Thursday, October 23, 2008

I had an idea today..

What if a teacher asked her students to find an image each week representing their learning. Fridays the class could go through each of the images and students could share why they chose them. Students could use Flickr to find their images where pictures are tagged with words like "citizenship" and "courage."

This might also lead to discussions about tagging and about copyright and Creative Commons. It would engage students in some right brain thinking every week and I'm sure would lead to some interesting conversations.

What do you think? Please share if you try it and let us know how it goes.




Image Citations:
Day 27 - I Voted! [http://www.flickr.com/photos/ktpupp/291873348/]
Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion in Wizard of Oz at the Wax Museum at Fishermen's Wharf in San Francisco: http://www.flickr.com/photos/44124324682@N01/352866534/
Light Bulb [http://www.flickr.com/photos/outsanityphotos/457461303/]

18 comments:

David said...

Very interesting concept. I am a huge fan of finding constructive ways to talk about copyright and creative commons. Just to be a devils advocate, how would you "filter" the pictures students are allowed to use?

Liz B Davis said...

David - I'm not sure what you mean by "filter" are you concerned that students would find inappropriate images?

Unknown said...

Consider the idea stolen! Er, borrowed. I was just thinking what should be my students' blog topic for tomorrow! I am going to run this up the blog pole and see what happens.

Liz B Davis said...

Please do steal it and then let us know how it goes. I don't really have my own classroom, so I need other people to take my ideas and run with them. I love it when they do.

Jason Everett said...

Great idea!

I am not sure what age you are working with but I have thought about doing this with cell phones. I use PicasaWeb but I know flickr will also allow you to send pictures from your phone to an email address. I like using PicasaWeb as it has a "Drop Box" they go to before being published publicly. Good luck... would love to see your album as it is being filled!

Unknown said...

Thanks Liz! This fits right in with what I have spent the past two days thinking about with Sara Kajder!! Tried it myself first and blogged about it here; http://pocketsofchange.blogspot.com/

The Science Goddess said...

Nice idea...and the "filter" concerns are somewhat real. It's not that students would necessarily look for inappropriate images, but we have no control over how users tag their photos.

Last year, I was looking for an image to go with the word "pride," and Flickr returned lots of pictures of naked (and colorfully painted) men at gay pride parades. Great pix...but not so great to be looking at during work hours. :)

Liz B Davis said...

Science Goddess - Ah I get it now. By asking students to do this do you think we are exposing them to more inappropriate pictures than they would see on their own? Could this be a way to discuss "safe searching" and what to do when unsavory images come up?

I work with grades 7-12, so I know I'm not as sensitive to these concerns as perhaps I should be. Thanks David and Science Goddess for bring this up.

Anonymous said...

might be a good way to start teaching search operators as well - I've been thinking there needs to be a "how to" just to become search literate

Lynne Crowe said...

What a great idea. I teach an accelerate class of Year 7 & 8 (Gde 6 & 7) in New Zealand and will definitely use this idea with my class who all have their own blogs.
Thanks.

loonyhiker said...

I love the idea and wish I had a classroom to do this with! I would love to see the pictures and what they come up with!

Paul C said...

Perhaps the class pictures could be arranged in an interesting digital 'learning passion quilt' every week.

I think this is a great idea as you say to balance left and right brain activity.

I would encourage the students to write about their choices.

Unknown said...

Tried this today. Had kids write about something they learned this week in any class, and use nettrecker to search for images. An interesting aside, nettrecker has been on their computers for years, but none of my students had ever used it before!

The blogs were interesting, it was fun to see what stood out in their minds. It was often a particular teacher they claim to hate, but it was his lesson they remembered.

Sorry I cant share the blogs with you, they are on Gaggle, and cant be shared out of the district. Was disappointed with the way blogger treats images, but oh well.

Thanks for the idea.

Liz B Davis said...

Paul - I love the passion quilt idea. As a whole it would really represent the learning of the class.

mhall - I'm so glad to hear you tried it. I wish I could see the blogs.

I'm going to have my students try this next week - I'm going to ask them to choose a picture that represents something they have learned that week. I'll have them blog about it and share it when they do.

Ann Darling said...

Images are powerful stuff. I would also encourage anyone to check out "13 Photographs that changed the world" http://www.neatorama.com/2007/01/02/13-photographs-that-changed-the-world/
and share with student bloggers especially if they cannot access current photo sites. The Library of Congress also has photo archives that are supreme. You can still have conversations about images and learning if you are blocked or worried about searching flickr. I do agree that we do need to teach our students about searchnig and what to do when the inevitable happens. Thanks!

Phsrunner2007 said...

I am an educational major in an educational technology program. I was wondering how you would use the internet in the classroom.

Liz B Davis said...

Phsrunner2007 there are a lot of ideas for using the internet in the classroom here on my blog. You should also check out my blogroll on the right side of the page. There are many educators listed there who are doing wonderful things in their classrooms.

Anonymous said...

This is a great idea, and I plan to recommend to those I work with. Did something with ELA teachers two weeks ago--had them identify their academic vocabulary words for upcoming units and then they used their cell phones and digital cameras to photo hunt around the school. I love the thought of using photos to define words, but I was really surprised to see how much more powerful the images are when they are of things in the students' immediate environment. It was a lot of fun for all, too...this idea adds another opportunity. Thanks for sharing!