to our students and I am thinking about some new possibilities:
1. I want to use photography more for anchor charts. Take a picture of expected behaviors at your various stations and post them.
2. Kids will have ipad cameras and will be able to use them in the classroom. I need to think about doing this effectively. This is pretty exciting stuff to me. My head is spinning!
3. Maybe I will want to take videos of students working collaboratively and show them to the class so we can have conversations and do some reflection.
4. All kinds of expository text can be created which is a big part of CCSS.
What are some of your ideas? Please join the conversation!
Read this chapter because it is full of great ideas. The author talks about using photography to build background which can be crucial for an English Language Learner.
By the way, I love to print my pictures out. I don't just store them on my computer.
Just sayin'
Great ideas. I made power points of sight words, upper and lower case letters and numbers to 30. In the beginning I would leave each slide up for about 3 seconds, which is kind of a long time and then go to "really fast"! lol! The kids loved it.
ReplyDeleteColoring Outside The Lines
I am absolutely loving your ideas. In the past I have used photos for labels and such at the beginning of the year and for our end of year slide show (which is mostly my class) but the most effective was my first year in pre-k when I had a child from Vietnam and he spoke absolutely no english. We used the pictures to teach him play ground vocabulary. It was an amazing tool. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteLove all your ideas, Fran.
ReplyDeleteI, too, LOVE using photos for all kinds of things. I've taken photos of things we've worked up on the white board before I erased it, printed it and given it to children who were still in the process of using the information (i.e. working WAY too slow when we needed to move on) so they could finish at a later date - or to those who were absent and needed to make up the assignment.
I also love using my phone to take quick pics and text them to parents when the kids to something silly or cute or whatever. I've had a parent text me a pic of her daughter's little mouth when she finally lost the tooth that had been hanging on by a thread for.ev.er.
Today's technology is just awesome.
❤Dragonflies in First ❤
I love these posts. I know exactly what book I am purchasing this summer. Did you buy the digital or hard copy? I love hard copy books especially teacher ones. What would you suggest?
ReplyDeleteI have started to make more things in PowerPoint because it is so useful. I have made a few movies with my Flip camera but I know I could do more. How are you able to keep parents in the "loop" if they don't have access to the technology? That seems to be my biggest obstacle especially with sharing photos, and videos.
You guys are so smart and creative.
ReplyDeleteSeriously. I love all your comments and creativity.
Parents who have no technology often have iphones or can access it at work. Parents find a way!
I would only buy this book in hard copy so that you can look through it and write your own personal comments.
Traci,
ReplyDeleteI love some of your ideas too! They are so clever. Technology really rocks! Someone told me she had two kids using FaceTime. They both had the same book and one child read it to the other... cool-huh?
I love using photos in my classroom too. It seems like I them a lot like you do with my class. That was so sweet of you to send the jump rope student's video to his momma. I am sure she loved it.
ReplyDeleteApril
Wolfelicious
Fran,
ReplyDeleteI also LOVE to take photos and use them in a ton of ways in my classroom...Far to many to post here, so I hope you'll click over and check out some of the fun ways I use digital photography:
Digital Photography in my Classroom
You just gave me an idea... I wanted to find come clip art to label the toy bins and manipulatives....why not take a picture of them and make them myself!!!! :) Thank you!
ReplyDeleteMichelle
Apples and ABC's
Michelle,
ReplyDeleteShow them a picture of how it should look when it is all cleaned up too and put away! This is where I think photography is so powerful!
Fran
I LOVE that idea!
ReplyDeleteMichelle
Awesome ideas and I ordered the book this morning! I have used photos in my classroom, but not in nearly enough ways. Youa re all so creative! I really like the idea of texting pics to parents and taking pictures of expected behaviors. Videos too! I have so muc to learn, but it is really exciting! Thanks Fran for your great post!
ReplyDeleteI take pictures of the students working throughout the week and post them to a password protected Shutterfly account for my parents to access. I like to take group photos of the students holding up art projects we worked on. I LOVE your digital scrapbooking-I really want to learn how to so this.
ReplyDeleteJennifer
kindertrips
I also take photos of completed puzzles for the kids the use long after the boxes get crushed and destroyed.
ReplyDeleteI love it, you all are so enthusiastic about using technology in the classroom! I also use student photos a lot on the interactive whiteboard. On the first day of school when I take their pictures for their cubbies and name cards etc I just upload them to the whiteboard too. They come in handy for lots of games all year long.
ReplyDeleteVanessa @pre-kpages.com
Join the Teaching in the Digital Age Book Study Blog Party
Taking a picture of a completed puzzle is a brilliant idea that never occurred to me. Check that idea out friends. I think Debbie Diller mentions taking a photo of what you want a center to look like when it is cleaned up and organized so the children have a better sense of what you are looking for. I love that idea too!
ReplyDeleteWe don't have white boards yet but that is a great way for them to learn each other's name quickly and easily.
ReplyDeleteThe book Teaching in the Digital Age sounds awesome. I teach kindergarten, and I think it’s extremely important to create technology enhanced learning environments for our students. This book sounds like it would be a great resource for me as I try to incorporate more technology into my classroom. I love your ideas for using digital photographs. Next year I’d like to create digital portfolios for my students using digital pictures. I checked out the Smilebox website, and I think I could use Smilebox to create these digital portfolios. I could take pictures of individual students as they complete different learning activities and then create slideshows for each student. I could then send these portfolios to parents or even watch them together at parent teacher conferences. I can’t wait to read Teaching in the Digital Age. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI am in love with all of the great ideas that I have read about. I taught Kindergarten last year. We used flip cameras to video our Share Chair during Writing Workshop. I could up-load it pretty quickly to my blog or send bits to one or two to specific parents if I saw growth that I was looking for and wanted to celebrate it. I also loved using my iphone to video creative play times to role model successful interactions. My kiddos also figured out that they liked to recruit our Middle School reading buddies to video their puppet shows. The shows would come back in i-movie with some fun music and great special effects. I am sure I could learn how - but how great is it when students want to help students? I also use a photograph collage during student conferences - I think is is a great way to be sure that parents can see the same child that I do - I can specifically show areas of growth or favorite choices or friends etc.
ReplyDeleteWe are all good teachers but when we collaborate we are fantastic. All of our students benefit. Thanks for sharing.