Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Photo Stories at Panther















Big Idea:
Educate the teens in a fun, challenging way on how to properly use the digital cameras, download thier photos with a USB cable or card reader, use a thumb drive to transport the photos, and finally label and arrange them into a slide show.

Dates: Monday, May 15th

Groups Participating: Panther teens

Attendance: 8 teens (4 on each team)

Hardware: 1 digital camera per team, 1 laptops per team, universal card reader, USB cables, computer with the digital projector, thumb drive

Directions: Have the teens seperate into teams of no more than 4. Explain that this is a "photo story telling competition" (competition always gets teens motivated). Have the teams determine a certain order 1 to 4 of who on thier teams will go first to last. At this point, before the game begins, take time to discuss with the teens what makes a good photograph, with examples of good photos verse bad photos on the digital projector, such as being in focus, composing it straight and not crooked, having a subject matter, correct lighting, when to use a flash, ect. Also at this time, show the enire group how to shoot a photo, load the photo onto the computer into a new folder you create, then also show them how to use the thumb drive to transport thier photos, explaining their team will have to do this in the game. Then explain the rules...

Each teen will take the digital camera by themselves and have 5 minutes to take 5 photos of anything they want in the club. When they return, they pass the camera off to the next team mate. When all 4 teens have taken thier 20 shots, they then download thier images. After they are downloaded, they have 15 minutes to arrange 10 to 15 of thier images in an order that tells some kind of story. When both teams are done, have them use the thumb drive to transfer thier photos to the computer with the digital projector, then present like this...

First go through one team's slides twice, and have the opposing team try to guess their story line. Then, have that team explain what their storyline actually was. Then switch as see which team got the storyline the closest.

Associated Concepts: Again, how to properly use the digital cameras, download thier photos with a USB cable or card reader, use a thumb drive to transport the photos, and finally label and arrange them into a slide show, plus discuss what makes a successful phtotgraph.

Best Part: The stories the teens came up with were hysterical, almost abstract. (Above are some examples of the teens photos for this project).

Improvements: Any improvements I thought were needed were things I did not think of doing until I wrote this blog, so I wrote them into the directions for next time this activity is done, which should help the teens learn about the steps of how to shoot and download. While you have the groups attention BEFORE the game is when you should go over the steps on the projector with the group.

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