Digital Media in the Classroom: Digital Camera

I worked with a great group of teachers and administrators this week as we talked about using digital media in the classroom. Their students will be involved in some activities and projects this next year which should be fun in addition to helping them learn!

I used a wiki which lists some useful resources with the group. One section has some good ideas for planning activities and projects which use technology. Copyright is frequently a concern when creating web pages, brochures, and other types of reports, so I added some information about that, too. Another section includes information just for digital cameras: project ideas, suggestions for using cameras, and applications to use with digital photos.

I will add information about other digital media to this wiki, probably later this summer. However, I'll share the wiki--as it is--with you at this point. What else would you add to the wiki about planning lessons using technology and about digital cameras?

Visit the wiki at http://digitalmediaandtools.pbwiki.com




Image: http://flickr.com/photos/nirak/1383079775/

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

Ideas for Using Digital Cameras in Your Classroom

Digital cameras are so easy to use nowadays… and they’re a great tool for both teachers and students to use in the classroom. This web page (http://coekate.murraystate.edu/camera/ideas.htm) has some good ideas for using them.

Suggestions are listed for:
• arts and humanities,
• mathematics,
• practical living,
• reading,
• science,
• social studies, and
• writing.

Some recommendations are…
• Take photos of items of a particular color. Insert the photos in a PowerPoint “booklet” for that color. This idea could be used when students are first learning colors or as they learn more about colors in art education.
• Take photos of favorites (food, colors, books, CDs). Use the information in the pictures to create a graph.
• When students make their alphabet books as they learn the alphabet, they can take photos of objects for each letter.
• Take photos of items that have a common characteristic (e.g., mammals, levers, triangles).
• Students can create their own textbooks on the weather with photos they take, illustrations they draw, and explanations that they write.
• Create a brochure about some aspect of your town: history, famous people, architecture, …
• Write a poem or story and illustrate it with photos. Or illustrate a favorite poem or story with photos.
• Write about a recent field trip and illustrate the information with photos your students took while on the field trip.

Although this web page (dated 2003) does not appear to have been updated recently, the ideas for using digital cameras in the classroom are still good.