Thursday, July 2, 2015

Thing 2: Photo Fun





I decided to start with Thing 2 because one of my goals this summer is to work on my photography skills. We've had various point-and-shoot cameras through the years, then phones and iPads, but I've always been a pretty awful photographer. When someone at school asked me for photos of students doing projects this spring, the photos I snapped and sent along were met with a polite "um, maybe a parent volunteer could come in and take some pictures." Mine were really that bad. 

When my family campaigned for a new camera recently, our boys being wannabe videographers who envision YouTube fame in their future, I agreed. It could only help, right? And it has. It's not a fancy camera--just a point-and-shoot with nifty settings--but it has spurred the whole family to look around for good photo ops. I took the above photos in Ithaca's Cascadilla Gorge (a beautiful trail that runs from the heart of downtown up to Cornell University), then assembled the collage using PicMonkey. I shared it via Instagram, which I've used for a while now and really like. It's uncluttered and simple, a nice little window into the moments people share.

At school, my middle school principal is really trying to get staff to use Twitter as a tool to inform parents and the community about the terrific things happening in our building. I like tweeting photos because they can enrich those 140 characters (and, luckily, the no-photo list for our students is so short that I have it memorized, which makes it much easier to share!). 

So, how am I going to incorporate photography into lessons at school? Several things come to mind:
  • At the elementary school, work with the 2nd grade team that's planning a project based learning unit on the local community. One aspect might be a walking tour of the town, and students could easily snap photos of places that catch their interest. These could then be added to a map for an online walking tour of Trumansburg.
  • Upper elementary students and their younger Reading Buddies could do an alphabet scavenger hunt around the school and photograph the items they find.
  • In my middle school Maker Club, students could work on photography projects (I've shown them PicMonkey in the past and they just love it).
For previous projects, like digital storytelling with 5th graders, I've used lots of Creative Commons photos. Some of my favorite sites: 






2 comments:

  1. Love the photo project ideas! Reminds me of an "I Spy" project I worked on years ago: http://www.mvls.info/ispy/index.html Have fun with the new camera.

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  2. Thanks, Polly! The "I Spy" project might be fun for my 2nd graders!

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