Science and Digital Photography

http://primary-school-curriculum.suite101.com/article.cfm/a_digital_camera_in_science_class

I think one subject that often gets missed when considering how to use digital imagery in the classroom is science. However, there are lots of things you can do as a class to use photography and cover the science curriculum as well.

The above site seems like an amazing resources as it has a lot of great ideas for lessons using digital photography. A couple of the ideas include creating the life cycle of the butterfly (grade two curriculum) using digital photography by taking pictures of caterpillars and butterflies in different stages of their lives. You could easily place these digital photos on a bulletin board, and it would be a first-hand visual representation that the students can refer to throughout the unit.

Another suggestion was to take pictures of the students doing a science experiment. Once all the pictures have been taken, have the students put them back into sequential order, all the while reviewing the scientific method (as seen in each photo). If you are not one for still photography, you could easily create a video of the students doing the science experiment, and then post that video on the school's website. The kids would love that!

I think it's important for us to remember that digital photography is a technology that can be easily integrated into every subject, including math and science.

Peter's Cutting and Pasting

Oh my goodness Peter, that would be so time consuming! Did that professor mean to have a picture collection for every subject taught so that you can always have a visual representation? I realize that was a while ago, but it seems very partial to the visual learner. I guess there wasn't that big of a push for differentiated instruction back then? Plus - with all that cutting and pasting, when did you have time for anything else?

Whole-word vs. Phonics?

This posting is in response to Shane's thoughts on how audio learners will learn spelling using phonics and sounding-out strategies, whereas visual learners will use whole-word strategies.

Shane - I think it's really interesting that you mentioned that visual learners will spell using the whole word versus phonics and sounding-out strategies. Teachers in the primary division will know that there has been great debate in the last decade or so about the benefits of phonics versus whole-word spelling. It's interesting to consider that once again, we need to cater to every student's needs and instruct them based on this thought. I guess it all comes down to Differentiated Instruction.

But it's so true - if you think about audio learners, they may try to spell words based on what the letter sounds 'say', whereas the visual learner will just read the entire word. We all know that there are many different types of learners in our classrooms, so how do we go about teaching spelling if there are such differences that exist. Some boards have 'solved' that problem by doing away with the phonics programs that they previously used and adoped whole-word spelling strategies instead. While this will cater to the visual learners, where does that leave the audio learners who understand words when they are chunked and broken down into sounds?

This is definitely something to consider, and it's something that reminds me that I need to reconsider how I teach spelling. I need to teach different strategies that cater to the needs of both audio and visual learners.

Assessment and the Visual Learner

A response to David and Peter's posting...

I completely agree with both of you - I think teachers (especially those who have been teaching for many years and perhaps it's all they know) tend to teach in content in order to have tests and exams as assessment tools. Teachers are often very reluctant to assess using anything but tests and exams because they are tangible, paper and pencil tasks that are "easy" to assess because they can be seen with the eye and decided whether it's the right or wrong answer.

I think a lot of teachers tend to avoid teaching in other fashions, because they are unsure of what to do to assess. I think there should be more PD on assessment in areas that are more abstract - such as oral language. Some teachers often assess the process rather than the product, and that might be a solution - but how many times can you do that?

I would be interested to find out more about this subject - as I completely agree with you. Is there some way we can cater to the students who do not learn well using the traditional model of teaching?

A Little Off Topic...

Although this posting (well, more like a rant) h$as nothing to do with digital photography, it does have to do with technology in general. I am currently applying to many boards in the southern Ontario region and the majority of them use www.applytoeducation.ca as their means of applying. Today I spent the entire day at my school scanning all of my documents (teaching reports, transcripts, police check, etc.) one by one, for every board. For some reason, I figured that having a brand new scanner at the school, things would go pretty quickly - but honestly, to scan one page, it took an average of about 2-3 minutes. Now when you think about it, I had about 7-10 pages to scan per board, and there are 9 boards that use applytoeducation.ca - that's a LONG time to be scanning. Once I was finally done scanning, I then had to upload said scans onto the actual website, which took another 2 minutes per page. Sometimes I get so frustrated with technology, and it really seems like a ironic paradox to me. We use technology because it is supposed to be so much quicker and reduces paper, etc., and yet it often takes a very long time to even scan and upload documents. Doesn't that defeat the purpose??

Lesson Ideas for Digital Photography

While researching digital imagery in the classroom, I came across the site that had many different lesson ideas that incorporated digital photography.

One lesson idea I liked in particular was the idea of giving your students only a portion of a digital photo - and as a writing activity, you can use it as a writing prompt - what's happening in the photo? What is missing in the photo? What happened before, during, after the photo was taken, etc. Picture prompts are awesome to use as a writing tool in the classroom. An alternate lesson idea or extension of this would be to have the students go around and take the digital photos and distort them in some way or cut parts of them off. Then they could trade with other students and they would use that as a writing prompt.

You could also take the photos that the students took and have your class try to put them together in some sequential way. It wouldn't have to make sense at first because ideally you would have students taking pictures of completely different things/places. However, you could put all the photos in some sort of order, and as a class you could write a story using those as your pictures.

This topic of digital imagery is so broad - lots of things you can do. I'm excited to learn more!
http://www.wacona.com/digicam/digicam.html#Lesson

Digital Photography and Special Needs

This is a posting that responded to a post from Michael regarding digital photography and special needs students.

Michael - that is such a great idea. It actually reminds me of what the grade five teacher did at my school. During the Canadian Landmark unit in Social Studies, she made a modified assignment for her very high needs student. Instead of getting him to focus on Canadian landmarks the teacher adapted it to local Sioux Lookout landmarks. What he did was drive around with an EA and take pictures of what he thought were important Sioux Lookout landmarks. Then he printed those digital photos and added captions to them, labelling what each 'landmark' was, and giving a little bit of information about each. These were typed responses completely typed by himself (big step). He put this all on a bristol board and presented it to the class orally. As an extension, the teacher had him create a large map of Sioux Lookout and he placed each digital photo (scaled down) on the map in its respective place. I really like how the teacher in your school created it like a game with velcro. That would really help the student to learn the names of important places in his city. I'll be sure to pass along that great idea to the grade five teacher in my school. Thanks!