I have 10 cameras from various grants. I have taught a digital art class and we used them a lot but even in my modified tab class I have a number of different things the kids do.
~ number one use of cameras in my class is for documenting artwork. Since my kids do a digital portfolio in the last week of the trimester (power point slide show of all their work from the trimester) They have to take pictures of artwork throughout the trimester.
~video feature on most cameras are great for little artist statements. Have the kid talk about thier art while someone else films.
~portraits~ whenever a student wants to do a self-portrait I volunteer to take and print out a picture of them. We also have mirrors, but the student can pose in a particular way for the picture and not have to make that face over and over again in the mirror.
~Photo scavenger hunts (make a list of things they could find on your campus, I like to do this in spring to include new flowers and such on campus) See my blog entry on this assignment idea http://www.blog2008.thevirtualclassroom.org/?p=237
~Animation! from easy to complex there are so many options here are a few that I have done.
“flipbooks” have kids draw a sequence of pictures on small pieces of paper or even postit notes. We use a lightbox (old re-purposed overhead projectors) to use the onionskin sniamtion technique to match one picture to another. Then the student takes pictures of each drawing, then puts them together in windows movie maker.
“paper animation” students cut out construction paper and magazines to create little animated scenes. The paper lays flat on a surface so the camera needs to be held above. This is difficult to do by hand or with a tripod. My old shop teacher had built a cool camera holder for me that works for this. He made it as an alternative to a document camera, which we didn’t have at the time. But you could do the exact same thing with a document camera. (if you have the kind that has a memory stick) See my blog post on this http://www.blog2008.thevirtualclassroom.org/?p=488
“clay and object animation” I have a box of donated legos and mcdonalds toys, a lot of modeling clay that I got with my claymation grant. I have some boys just finish a boxing animation. They made the boxing ring out of items in the sculpture center. Some exapmles and resources here http://www.blog2008.thevirtualclassroom.org/?p=6
“stop-motion animation” Make your kids FLY! Have one kids jump in the air and the filming student takes a picture at the highest point of the jump. They move forward and jump again. Again putting them together in windows movie maker turns it into an animtion. They can race chairs, skateboard on other people or objects, or other fun things that couldn’t be filmed in a standard way. They could also do stop motion progression of an artwork. Have them set a timer and take a new picture every 2 minutes as they work on a painting or drawing. Then when you put the pictures together the artwork comes alive and is created in time-lapse. fun stuff!
“movies!” We did a door movie assignment in my digital art class. The idea was to use only sound and music to set a mood. see them in this post http://www.blog2008.thevirtualclassroom.org/?p=198 and the resources for this project http://www.blog2008.thevirtualclassroom.org/?p=458
What else do you use cameras for in your classrooms?
