Digital Images

There are numerous ways that digital images can be integrated into the elementary classroom. I loved the idea of using digital pictures taken in the classroom and around the school to create books. At the beginning of the year in first grade, the students do a unit of writing called “All About Me.” They write about their family, their favorite sports, their favorite memories, and many other things about themselves. It would be great to take pictures of the students to include on their page in an “All About Me” class book. I also love the idea of photographing shapes around the school to use in a shape book. I am going to be teaching a unit on geometric shapes soon, and reading this actually gave me a great idea to photograph things outside and around the school that I can put into a slideshow to show the students examples of these shapes in their everyday lives. The students in first grade also do a science unit about new plants. It would be great to try and take pictures of the students and their plants at each step of the plant life cycle, and then put it all together to form a class planting book. I could also use the images as a sequencing activity, and have the students put the pictures in order to show the steps of the plant life cycle. Images can also be a great catalyst for first grade writing topics. When it comes to journal writing, some students have difficulty coming up with topics of their own. Showing students a number of interesting and dynamic digital images could help to inspire ideas for their writing as well. With older elementary students, I would love to help them learn to use digital images in their PowerPoints and Photo stories, where they can narrate as well. During my student teaching, I taught my 4th grade class to use PowerPoint and they absolutely loved it! Their favorite part actually ended up being inserting digital images from the web into their slideshows.