365 Challenge-week 1

I made it through the first week of the 365/2010 photo challenge, which means a lot since I didn’t make it that far with keeping a food journal (that only lasted 4 days).  I don’t consider myself a photographer, either professionally or even as an amateur, but I do like the idea of keeping a ‘photo journal’ of the year.

Two surprises that I have found:

  1. I see pictures everywhere. This challenge has helped me be in the ‘now’ and focus on things around me more. That is a good thing for me, since I feel I need to live in the now more often.
  2. I love looking through the other group members’ pictures on flickr. I have been posting to two groups, EdTech 365/2010, Twitter PLN 365/2010 Group regularly and one group, EduImages when I have a picture that fits the monthly theme. It has been great looking at the other pictures posted by my fellow group members. It’s like seeing parts of their world through their pictures.

As promised here are some ideas for using pictures in the classroom:

bighugelabsBigHugeLabs is a great site for doing ‘fun stuff with your pictures’. I love using the ‘Magazine Cover’ utility. I can see this being used in a language arts classroom. Students pick a picture and create headlines for it, then create a magazine cover.

Using pictures to stimulate ideas and writing prompts:

Show a picture to your students on a document camera, or give each student or group of students a picture. Engage them in one of these activities:

  1. If this were a cover of a book, what would the title be? (make up an author too)
  2. Write a short story to go along with this picture
  3. Write the first sentence for a novel that has this picture as it’s illustration, remember you want to ‘hook’ your reader.
  4. Ponder a Picture: look at this picture and write down what it makes you think of, how it makes you feel, and any questions that you have.
  5. Have students write a descriptive writing piece describing a picture. Then have another student read the piece and draw the picture they are reading about (without seeing the picture). After they are finished then have them look at the actual picture.  If the student used vivid, descriptive language in their writing piece, then the drawn picture should reflect it. (I’ve done this with 6th graders, they loved it and it was neat to see how close some of the pictures were to the actual photo)
  6. In a math classroom, have students find geometric shapes within pictures. Geometry is all around us, once students start seeing that it is amazing what they will find.

No matter how you use pictures, remember there are a plethora of choices on flickr.com that can be used by simply giving credit to the owner. Since there is a good chance this site is blocked for your students, just make sure you do the saving of the images that you want to use. When I save them I name them the flickr username so I can easily give credit as needed. You can also copy user profile urls and paste them as your photo’s note, or in a Word document.

For more information on giving credit, visit Creative Commons.

I will leave you with my picture for January 4th.

Violets in my window don't seem to mind the freezing temperatures outside.
Violets in my window don't seem to mind the freezing temperatures outside.

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