Week 8 – Digital Imaging

Celina~age 10

self portrait painted using a digital black-and-white halftone image for reference

This week’s reading introduced the creation and sharing of visual images. The Digital Diet walks us through setting up a Flickr account and offers practical suggestions on the use of image sharing in the classroom.  Brooks-Youngs identifies common objections to the classroom use of photo sharing sites,   “…privacy, safety, bullying, copyright infringement, and, recently, child pornography concerns.” (TEACHING with the TOOLS KIDS REALLY USE p 79).  The book then goes on to work through each issue presented, providing instruction on the ways that these objections can be developed into lessons for educating our students on these issues.  Brooks-Young also brings up practical strategies for the use of photo and image sharing in the classroom.

TEACHING with the TOOLS KIDS REALLY USE, the title of Brooks-young’s book pretty much says it all.  To be effective twenty-first century educators, we must permit our students to both generate and share visual content online. Students DO love photography, it’s inexpensive and easy to use, it is engaging, and permits many opportunities for collaboration.  Digital images provide excellent reference for many uses in the art room.

My elementary building only has four digital cameras available for classroom use, however, that has not been a deterrent for using them on a fairly regular basis. Last year my Second graders traversed the hallways, working in small groups, using photographs to identify different geometric forms. Third grade photographed examples of texture and contrast.  Fifth graders took pictures of themselves and examples of their art which we compiled into an animoto video.  Fourth grade used photobooth software to take a portrait and convert it to a half-tone image. This image was used as reference for a monochromatic self-portrait painting.  This year my sixth grade students are hard at work on their choice of a digital photo based self portrait project and fourth grade has made it to the editing portion of their cereal commercials. There is no doubt that students LOVE these activities and I love the level of engagement they provide. 

For the most part, student collaboration has been a relatively smooth experience.  We have had to work through some ‘hurt feelings’ issues, it provided the perfect opportunity to implement some character-ed curriculum. These collaboration activities also set the stage for group analysis and evaluation. (Only ONE cereal box out of five could be selected for a commercial.  What constituted the best design? I loved one group’s creative solution.  When they were unable to narrow the selection to one, they decided to go with a commercial for a variety package. )    As the facilitator, my biggest complaint is the level of noise that is generated due to my extremely large class sizes.  I have also experienced some issues stemming from my lack of understanding how to best manage some of our projects.  One solution I have found is to have students brainstorm problems that they anticipate and then brainstorm solutions to those problems.  Their insight is impressive and students tend to adhere to their self-created guidelines.

I could foresee great benefit to image sharing, but additionally, my district bans all photo and video sharing sites. I have created group animoto videos, which I share with my other classes, and I plan to share our cereal commercials videos as well. My students love both seeing and viewing their work and that of their classmates presented this way.  It’s a meaningful and relevant connection to the way that they live.  

Currently the computer labs in my district’s elementary buildings are limited to the use of photobooth as far as image editing.  I think I would enjoy using photoshop with my older grades, though I would need to become a little more proficient myself.  After viewing the video http://www.thejohnnycashproject.com/  which invites participants to view the video and then provides images for them to edit, each of which is added to the video, I have begun planning with my tech specialist to see if we can determine a the way to do a similar project with students. To the best of my knowledge, all free image editing web-sites are blocked at my school.  I have requested that the block be lifted for one of the sites which does not require registration for online use.  Those wheels turn painfully and discouragingly slow…