Images in the Classroom - Now and Then

I've always had this natural inclination to add images to whatever lesson I was teaching, and now even more so when I see the neuroscientific reason for doing it. James Zull, in his book "the Art of Changing the Brain", mentions that

"Our concrete experience contains much of the information we need for understanding, because it produces images for our brains to analyze, rearrange, manipulate, and turn into action. We have maps of our experience in our brains, and we can run through these maps like the frames of a moving picture."

He goes on to say that the images in our brains come from the experience itself and that's why

"teachers could make extensive use of images to help people learn. If we can convert an idea into an image, we should do so. And whenever possible, we should require our students to show us their images. It should go both ways"

Having the power of images in mind, our classroom should be visual-rich and empowering. It should help our learners enhance their language skills through their sensory brains. In this sense, today I just came across a Facebook post by Ben Goldstein where he mentioned a blog called Dear Photograph  in which the audience shares images of a past original setting and taking a photo holding a film photo of people in the same place.

http://dearphotograph.com/image/52871635425 

Now, imagine having the same kind of project with your group of students after they've explored some of the images in the Dear Photograph blog. You can ask them to talk to their parents and relatives, to find nice photos of places that they could go and take the same kind of picture, holding the film-developed photo. Plus, you can explore the use of the past in the images contrasted with the present. The teacher would have the perfect timing to talk about "USED TO", for example, and then use students' own images to explore language in a totally contextualized way.

Then, in the same Facebook thread, Paul Driver suggested the use of the Zefrank's blog project Young Me/Now Me for the same kind of activity in which students take their own photos, explore the blog's photos and use language to compare and talk about the differences between now and then.

http://www.zefrank.com/youngmenowme/permalink.html?469

Thanks to Ben Goldstein and Paul Driver in my FB network for the visual inspiration!

Picturetelling in the Park with Jamie Keddie

I met Jamie Keddie, from the very resourceful site, lessonstream, in Brighton, on my very first day at IATEFL 2011. He was part of my Twitter network and, at the pub we were at, he just said, "I'm that guy with the dog as a thumbnail". Yes. Everything about Jamie has a visual cue!

However, his very recent video goes much beyond imagery. It helps us picture a scene through words in the very best Jamie style of storytelling with a strong visual reference. This video is a very powerful resource for the classroom as there are just so many things that can come out it:
 - A discussion about the wall he talks about and the kinds of imaginary walls and real ones we have around us.
 - Students drawing the scene and trying to identify where, who, what he is looking at if they haven't heard of or seen the photo.
 - A discussion about cultural issues that have caused or might cause a rebellion.
- Or how about the students recording their own picturetelling videos, inviting others to draw what they narrate?

Well, I'll leave you with Jamie, his video and a great lesson plan to go with it!
http://lessonstream.org/2013/06/11/gezi-park/ 

 

Images in the Classroom Series - Emotions

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21204781@N07/2501994750/

My husband calls me a tourist or gadget girl. I always have a device which can help me capture the moment. First, because of my interest in photography, in getting that moment that in nanoseconds will be simply past. However, my most preement reason for being a gadget girl is that I am an educator. I always feel that I can explore the world with my students through the eyes of a lens. Those captured moments are an invaluable teaching tool. I go beyond, though. It is not only my photos, but all the photos I come across in Flickr Creative Commons. Flickr is just so powerful that words wouldn't be able to reach its strength for pedagogical purposes. Here's just one example of how it can be used by educators interested in developing students' critical thinking, critical literacies and so on.

Take for example this photo I came across in Alan Levine's slideshare presentation.

Looking Through The Lens (Northern Voice 2011)

View more presentations from Alan Levine

We could have a wonderful "Emotion" class just by exploring it.

Ideas? Many! Here are some:

• Start by asking your students to draw how they feel today. Or you can even ask them to fold the paper in four and give them specific times of the day (today at school, yesterday evening, today during lunch time, right now). They draw their four different moods in the paper and share them with friends giving reasons why they felt that way. You could ask them to find people who shared two similar kinds of moods during specific times of the day, or someone who had quite the opposite emotions. That should be fun!

• Write the word CRYING on the board. Why do people cry? Let the students speak out.
• If the teacher feels it won't hurt anybody's feelings or cause any embarassment to a student, ask the group when the last time they cried was and see if someone wants to share his story. This can be highly emotional, I know. But it can also build group trust, a sense of community. If you feel it is a too-touchy subject, change it for "the last time you had a really great, loud laugh"
• Show the photo to the group to explore the context:
  

  

  http://www.flickr.com/photos/21204781@N07/2501994750/

  
  
  
  - Why was this boy crying?
  - Who was holding him?
  - Where are they?
  - What time of the day was it?
  - How long do you think he kept crying? Why?
  - What would the person holding him do or say to make him smile again?
  - Do you remember a similar scene in your house?
• After the group discussion, you can ask students:
  - to write a text as if the boy was reporting what happened and why he was crying.
  - to write a text from the perspective of the person holding him and his feelings towards the boy crying
  - to build up a dialogue based on the scene
  - to include a third person in the room (students choose the person they would include and what this person would do to make the boy stop crying)
  - to make a drawing as if they were the boy at the exact moment he stopped crying

Any other ideas for this very emotional class?

Cool Tool of the Week - DeepZoomPix

http://bit.ly/BBd8Y

Microsoft is testing an online tool called DeepZoomPix, which gives us an interesting overview to our photo albums. I chose to connect it to my Flickr account and grabbed some of my food photos. Here's the result. Pretty neat way of visualizing images.

Which of your pictures would you choose to test DeepZoomPix? Would love to see them, and I invite my friends Luiz Claudio, Rick Monteiro, Dani Lyra, Ronaldo Júnior, and André Netto to test it.

Cool Tool of the Week - A visual dictionary

Shahi - A visual dictionary | Blachan Lab
Originally uploaded by carlaarena

Shahi is a fantastic tool for educational use. Just type a word, you'll see Flickr photos related to it on the left, plus explanations with examples of how the word is used.

I can already picture many ways to use them with students. How about you? Any creative ideas?