Placing a digital camera in the hands of a K-12 student or teacher unleashes creativity and opens up new possibilities for all areas of the education spectrum. Beyond simply recording events, digital images transform documents, presentations, and communications into personalized, custom productions. Using software such as PowerPoint or HyperStudio, projects come alive with digital photos that showcase school activities. Students quickly master the art of shooting photos and recording them on a video cassette recorder to share their learning in class, at home, or far beyond through network technologies. Documents created on a computer can include digital photos for making activity sheets illustrating maps or science equipment, posters of sports positions or choreography, iron-on transfers of national flags, creative crests with faces, and photos of community events.
Students can write stories accompanied by photos they shoot.
Video productions incorporating digital images directly from the camera can be produced instantly and dubbed with a student speech or music track from the school band. These products can be shared in class or with broader audiences via e-mail or the Web. Back in the classroom, the images from the digital camera can be imported into something like HyperStudio. The students can then create a booklet in the form of an animal alphabet. In this activity, students might illustrate each letter of the alphabet with a different animal and description.