E.Learning and Digital Images

The use of images can be very effective in students' learning activities. Images can be used to assist with learning a particular skill, i.e. step-by-step instructions for a Prep student learning to tie their shoelaces. Images can also be used to provoke and engage students thinking and feelings. I witnessed the latter used effectively in a year six classroom during an English lesson on persuasive writing, that was in conjunction with their SOSE learning topic.

The emphasis was on the notion that some information (written or images) published in newspapers, books, on websites, etc. may not provide the audience with the whole picture. Therefore individuals need to know how to make their own educated judgments, taking into consideration other points of view. To do this the teacher used the laptop and a data projector to show the class an enlarged photo of a modern, uniformed, American soldier. However, the teacher explained that she had cropped the original image. This encouraged the students to think about the cropped image and what was missing from the whole picture. This in turn started a whole class discussion where students made suggestions and asked question about the image and its possible missing part. From this activity the teacher not only observed first hand the students' thinking patterns during the conversation on "persuasiveness", but could also use this knowledge to plan further lessons. Following on from this in the next English lesson the teacher instructed the students to write a newspaper article based on the cropped image and the information that they presently knew. Students were asked to professionally present their article as if it was going to be printed in the local newspaper, this gave them the opportunity to explore layouts of newspapers. Eventually the teacher revealed the whole image which led to another whole class discussion on what it revealed and how this compared to their initial reactions from the cropped image. The teacher then in following lessons instructed the students to write another newspaper article using the whole image and what they now knew. Again, they were asked to professionally present their article as if it was going to be printed in the local newspaper.

From this lesson many aspects of the Big Six theory can be observed, in particular, Step three, Location and Access: which includes locating and using appropriate technology resources (i.e. imaging software, desktop publishing software, printers, scanners, images on-line flicker) that are available to them in their classrooms, school libraries and technology labs (Berkowitz, et al, 2001, 2010.)

I do not have this particular photo on hand but managed to find something similar in nature on flickr (Yahoo!7 Pty Ltd, 2010.) Although there are no known copyright restrictions the image does belong to the Smithsonian Institution.

Cropped image: Who are these men? What are they doing?

Original image: Who are these men? What are they doing?

I have included a photo that was originally taken of my two children, the Family Day Care children and myself, on a recent excursion to the Archer Street Tram and Train Museum in Rockhampton. For safety and privacy reasons I have cropped out the other children. The image now shows my daughter and I. See if you can notice the editing or manipulation? See if you can work out why I did this?

Yes, the "bunny ears". My daughter is sometimes cheeky and loves doing this in just about every photo, even though she knows it annoys me. However, since I showed her that it doesn't bother me because I can simply erase them, she has actually stopped doing it. I guess there's no point as it doesn't annoy me, or ruin a great photo anymore! Lesson learnt!

N.B. I used Adobe Photoshop for my cropping, resizing and photo editing.

References:

Berkowitz. B., Eisenberg. M., & Johnson. D. (2001). The Big 6 - Information & Technology Skills for Student Achievement: Skills Overview. Accessed July 22, 2010 from http://www.big6.com/2001/11/19/a-big6™-skills-overview/

Berkowitz. B., Eisenberg. M., & Johnson. D. (2010). Information, Communications and Technology (ICT) Skills Curriculum Based on the Big6 Skills Approach to Information Problem-Solving. Accessed July 22, 2010 from http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/file.php/4033/LMC_Big6-ICT_Curriculum_LMC_MayJune2010.pdf

Yahoo!7 Pty Limited. (2010). Flickr - Smithsonian Institution: Soldiers Writing Letters Home. Accessed August 9, 2010 from http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/2551151402/