“Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.”
– Marc Riboud
Learners of all ages love taking pictures, especially with their phones. Learners can use these photos in projects, digital stories, or other learning projects to provide an authentic voice and to show the learning that is taking place all around them. You can also have learners go on photo challenges and missions instead of assigning typical homework. Students go on a mission to take a photo that represents the learning they are doing in your class that they also see in their homes or environment. Below are slides followed by some recommended apps and web tools to help get you started getting your students to visualize their learning with photo projects and challenges. Find the bookmarks here. If you like these ideas then be sure to check out my new book published this summer with more ideas, Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions in Your Classroom.
Get your copy of my books, The 30 Goals for Teachers or Learning to Go. Ask me about training your teachers, ShellyTerrell@gmail.com!
Activities & Recommended Apps
- Give photo missions or challenges, such as take a picture of a fraction and create a word problem, take a photo of an object that represents a geometric shape, take a photo that represents a verb, or take a photo of graffiti you consider art and provide support for what makes this art. You decide the challenge to go along with the lesson.
- Your students can try any of these image editing apps- Instagram, Snapchat, Pixlr, BeFunky, Pic-Collage, EduBuncee, Canva, Pic Arts, Frame Artist, Muzy, Photo Editor by Aviary, You Doodle, and ImageChef.
- Get students to go on a Back to School Selfie Adventure. Find my post here with a free PowerPoint template for students to use. Some great selfie apps include CamMe, Snapchat, Instagram, Selfit, and Group Shot. You can also try the ones listed above.
- Students can create a digital story with their images. Recommended apps include YakItforKids, Book Creator, Puppet Pals 2, Chatterpix for Kids, and Toontastic. Find Digital Storytelling Projects here.
- Students can create digital scrapbooks, which classify plants, rocks, bugs, leaves, or trees. Recommended apps include Google Slides, Book Creator, Edubuncee, Canva, Biteslide, or EduGlogster.
- Check out Scholastic’s awesome digital scrapbook of a pioneer teen, Patience Whipple. Then get students to create their own with the one of the apps and web tools mentioned above.
- Scholastic also has this interactive for children to create character scrapbooks.
- Students can create videos and animated slideshows with their images. Try Kizoa, Get Shadow, Adobe Spark, Sway, Magisto, Haiku Deck, 30 Hands, and EduBuncee.
- Students can create comics with their photos. Recommended apps include Friendstrip and Comics Head.
- Students can act as photo journalists and write articles to accompany a series of photos. Create articles with Sway, Adobe Spark, Canva, and Book Creator.
- Students can create quizzes for their peers with their photos with TinyTap.
- Students can create a digital poster showing their research with Livebinders, Thinglink, EduBuncee, EduGlogster, and Canva. Find Poster Projects here.
- Students can create a mindmap with Popplet.
- Students can upload an image and write a poem to go along with this image.
- You can use images as writing prompts for your students.
- Post an image. Have students participate in a chain story inspired by the image.
- Find a post with over 20 ideas for teaching with Instagram here.
Challenge: Try one of these ideas with your students so they visualize their learning.
If you enjoyed these ideas, you may want to get your copy of The 30 Goals for Teachers or my $5.99 ebook, Learning to Go, which has digital/mobile activities for any device and editable/printable handouts and rubrics.
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