Cori Forbes
How digital photography can help special education
As I was reading the article “Digital Photography in the Classroom” It talked about digital photography bringing real-world problems into the classroom for students to explore and solve. This was a great point, especially when it comes to your special education students it gives them a chance to see and almost a sense of touch of the object that is being studied. For example for a non-verbal or distractible student, taking and using digital photographs can offer an immediate, alternative way to increase focus and develop communication skills, that may be used to identify and classify objects, illustrate a set of appropriate behaviors, portray feelings, or demonstrate a sequential set of directions.
Digital photography can be used in many different forms throughout the curriculum and lessons. For example: if I was doing a plant unit in science I would have my students take pictures of the plant and its growth every week. They would then not only have pictures of their plant they would also have a picture essay of the growth of their plant and they could then write about the different stages.
For math I thought you could use digital photography when you were teaching the strand “rotations” you could have a graph on their desk and they could take a picture of each rotation and record what the rotation looked like. This would intrigue your students that do not like to draw.
I always liked the idea of using my digital camera throughout the year and take pictures of the students and then putting a slide show together for them at the end of the year so they have some thing to remember the year. I also like to add music to it that is popular that year so when they students look back on it they can say “I remember that song!” I really liked the idea Sonia had about having her students be responsible for taking the pictures once a day. That would make it so much easier and teach them responsibility.
For art you could have your students go around the school and take pictures of random things print them off and make an impressionist piece of art using all the pictures they took.
For their prediction skills you could give the students part of a digital photo and have them predict what they think it will be. One step further you can have them explain their thinking and logic.

I also found this really cool website with great examples and visuals of how to use digital photography in all different aspects of the curriculum.
http://themes.pppst.com/digitalcameras.html