Here are a few more ways that photography can be used in the classroom!

  1. Photographer Badge: Give the camera to the student and ask them to photograph their “learning story”. This will give them a chance to show their perspective of their learning. Allow for a place to post these photos like a class blog.
    1. We think that you could set up a google drive folder that is accessible to all students to upload their learning pictures. These could be used in a Reggio Emilia approach to displaying children’s learning.
  2. Participating in Project 365: Take a photo of something good each day. This could be done as a whole class or independently. Again have a place for students to upload their photos.
    1. You could put all the pictures together at the end of the year into a slide show or movie to practice the digital literacy of fill making and photo editing. 
  3. End-of-year-slideshow: put all of these photos into a slideshow set to music that the children can take home to have and share with parents. The article suggests “10,000 Maniacs’ “These Are the Days,” Graham Colton’s “Best Days,” Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life),” Rascal Flatts’ “My Wish” and my personal favorite, Stephen Kellogg’s “Roots and Wings.” as good songs to set the video to
    1. Choose a song that is important to your class in some way to add even more meaning. You could attach a card written to the video CD and use this as a gift for each student at the end of the year.
  4. Family connection: They say that pictures speak a thousand words, so photography is a great way to effectively represent classroom life to parents. With middle schoolers who respond to “what did you do at school today?” With a snarky “nothing” and kindergartners who only talk snack time, parents are rarely granted accurate insight into their children’s day to day lives. This tip from the website can be actualized to a variety of degrees. Here are some ideas (requiring different levels of commitment) as to how to use to photography to communicate with parents: 
    1. Send out a monthly or weekly email newsletter full of photos from what students have been up to 
    2. Start a class blog! Make it private, so that only parents can view the images and text about their children. For younger grades, you may choose to do all the blogging yourself, but older students could be featured as “blogger of the week” with the duty of summarizing the week’s events to all student’s families. 
  5. Multi-media art projects: The website suggests having students snap pictures of items around the classroom, print them out, and add googly eyes. This is just one of many fun ways to tie photography into other art projects! Another similar task could involve taking pictures and collecting items on a nature walk, then glueing on found items such as leaves, sticks or even litter onto printed photos. This is a great way to incorporate multi-modality into art instruction.
  6. Decorating the class with students photographs: As discussed in the article “Consider the Walls” by Patricia Tarr it is extremely important to keep walls in the classroom decorated in a way that does not overstimulate children, is not full of commercial products and has student imput or work on the walls. The idea of decorating the walls with student’s photos directly supports this idea and is a great way for students to feel ownership over their classroom. It creates a safe space where students’ voices are heard and celebrated. To accomplish this there is a website called PicMonkey.com that allows children to edit photos and add text to them if they want to. Students can explore an additional technology source through this process creating edited photos or posters for the wall. All of this should be done with the students’ consent as it is important to have consent to put a student’s photo on the wall. Additionally, having the photos rotate so that all the students who want their photos to be on the wall can have a chance. In all reality there is not enough space to fit 25+ pictures in a classroom in a not over stimulating way, so it is important to rotate the selection. 
  7. Collage of the class: Create a collage of individual pictures of all of the students holding signs saying what they want for their future career. This can be accomplished through apps like PicCollage and given to the students at the end of the year as a memento of the class and as a reminder of why they are in school. 

Link to article 

-Lauren M, Alexa and Katie