What’s Better Than Writing?

 

 

 

 

After videos, images are our most viewed media at Cayoosh Kidz.

 

How do we do it?

 

At the beginning of the year we have a quick lesson on composition (get close), technique (don’t put your fingers over the lens), and safety (don’t drop the camera). Then we unleash pairs of students to roam through the school and yard taking pictures. There are a couple of other rules: you must ask permission and you try to make the subject look good.

 

At the end of each day I upload the students’ pictures to Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/grade5/. The next day a new group takes over. My grade five/six class is also responsible for taking pictures at assemblies and at special school events. These images become a big part of our online and traditional paper based writing projects.

 

Kidjournalism

 

We use the camera as a tool for photojournalism; teams of kids interview and photograph different people at school and around the community. This is stored directly on the Cayoosh Kidz website http://www.cayooshkidz.net/. Lately we have increasingly used our blog and Flickr account for kidjournalism. There are plenty of opportunities to comment on visual images in both these media without the extra work and complexity of managing websites.

 

Is it safe?

 

Knock on wood, after thousands of pictures we haven’t had a problem. Student safety is always a priority and we take care never to have identifying names associated with a student. We also have a release form sent out to all parents which they sign. We make a constant effort to include parents in our media projects. To further separate the student and the web audience, only a teacher can post the pictures and writing to the internet.

 

I have listed a number of tools and resources that make working with images a little easier.

 

http://www.multimediastories.net/

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/technology/personaltech/18pogue-email.html?_r=1

 

And from De Tools

http://www.picfindr.com

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/screen-capture-tools-40-free-tools-and-techniques/

http://mashable.com/2008/11/13/online-image-editors-2/

 

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/photoshop-alternatives-another-14-free-image-manipulation-tools/

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/16-flickr-search-tools-that-are-fun-to-use/