For example, my 5 year old daughter Caitlin is seriously into drawing and learning to write and spell words at the moment. She is in Prep. and her teachers tell me that she draws the most wonderful pictures in class and then asks them to write the stories to go with them. Here's one example of Caitlin's artwork and story telling.
The Princess Who Lost Her Key
One day a princess girl lost her key. She went through the
woods looking for her key.
Then she found a hole and someone came along and helped her dig out her key.
She put it in her door and opened it and went home and lived 'Happily Ever After'.
If a 5 year old can do this, imagine how engaging it would be for older students to relate an event that had happened during the school holidays, create a story about it and then donate this to the class or to the global audience. Yes - it's Engagement Theory with a slight twist!
How amazing for students to be able to produce their own illustrated books using images freely available from Flickr and the world wide web. They can even upload their own images for use in creating a book or short story using free software like Photo Story for Windows. Who would have thought kids could do all this.....
This technology enables so many oppportunities for creative expression and true engagement. I just have to look at my daughter to see how engaged she is when she is being creative, to know that I will be using Flickr, Photo Story and other image technologies in my future classrooms.
Talkin' to Leesha has more great ideas on how to use Flickr in the classroom - and thanks for inspiring this post Alicia.
Image: Cailtin's artwork from Arthur family photos.
Hi Natalie,
ReplyDeleteI had actually thought of using a Flickr image to get students to write a narrative using it as the stimulus. I imagine no two student stories would be the same given each has their own individual imaginations and I would love to see how students see and respond to different pieces of stimuli.
I loved your daughter's story too, such a vivid imagination and a beautiful picture.
Flickr would also be a great way to do an art project, each student could be required to take a photo of a particular theme, maybe something like 'People at Work'. And get them to submit this photo as their representation, at the end of the project the photos could then be donated to Flickr.
What are your thoughts?
Great work,
Samantha Prior