Digital photography provides an opportunity for students to develop creativity, acquire higher order thinking skills, and improve basic skills in the content areas of the curriculum. The use of a digital camera offers students ways to use hands-on activities to find, record, and use data, to illustrate books, stories, or moments in history, and to conceptualize math concepts in everyday life. These projects, whether simple or complex, require students to work in teams, think ahead, plan, and to create and present an original product. Thus, the skills important in today’s adult workplace become part of the regular classroom curriculm.

Digital photography can be used at every phase of an instructional unit. If used at the beginning, students might take photographs for a particular purpose, such as recording a class field trip, and write captions for each photo back in the classroom. Digital photographs may be used during or in the middle of a project or module. Students can observe and digitally photograph the daily growth of mold on bread, or the seasonal changing colors of leaves on deciduous trees. Later, they can write and report on the captured, observed changes. Students might write a draft of a story or historical event, then take pictures to illustrate their story, editing their written and photographic work as they progress. Digital photographs also make a great final presentation for projects in the classroom, as well as yearbooks, newsletters, and school newspapers.

From the very beginning of a digital photography project, students must understand the features of the camera, and make thoughtful decisions based on their understanding. Photography, whether print or digital, is not just finding and composing the picture you want. It is important to understand how the camera works, and what the differences are between traditional and digital cameras, including the advantages and disadvantages of each. Furthermore, digital cameras have many features and options to understand: for instance, what are portrait and landscape shooting modes? When do you use these? Should you zoom in or out? What is the difference between fixed, manual, and auto focus? Which should you use?

Some classroom tasks do not give students the time or opportunity to experiment, evaluate, improve, and try again. In the world of digital photography students can see instantly whether they got the shot you want or not; if not, they can immediately erase the mistake and try again. Students can experiment freely and often and, don’t have to wait to see results. This encourages creativity and inspires students to improve and perfect their work.

One great feature of digital photographs is the ability to improve them. Students can crop and edit raw photos in many ways to create a better finished product using a photo editing program. Once the photograph is finished, students will have more decisions to make. How will the photographs be used? Publish them on the web or send them with email messages? Make hard copy prints? This becomes an important part of both the planning and presentation phases of a project.

Unlike paper and pencil tasks, photography is a process that learned by doing and experimenting. Each photo and photography project teaches students something new they can use the next time they try. Digital photography allows students to try again quickly so they begin to build up a useful body of experience and knowledge right away. With each succeeding project, they will begin to know when a shot is worth taking, how best to compose a picture to tell a story or create a feeling, and how best to present their work.

With the availability of simple digital cameras in today’s classrooms, teachers and students can enjoy a new, motivating method of teaching and learning from each other. Project-based learning enhances the development basic skills, including public speaking, and can transform and energize the classroom environment.

Incorporating digital photography into classroom tasks and activities provides a unique opportunity for special needs students to increase motivation and interest in learning and improve basic skills in the content areas of the curriculum. The use of a digital camera offers students and teachers techniques for using hands-on activities to visualize and internalize appropriate behaviors, develop vocabulary, enrich language skills and writing, and demonstrate math concepts in a more tangible way. Digital photography projects, whether simple or complex, help students to focus, stay on task, and plan and think ahead. These activities provide a motivating method of addressing skills important in classrooms and in the workplace.

By tapping into the five senses, digital photography can be used to help students become more involved in learning. Participation in the many steps of a photography project helps students identify for themselves how they learn best. For instance, when the goal is vocabulary development, some students may do better by photographing objects or scenes, then learning the words associated with them. Others may do better brainstorming a list of words and phrases, then going out to find appropriate photographs to illustrate them. Some students may work better alone, and some may be motivated by working in a team. This self-understanding encourages a desire for lifelong learning.

For a non-verbal or distractible student, taking and using digital photographs can offer an immediate, alternative way to increase focus and develop communication skills, and may be used to identify and classify objects, illustrate a set of appropriate behaviors, portray feelings, or demonstrate a sequential set of directions. The intrinsic value of this kind of task will help students internalize and use these important skills and behaviors more consistently.

Digital photography can provide a concrete method to illustrate abstract concepts already introduced by the teacher. For instance, young children might be asked to find and photograph examples of a geometric shape, such as a triangle, or of a primary color, such as blue. With followup discussions, teachers can help students develop conceptual understanding of shapes and colors. The class might create a simple webpage, Powerpoint slide show, or Hyperstudio Stack illustrating “ The Blues” or “What it Means to be a Triangle.” Furthermore, students will be more likely to continue to find such objects and colors in the real world, reinforcing the concepts again and again.

Special needs students often require extra time to experiment, reflect, and try again to improve their work. Digital photography provides this opportunity as students can see instantly whether their photograph meets the criteria for finishing a given task. If not, they can crop and edit their photo, or erase and try again. This promotes an enabling classroom environment, and virtually insures a successful conclusion to each assignment.

The components of digital photography projects enable students to learn in a way that utilizes their unique strengths and increases a feeling of ownership and accomplishment. Students then begin to enjoy the process of learning in a way not possible with traditional teaching methods.

Digital photography provides a unique opportunity for learning that can both engage and challenge the gifted student. The gifted classroom is a dynamic environment with an innovative, flexible, curriculum. Digital photography is a perfect complement to the gifted curriculum and is now easier than ever. Developers have recognized the importance of creating a user-friendly product that can easily be integrated into classroom activities.

A curriculum for gifted students is one that actively engages students in the process of learning. A philosophy class at Duke University’s Talent Identification Program, or TIP, recently combined photography and philosophy to help students understand philosophical theory. The instructor, a veteran TIP staff member, explained that the photography projects were wildly successful. “The photo project was the best project I have ever done in my classroom. It allowed students to explore and digest the information that was presented in class and was a springboard for classroom discussion.”

Gifted students need opportunities to take risks. They are accustomed to doing well in school, however, high achievement sometimes comes at the cost of academic risk-taking. With digital photography, students can take risks without fear of making mistakes. Students can take the same photograph over and over until they are satisfied with their results. Those students new to photography get immediate feedback. They can look at their photo and access digital files without the wait time associated with ordinary photography. Risk taking can also be extended as students manipulate their photographs in one of many commercially available digital photo kits.

Gifted students value flexibility. Often traditional assignments such as reading a chapter , answering questions, and responding on a multiple choice test are not challenging enough for gifted students. Digital photography offers students the opportunity to demonstrate learning in non-traditional formats. Photographs can be incorporated into various media including websites, electronic slideshow presentations, creative writing assignments, short films or other fine arts demonstrations, thus offering the gifted student flexibility and the opportunity for innovation.

Gifted students appreciate community. Group projects in a gifted classroom can provide students with the opportunity to work with other students who share a similar interest and attitude towards high academic achievement. These students often find themselves in leadership roles. Classroom experiences that foster collaborative skills and teamwork can help students develop the leadership skills they will need in the future. Group work that involves digital photography can assist students in creating multi-media projects at low-cost. Additionally, digital photography has made the ease of sharing photos with others through networks, email, websites, and electronic storage a simple task.

Digital photography can be a powerful tool in the gifted classroom. This technology can be used to build a community of learners and leaders, to challenge gifted students to take risks, and to spark classroom discussion. Allow your gifted students to raise new questions and to explore old problems from a new angle with digital photography.