Classroom Applications for the Digital Camera

The following ideas only scratch the surface as to what the digital camera can be used for - by teachers and students. Please add you own suggestions to the list and share with others.

All of the ideas listed below are intended to be used with a Digital Camera. Once taken, the pictures can be:

shown on a classroom color monitor, transferred to video tape digitized for printing, or
used as clipart in many graphic or hypermedia software programs.

1. Create a photo journal of field trips which can be transferred to video tape or digitized.
2. Class newsletter illustrations.

3. Photos for greeting cards.

4. Photos for “valengrams.”

5. Photos of vocabulary items for speech and ESOL – allows for individualization.

6. Bulletin board photo journal of classroom activities.

7. Create a video scrapbook of student’s year: art, handwriting, portrait photos, etc.

8. Create a personal or classroom alphabet with pictures.

9. Use pictures for concept illustration (art, math, science).

10. Make an art catalogue of student work for Open House or parent review.

11. Social studies: illustrate family units, family traditions/heirlooms.

12. Create an “About the Author” section of student writing books. Edit the digital image with programs such as Microsoft Photo Editor or Paint Shop Pro. Then paste picture and word process information about the “author”.

13. Use the digital camera to create a series of still shots on a video tape. Then dub sound over the video to create a presentation on classroom activities to use for Open House, video penpals, etc.

14. Take still pictures of technology activities to combine with video tape and VCR Companion for school board presentations.

15. Use the camera to create a video yearbook.

16. Take pictures of students and include their digitized faces on worksheets and tests.

17. Take pictures of new students in school and put them on the building TV network or digitize and print their picture for posting on welcome board.

18. Take pictures of staff to digitize and post or display on TV.

19. Take pictures of animals, pets, and people then tape and use as a tool for video reports on the VCR or to supplement oral reports.

20. Use pictures for reports and presentations such as “A day in the life of…” students or teachers.

21. Take photos of support staff and then transfer to video to show to parents and students.

22. Use to add color clipart to HyperStudio.

23. Take the damera on field trips to create slide show displays and reviews that can be shown immediately on monitor, digitized for printing or transferred to videotape.

24. Create student and/or staff directories by classroom using hypermedia. When user clicks on a desk or table in the classroom, a picture of who should be sitting there appears – or, click on a face in a group picture and get background information on that student.

25. Equipment demonstrations are enhanced by having pictures of inputs, outputs, cable ends, backs of monitors, etc. to show on big screens or digitize into your handouts

26. Create a library, of digital photos to transfer to videodisc. Examples: stamp collecting, PhyEd games, Gettysburg trip, science data collecting.

27. Use digital photos for introductions and documenting strategies for software programs such as Storybook Weaver, HyperStudio, etc.

28. Use the camera to take pictures of students and insert them in the upper corner of graphic drawings created for projects.

29. For math ask students to take pictures of angles in the classroom or school yard. Example: take 5 pictures of acute angles. A collection of odd numbered things, objects that are parallel/ perpendicular. etc.

30. Science - relative position. Use the camera to show concerts or above, under, over. Also tilt or flip camera upside down to take pictures then ask where the camera was to get that picture.

31. Create sequence stories that integrate language and science: - these five pictures tell a story - you take the pictures then have students write it. Or as a HOTS activity let students take 5 pictures and create the sequence story. Example: acorn, sprout, sapling, mature oak, decayed log.

32. Have a naturalist use your camera for seasonal walks in your school yard. Then transfer the images to videotape with a dubbed audio narration by the naturalist. Copies of the tape can be passed around to many classrooms.

33. Take schoolyard pictures that show science terms such as community, food chain, web, etc.

34. Strengthen art activities by finding ex-amples of color, line, texture, shape, form, etc. in your classroom building or schoolyard. The next time students see these common objects they will " see" them from a different perspective and will have common, familiar reminders.

35. Work on perspective by having students take pictures of an object from many different points of view. Show the slides on a large monitor and have students discuss impact of position.

The following ideas are from a series of activities, which I think were, titled "Boulder Cards". They are 1970's environmental, activities which I believe were created for use with a Polaroid camera.

36. What Is Power?
Go outside and take a picture or power (Power lines, transformers, car engines, muscles, people or machines lifting things, the principal, a particular person).
More: What is power?
How do you get it"
How do you keep it?
How do you lose it?
How do you sue it?
Who has it?

37. Be An Advertiser
Create a commercial for some aspect of your environment. Use the digital camera to present a series of slides that support your position (anti-litter, against drugs, take off on a com-mercial product.).

38. Be a Changer
Take a picture of something you really dislike in the classroom or school. Then see what you can do to change it. (room, gym, books, lunch-room, computer).

39. Field Trip
On the next field trip, use the camera to bring back the "feeling” of the place you visited.
More: How does the place you visit work?
Create a biological metaphor with pictures.
How does the place you visit "eat"...what does it produce?

40. Living Together
Pictures of examples of symbioses (relationships of two types of living things) in the world around you. Determine whether they are parasites – one-organism benefits as the expense of the others: mosquitoes/people, commensal – one organism benefits but is not harmful to the other – robins/trees, or mutuals – both organisms benefit – bees/flowers.

41. Micro-Communities
Take pictures of the micro communities you can see from your classroom window or schoolyard.

42. Who Eats What Parts
Take pictures of things being eaten in the schoolyard. Milkweeds, lettuce, elm tree, apples. Who are the consumers?

43. Decomposers
Take pictures of decomposers in action. Leave some food (moistened bread, fruit) out to mold. Use your digital camera to record what is happening day to day.

44. Comparing Environments
Use the digital camera to capture different environments - classroom media center, office, teachers lounge, playground, locker room. Compare and discuss factors that make places different.

45. Interdependence
Take pictures of different things in the environment that depend on other living or non-living elements to live. Identify the dependence, record and discuss.

46. Putting Pictures In Order
Organize the class into teams. Have each team of students take a picture at some time during a week long period (this activity would be better if each team has their own floppy disk). Each team should keep the time secret from the other teams; each picture should contain a clue as to when it was taken; at the end of the week, have the students put the pictures in chronological order.

47. Tracks Or Traces
Have the students go outside and take pictures that show indirect evidence of a population of something (bird nest, foot-prints, cans, cars, desks).
More: Find footprints of a population that should be reduced.
Find footprints of a population that should be increased.
List 10 kinds of indirect evidence for populations.
Find footprints of a population that no longer inhabits this place.

48. Write A Story About Interdependence
Get any 10 photos taken at random then write or tell a story that includes all the pictures.

49. Predicting Change
Take a series of pictures that are predictable - clouds, rain drops, wet windows /sunbeam, object. shadow/clock, teacher, school book, notepaper. Explain.
More: Find and document unpredictable change.
Find something you want to change but don't think you can.

50. Who Is Responsible
Cause and effect. Take 2 pictures - one of which is responsible for the other (people/ garbage; trees/ cracked cement)

51. Comfortable And Uncomfortable
Take pictures of places where you are comfortable and uncomfortable.
More: Change your perspective. Take pictures from the perspective of a cat, bird, ant, person from another culture.

52. Similes or Metaphors
Create a list of words. Then take pictures of things in your classroom, building, or school yard that show how that object is or is not like your word.
School is like - picture of ant hill
A lifetime is like - picture of highway