This week I have learnt how to resize pictures. No biggie you may say, but to me its another feather in my e learning cap! I love photos...as a mum I take lots of photos. Working in Prep also gives me great opportunity to take photos with the i Pad. The fact my big Nikon film camera has been replaced by a much smaller digital, makes me happy and sad at the same time. Happy that we have this brilliant digital technology and sad that I don't have to think so much before I click the button.
Anyways, back to my photo. Its a picture of us 3 eldest kids...the other 3 hadn't arrived yet! I'm the one in the middle with my tongue sticking out! The photo is actually a copy of a print taken from a slide negative. Really showing my age here now....
So how will my new found skills help me in the classroom to support learning?
The possibilities are endless!!
Images help support critical thinking. That is incorporating a raft of ideas and concepts from one picture. There was a brilliant example in our learning materials of World War 2. Photos of what women's roles were during the war. Retracing battle grounds, looking at images of Diggers memorabilia, contacting the War Museum in Canberra. What a great learning tool for upper primary or high school kids to have. All through a visual medium that is highly accessible.
A further idea to add to this could be a song by "The Waifs". A band from WA who sing "The Bridal Train" about the Australian War Brides that married Americans. It is a very touching song!
In terms of Lynch's Learning Design (2003) questioning "the resources I have to achieve learning" could be mentioned here with digital tools and images being part of 21st century learning.
For kids that are visual learners, working with images would support their learning greatly.
Working as a team; collaborating and sharing ideas, creates a positive engaging learning experience when a small group is asked to look an image and comment on it. You can be sure all comments will differ!
Students being able to document an event through images, for example a field trip to the beach. What a unique power point could be produced from this.
A video I watched last week called "Learning About Learning" Nichols (2007) states "Learning is a process of acquiring skills and knowledge through experience". By using images in learning, students are learning content, learning skills and learning knowledge. Being subject to images they may never have seen before and drawing knowledge from them.
Thinking about Gardner's Multiple Intelligences in terms of learning. These intelligences represent how we see or understand the world. There are eight different groups but for this blog I think there is one worth mentioning. Visual/Spatial is a learner that thinks in images, shapes and colour; learns best through visualisation. What better medium than Images to support to this learning style.
I hope you have enjoyed my blog today!
Feel free to leave a comment.
Happy Blogging Friends!
Kathryn.
Well put, as another visual learner, photos really give depth to learning and as you say, have many uses. Reminding children where they are now, what they have done and what they will do in the form of a laminated book is useful if it is relevant to the individual. So that trip to the beach can become extremely relevant to the child who is in a wheelchair, the child who loves nature and to the child who had never experienced the beach and all of its delights.Let alone the rest of the class!Loved the way you put it.
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