Using photos and the camera tool

[simongreen]

Here's a tip about using photos:

Build up a folder of snapshots of the school, your classroom, even your students themselves. Photos of the local area, and your town’s principal monuments, can also help to make flipcharts relevant to your students.

Any more tips when using images? Also, how do you use the Camera tool in lessons?

Simon

[Margaret Allen]

Using the freehand camera snapshot tool to personalise characters in stories.

Pull out the Three Bears, or Hansel and Gretel and "change" the face of the character by grouping a cut out of a child's photograph with the character.... This would be a great way to initiate play script writing. To have three or four characters "personalised" in this way would mean that the dialogue would be much easier owned by the children and hey presto you have a play! [clap]

I once saw a teacher who had ability groups under hidden boxes. The learning objective was typed onto the box and the children had to try and decide which Target was best suited to them. This gave a sense of ownership to their learning as they were needing to be very subjective about the curriculum.

I think having a class set of photos is a must in the library and then various variations on this ie ability groups, learning style groups, etc... +wave+

[Westlake]

I used my cellphone in a demo to some English teachers - snapped one of them 'doing a Juliet' on the stairs into the building.
I pxted the image to the teacher's email address, ran inside and picked up the image from the Network and placed it over a great image from Verona tourism of "Juliet's balcony'" (Google: Verona Juliet balcony)
A real 'wow' moment.

Hilary
PS we also used the Sound Recorder to have Juliet speak those immortal lines...

[sdreyer]

During the first week of school our PreK and Kindergarten teachers take picutes of their students, edit them in to a thumbnail size in ARMADILLO (http://www.tech4learning.com/support/barmadillo.html) and add them to their Resource Library.

Students start using the board by dragging their picture to a daily graph prepared by the teacher. About a month later student name buttons are made .

[caryn]

I used the photos from a school trip. The children then sequenced them (one a page) and added their own thoughts about the activities. Then they recorded their own voices to match the script. Hey Presto we had a personal multi media Big Book about their trip.

[rgarden]

The camera tool has to be one of my favourite tools!
In Science, take photos of equipment, use the camera tool to put them into a flipchart. Use the pen to annotate or create labelling activities. I have found this to be particularly effective when teaching electrical circuits. Put the circuit diagram on the flipchart, then arrange the photos of the equipment and use the pen to draw the wires. (Example attached). Never have the students been so confident constructing electrical circuits!
Some other Ideas:
Take photos of experimental setups / results. Great for showing students who have been absent.
Take photos of plant growth, animal life cycles, dissections, leaf identification
In Maths give the students the digital camera to take photos of angles in the school grounds. Download them and put onto a flipchart. Use the protractor to measure the angles. Are wheelchair ramps all the same angle? What angle should they be? Do a "geometry walkabout" and take photos of geometric shapes.
Create a simple puzzle. Put a grid on the page behind an image and use as a guide to snap pieces of the image with the camera tool. Muddle the pieces up and get students to put the image back together.
Go to Google Maps http://www.maps.google.com/. Use the camera tool to snap a map and put it onto a flipchart page. Change to the satellite image and use the camera tool again - it will be in exactly the same place as the map. On the flipchart page put the satellite image on top of the map and use the translucency slider (or create an action) to reveal the map.
The list is endless . . . .

[Westlake]

Use images from your Scanner - maps, diagrams and text obviously BUT also plant material eg. sporangia on fern frond, leaf details (if you zoom the image on the board it is amazing how much detail you can see), flower parts - sweet corn staminate flowers for example - see the filaments quite clearly.
Scan fabrics to show the fabric structure, also garment construction details - again the zoom tool reveals a lot of detail. Scan the pattern envelope (thanks for that idea Robyn) to go through with the class all the combinations of fabric widths and pattern options.

Hilary

[J Boucke]

In Math where we try to have students "discover" the "rules" I like to use digital photos of my students combined with "word balloons" into a group saved in my resource library. That way when one of my students "discovers" a math "rule" the student's picture is dragged out, the rule is typed into the balloon, it is all grouped and stored in the resource library. Later in the year when the "rule" makes another appearance I open the library and out pops one of our resident "rule makers" from earlier in the year. Students associate the rules with fellow classmates. It's great fun.

[Stewart]

Take some pictures of the children in the class. Use the freehand camera to crop, say, one of the boys from the photo. Place a picture of a desert full screen size onto a flipchart page and put the picture of the boy in the middle. Now bring him out to the front of the class and get him (with his classmates help) to describe what he sees and what he might feel. Being able to 'see' himself in the desert gives him plenty of ideas for his description. Try the same with a picture of a river but cut through the picture of the student at the waist and place it in the middle of the river. This gives the impression they are up to their waist in water. Good starting points for descriptive writing!

[LisaD]

What a fun idea! Kinda like "Where in the World is..."?

Here's some sample pages with my son! That was amusing!

Lisa

[leslieramsey]

Also - with the Freehand Camera Tool option -
...for Social Studies teachers who do a lot of lessons with maps...trace around each country, state, or other smaller geographic area on the map, and put this cut-out piece right back on top of the area you traced around (so that you cannot tell there is a second layer there). Double-click on it, and attach an action to that piece of the map - go to a website, start a video, play a National Anthem, play a recording of "Hello" in that country's language, go to another page or document that provides more information about it, etc.
...for Biology teachers creating lessons about human or animal anatomy...use the Freehand Tool to trace around individual body parts or bones on a skeleton, then put the captured part back in its place on the body, double-click on it, and likewise link related websites, videos, sounds, and other resources.

Personally, I love to demonstrate the Freehand Tool by superimposing cut-outs of my face and Robert Redford's [young] face on Cinderella and Prince Charming. Sigh! One can dream, can't one?:o