Digital Photography in the Classroom
A guide for classroom teachers

 

Getting the cameras

If your school does not have digital cameras for teachers to use and you would prefer not to spend your own money, then applying for a grant is a great way to get cameras for your classroom. Two years ago I applied for a Best Buy Teach Award for my Online Science Fair. I was awarded $2,500 and used it to buy six digital cameras, 2 GB worth of memory for each, and carrying cases. Just make sure that before you apply for a grant you have a specific project in mind.

Check out misterteacher's Grants 101 for tips on writing grants and links for finding the perfect grant.

 

You don't need an expensive camera to take good photos

My home camera is a Kodak EasyShare C743. At 7.1 megapixels, it has 3 X optical zoom and a video mode. It costs a whopping $150. The camera that we picked up with our grant was the Kodak EasyShare C 633. You can get cameras of equal quality for even less.

Using one camera

Do not despair if you only have one camera. With one camera you can still incorporate photos into your lessons (they work really well as writing prompts) and have students use photos in their work.

Check out your computer's photo organizing software ahead of time

Apple's iPhoto is beyond easy to use, but you'll need to walk yourself through the process of uploading photos to a PC ahead of time.

The Internet is a gold mine for finding digital images to use in your classroom. On numerous occasions I have found photos from Google or another photo site and used them on worksheets, in a blog entry, for writing prompts, or for something else.

Students can also use photos they grab from the Internet. They can easily use the images in projects, blog entries, to build web pages, and much more.

Digital image archives are everywhere on the Internet. Below are some of my favorite sites for finding photos to use in the classroom.

My Favorite Sites for Acquiring Photos for Classroom Use

Flickr - Millions of users, million of photos. This is Web 2.0 at its finest. This photo sharing site allows users to tag their photos, or add keywords to them when they upload. When you search for photos here, you enter a tag into the search box and any photo that has been tagged with that keyword is returned. Tips for using Flickr: Try a tag search for math nature and you will get photos from folks who have tagged photos with those words. Go to the site and try this. You can also do a group search for photos. Do the same search from above and your results will show groups who have uploaded photos with the theme math nature. KidsClick - This page contains links to special image databases under the following categories: Art, Astronomy/Space, Animals, History/Society. Some of the links include Astronomy Picture of the Day, FWS Image Archive, and American Memory Collection. Yotophoto - From the site: "Yotophoto is a search engine for free-to-use stock photographs and images. These are images that are either in the Public Domain or released under generous Creative Commons, GNU FDL or similar licenses." Stock.Xchng - This site is full of stock photos for professionals. It is still full of photos that are great for classroom use. PixelPerfect - Another site meant for professionals but full of of photos appropriate for classroom use. This is a comprehensive site on digital photography with tons of information on cameras, reviews, links, and more. Pics4Learning - A copyright free image library for teachers. I can't say I'm real high on this one--there just isn't the depth here that you'll find in the sites above.

Link to this site