I am not, by any measure, a great photographer. I am very much an amateur. That is why it amazes me when easy-to-use tools come along that make my photos look great! My latest tool is
Picasa. This is another Google tool that is free and very easy to use. I logged into my Google account, clicked on More...Even More and scrolled down to
Picasa. There is a part that you install on the computer and another part that sits in my Google Account. I decide if I want to upload a photo or an album to the web to share with others. It is a great way to organize school photos for a website.
We have a deer cam on one of our wooded areas in northern Wisconsin. The camera took this great photo of a mother deer and a yearling. It looked very similar to the right with the camera info at the bottom and the photo looking a bit "blue".
I uploaded the file into Picasa when I was uploading all the photos on the SD card. Picasa automatically put all the photos into a folder with the date. I could easily change the name of the album if I like, but I left it with the date because that made sense to me.
Next, I double-clicked on the photo in the album and several editing options came up. First, I clicked on "Crop" and quickly got rid of the camera information at the bottom of the photo. Next, I clicked on "I'm Feeling Lucky" and it changed the picture into the great photo I now have. (Please note this photo is copyrighted as I plan to make prints from it.) That was so easy!
Because the photos are now uploaded into my Picasa web album, it is really easy to insert into my blog. When I am editing my post in Blogger, I click on the insert image icon, click on "From Picasa Web Albums", and I just had to find the photo in my Picasa Dropbox. How simple is that?
We use Google Apps for Education at school, so I always have to check to see if the same features are available at school. I was thrilled to find that Picasa Web Albums is there under under More....Photos. Tomorrow, I will test it out with one of my student's accounts. That would be really slick for sharing field trip photos and class project photos on our website.
How do you use photos for education? What other free and easy tools are out there? Please add a comment to share with others who read this blog.
Digital photography can be a great way to have students document learning and use sequencing skills. For instance, students can photograph the steps of a science experiment, to illustrate classroom procedures, or to document the growth/change of a terrarium or classroom pet.
ReplyDeleteThose are great ideas! The fifth grade homeroom that I co-teach several subjects with is considering a classroom blog where they would post pictures of projects and activities. The students would be the writers of the blog content. I think their writing would be at a higher level as they know there will be an audience wider than just the classroom.
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