Digital+Camera

The digital camera has to be one of the most important pieces of equipment in the classroom. These days you are able to pick up a digital camera for around $100 this makes it a cheap piece of equipment. My students and I use the digital camera every day. We use it to take pictures of our learning then use in other programms. digital cameras have man advantages: pictures are immediately available, pictures are saved in graphic format and they are easily transferre from the camera to the computer. Using the digital camera is not just about taking photos but using it as a tool to help learn and understand other subjects. This page will hopefully give you some ideas to inspire you with Visual Literacy in your clssroom =All of us are watchers - of television, of time clocks, of traffic on the freeway - but few of us are observers. Everyone is looking, not many are seeing.= - Quote from Peter M. Leschak

**What isVisual Literacy?**

Visual literacy is the ability to see, to understand, and ultimately to think, create, and communicate graphically. Generally speaking, the visually literate viewer looks at an image carefully, critically, and with an eye for the intentions of the image's creator. Those skills can be applied equally to any type of image: photographs, paintings and drawings, graphic art (including everything from political cartoons to comic books to illustrations in children's books), films, maps, and various kinds of charts and graphs. All convey information and ideas, and visual literacy allows the viewer to gather the information and ideas contained in an image, place them in context, and determine whether they are valid." Thibault, M. and Walbert, D. (n.d.). //Reading images: an introduction to visual literacy.// Retrieved April 7, 2008 from []

[|Image Detective] Just like historians, students will pose questions to themselves as they look at the photos. Next, students will scan the picture, looking for details that intrigue them. Then encourage them to **speculate** about what the detail might mean -- to make intelligent guesses just like historians do. [|Pattern Photo Set] Example from a pattern photo set on Flickr. Students can create their own. [|loonapix] LoonaPix.com is a way to make funny photo online. You can make it funny using LoonaPic effect or embed your face from the photo to the various templates, add photo frame or just trim it. In other words, we can help you to make your photo funny and unique. And, notice, it is easy and free! Share picture with your friends to get a good mood for a whole day. How does it work? Just 3 easy steps to get funny picture: 1) Select service. 2) Upload photo to the website. 3) Select effect and click 'Save'. After picture has been created you can easy add it to our gallery, send photo to your friends or download to your computer from our website. Also, we provide you with a html-code, that you can easy put on your blog or profile at MySpace, Facebook, Orkut, Hi5 etc to share photo with the whole world.
 * Some activities ** I found to help explore digital Literacies

[|mapwing] Mapwing makes it easy to build, share, and explore virtual tours. Use Mapwing to turn your digital photos into virtual tours that include interactive maps, images, and comments. Then, share your virtual tours with friends, clients, or the entire world. Begin creating your own virtual tours for Free.

Here is a couple of examples from mapwing. media type="custom" key="6319285"media type="custom" key="6319297" [|Primaryaccess] PrimaryAccess is a web-based tool that offers teachers and students frictionless access to digital images and materials that enable them to construct compelling personal narratives.

** How to use a digital camera **

There is a lot to learn about using a digital camera, but we don't wont to put our students off using the camera. Teach them a few basics: How to hold a camera How to turn the camera on and off How to zoom in and out ​

media type="custom" key="9341434" **Ideas for using the digital camera**

There are so many ways in which a digital camera can be used in the classroom. The use of the digital camera supports the learning of Digital Literacy’s I have found a few ideas that you could try.
 * Assign a new "Class Photographer" each week. The children should have easy access to the digital camera. Their assignment: to capture at least 1 photo of "learning in action".
 * At the end of the day the child can upload these to you class blog explaining what has taken place.
 * My students have used the camera to take photos of different ways they can show a number they know then we have put them into comic life.

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 * Take pictures during an activity, then students must put the pictures in the correct order.
 * Use a digital picture as a writing prompt
 * Take pictures of each childs' eyes only. Have children try to match up their classmates by only their eyes. It demonstrates how distinctive and unique we really are. Oral discussion can then follow. Pictures can be printed onto paper with a lines on the bottom part of the paper. The child that is featured in the picture is then asked to write something about the picture on scrap paper. After we discuss what words need to be corrected or replaced, etc.... The child then writes on the paper with the picture.
 * Students look for geometric shapes and take the pictures and make a book of shapes and angles, or colors or things which start like “cat”
 * The students use the camera to take pictures of each other, then import the pictures into PrintShop and make bookmarks for each student. Each bookmark should have their name, picture and a compliment from another student in the class. Students love them and once the template is made, the project will not take a lot of time. If you have a school-wide video network, you can post pictures on that for all to see - sports, projects, field trips, etc
 * When you have taken your photos create a poster using glogster. This can then be embed into your blog.

One of the advantages of a digital camera is that you are able to share them with a wide audience. You can upload them to your blog (website), Facebook, Flicker or other onlinr photo sharing sites. There is many things you can do to make these a valuable ed ucation resource.
 * Photo sharing **

**Why use photo sharing?**

 * Many photo sharing sites have privacy options which means that you can set up photos so only parents in your classroom can view them. You can upload pictures of children without needing to worry about internet safety.
 * If pictures are made public, you can make a link to your picture’s URL in another website and the picture will appear on that website without using up any data allowance on that other website.
 * There are a host of uploaded images that you can download and use for non-profit purposes (check the copyright)
 * If you have photos on these sites then you are protected if your computer crashes - you will have a backup (I can speak from personal experience here! ) from www.educationalsoftware.wikispaces.com

[|****picturetrail****] Picture trail is esy to use. It has some very neat layouts to display your photos. You can upload your photos from flicker or from your computer. You do need to sign up to picture trail but it is free. A feature I like about picturetrail is that if you have saved a slideshow into you blog then want to change it latter on it automaticlly uploads the chnages to your blog. [|Imageloop] This is very similar to slide.com evn in its layout. [|Photo looks] You are able to change the look of your photos for free and without signing in at befunky. However, you are limited on what effects you are able to use.

[|Photopeach] Another slideshow site where you can upload photos or link your account to Facebook, Picasa or Flickr to use photos you have uploaded there. You can then add some music to your slideshow from some available on YouTube. Finally you can embed either a story slideshow or spiral version Photo Editing Had enough of placing your photos into slideshows? want to learn more about photo editing? There is a number of different programms on the web that can be down loaded or a free to use. [|Photoshop] is a free download. However, to use it you need to sign up which is done in 4 easy steps. Once signed in you can upload your own photos change them, resize, take out red eye etc then you can also add other graphics to your photo. media type="custom" key="6320415"

[|Picasa] is free photo editing software from Google that makes your pictures look great.This has to be downloaded. [|fotoflexer] is a free online photo editing programme. It is very easy to use with some fun features. When you have finished you can save to your computer or upload from other sites eg flicker. [|pixir] is an oline photo editing programme. This [|blog] gives some ideas to use pixir. [|pizap] is an online programme. You do not have to sign in. When your picture is created you can save as a jep or embed a code. [|Photo Editor] with this site you can [|Add speech bubbles] to your photo
 * Change colors, create montages and add text to pictures.
 * Crop, rotate and resize pictures with ease.
 * Edit photos with many different effects.
 * Add picture frames and borders.

[|Photofilter] is another photo editing programme. You do need to download it.

I found this [|Image editing tricks] site which gives you information about different techniques and problem with photos. It then links to other sites. Has a lot of information.

**There is a heap of ideas on the net for using the digital camera. Share some of yours on the wall wisher**

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** Professional Readings ** There is a lot of information on the web about this topic but here are some readings I found that were interesting. [|Visual Literacy] this reading is infromation on what is digital litercay [|Visual Literacy in the classroom] This reading gives some background infromation as well as some ideas to use in the class.