Taking Pictures
Tim at Assorted Stuff recently wrote about the power of the inexpensive digital camera. He thinks we should put one in every classroom (he says as much, in how, for the elementary classroom).
He feels it’s one of those technologies that’s personal, handheld, and emphasizes what you do with it, over the object itself.
I agree with Tim. How many of us take the time (and have the fun) of playing with our cameras? To photograph water, change speed settings, and see what we can come up with? If they aren’t learning about photography doing that, they are learning something, the properties of water, the effects of exposure time, etc.
Which got me thinking about all the cameras we have now in our schools. Apple puts a reasonable digital video camera into every computer. I recently asked a teacher for a photograph, and they told me they’d get someone to take one of themselves… I suggested they take their own.
- “How?”
- “Your built-in iSight?”
- “Oh!”
Got a laptop cart? You have 15 cameras! Sure, you’re not going to pick up the computer like you would a point-and-shoot; but there is still quite a bit of utility built-in to that little guy.