Simple gadgets for your class: The Digital Camera
The digital camera is getting less expensive these days, yet all the more useful. With its promise of constant use in the classroom, teachers naturally search for creative ways to use the camera in lessons and act as a motivational tool for students.
Why a digital camera?
Digital cameras are easy to use. Extra expenses for film or developing are eliminated. And, the pictures may be viewed immediately. As long as it is connected to a computer, the pictures can be uploaded, shared, printed, emailed, imported to a program, or made into a slideshow.
Right off the bat, the camera-savvy user can already imagine PowerPoint presentations, open house displays, web or profile pages, bulletin boards, screen savers, journal writing, school newspapers, classroom project documentation, and community news for local media.
What can students do with it?
Here are several project ideas for students:
- Typical Day project - Students can keep the digital camera for the day, and take as many pictures as they want. These can be collated later as a “Typical Day in the Life of a Student.” Teachers can find out more about their students this way, from thought processes to preferred activities. They can do the same for field trips or cultural events, and it can be made into a PowerPoint presentation for parents and visitors.
- Journalism project - Students asked to write journals, put up a classroom newspaper or write an autobiography can also take photos to accompany their literary output. Teachers can use photos as a prompt for an English narrative or descriptive writing project. Take photos of students which can accompany their interviews for the classroom paper.
- Special education project - Special education students can use pictures of procedure steps to help them remember processes, and follow along on their own. For example, the teacher wants to elaborate on how to use a digital camera. The teacher can take pictures of the students themselves, and post on the wall. Special education students can then express verbally what they see in the photos.
- Art portfolios of student works for scholarship competitions.
- Advertising ideas for business math.
- Business cards and brochures for Senior Day or career day presentations.
- Weather Watch bulletin board - Teachers can bring students outside every time the weather changes, and take pictures. These weather shots can be posted on a bulletin board, and students can write a paragraph or two about their favorite kind of weather.
- Zoo project - Take close-up photos of the different exotic animals in the zoo, from an eagle’s talon to an ostrich beak. Enlarge these photos on a projector screen and have the students guess what they are.
- Science Wikis with an illustrated taxonomy of plants and animals.
- Scientific dictionary with pictures.
- Virtual nature trail. Students can go around the community and take pictures of plants and animals that can be found there. These can then be collated and organized in a virtual nature trail, and posted online for class use.
- Illustrated environment tips for an online newsletter.
Digital cameras are simple point and shoot gadgets for the classroom, giving students access to excellent technology for recording and observing their environment.
Sources:
Carlile, Candy. “Ways to Use Digital Photography in Primary School Science Lessons.” Retrieved January 6, 2010 from
http://primary-school-curriculum.suite101.com/article.cfm/a_digital_camera_in_science_class
Duncan, Deborah. “Using A Digital Camera in the Classroom.” Retrieved January 6, 2010 from
Deborah Duncan
http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~toh/image/DigitalCameraUses.htm
Wetzel, David. “Using Digital Cameras to Investigate Science.” Retrieved January 6, 2010 from
http://teachingtechnology.suite101.com/article.cfm/using_digital_cameras_to_investigate_science
(Published 18 January 2010, Smart Communications Inc.)
