#eduphotoadayjune!

Here is the June #eduphotoadayjune challenge! Join us and play along! Remember, if your students do any writing using the eduphotoaday images, tweet us a link or comment below and tell us where we can read them!

-Erin & Jeff

Join Us in June!

Wow - what an amazing month so far! We still have a few days left, and at the time of this writing, there are currently 1125 photos using our hashtag, #eduphotoadaymay. It's been a lot of fun for Erin and I to see the number of classrooms participating in our photo challenge growing and growing, and with it, connecting with other classrooms accross the city, province, and the world. It has also been wonderful to see some of the writing that has come about in classrooms, as a result of using the photos from the challenge as writing prompts. Those were the goals when we started: using photography and social media responsibly to create and connect. Thanks to all of you who have participated, and made this project such a success so far!

For those of you who haven't joined us yet, have no fear... you can still take part in the fun! There are a few days left this month and there is another challenge coming in June! The challenge will be posted tomorrow morning! If you decide to play along, please make sure to use the hashtag for the month so that your photos will show up in the #eduphotoaday feed, and so that you don't miss out on the fun of connecting with other schools! Some schools are choosing to use their own hashtag (i.e. their school or classroom name) IN ADDITION to #eduphotoadaymay. That way photos can be searched in multiple ways, for different reasons.

If you choose to participate in the challenge, we greatly appreciate you sharing our #eduphotoaday photo challenge image (the list of words for the month) via Instagram or Twitter. When you share, please follow appropriate "netiquette" and do not alter the image in any way. We have worked really hard with our students to acquire funding for this project, create the blog, the list of ideas for the challenge, and the actual photo for the month. The purpose of the challenge is to connect schools, classrooms and teachers through photography and writing. Our photo challenge image has the address to this blog, and the hashtag for the month. We would like students, teachers, parents, administrators, and other educators to be able to find us, and more information about the challenge, here.

Thanks for playing along - we look forward to even more participants in the month to come!

Some writing samples from Mr. H.'s Room 18

Hey there, classroom Instagrammers! Erin and I have been so excited to see all of the classrooms (from Kindergarten to Senior Years) participating in #eduphotoaday - we hope you've been enjoying it as much as our classes have! I've been finding (and I'm sure many of you have, as well) that the students are always asking at the beginning of the school day what that day's challenge is, and then sharing the great ideas they have to represent it. In our class, the students have their own Kidblog pages (which you can find here), and they've been doing a lot of blogging about the #eduphotoaday pictures that have seeing (you can see all of the #eduphotoaday images from public Instagram accounts here). Here are a few of their blog posts (the image that the students selected, and the blogging they did about that image) that I've selected to share with all of you - enjoy!

Two days ago we took a picture of our family shirts, to show #us on #eduphotoaday. Our family shirts are when we have a SLC or when we have family bins. Every person in the school has a family group. You can take a picture of any thing that has to do with the subject. Yesterday was music for #eduphotoaday. So Michael took a picture of something to do with music. See how it works.!!!! - Lexi



Today Mr.H showed us how to look at more pictures on Instagram, I picked this one because it tricked me and how I love recorders. And how this picture tricked me is because the first time I saw this I thought it was made out of straws….but it is made out of recorders!!! And after that it made me think how much I loved recorders.  - Denisse

Today we had to take a picture for #Eduphotoadaymay. The theme was lost and found. The people that were in the lost and found bin was Kurt, Jenna, Lexi and Jacell. And I took the picture. Lots of the people said their heads hurts becuase the top was closing on them. THE END! - Logan

Denisse is holding the sun. Sunny days are back and Denisse wants them to stay! We did this picture for #eduphotoadaymay. Denisse thought it would be a good idea to hold the sun, so we did… well actually she did! - Jade

I think this picture is awesome and cute! I think that Jenna picked this picture to! It says oreo under the doggie. I have always wanted a doggie. My mom says we will maybe  get a wiener dog. All I have to do is ask Rick. I all ready know what the dogs first Halloween costume will be a hot dog. I love puppies and kittys. But sadly their were no kitty pictures so I took this one instead. - Mikayla

Public vs. Private Instagram

Public vs. Private.
 
For many teachers this is something we consider carefully when setting up any type of on-line account for our students and classrooms. We need to ensure that our decisions align with divisional policy and media permissions, and at the same time allow us to embed technology into our teaching in a way that is meaningful and purposeful for students. Technology changes much faster than policy. Our kids are keeping up with the change. It's their world. We need to do what we can to meet them along the way. That often means that we as classroom teachers need to drive change in policy forward. Sometimes it can be a long and frustrating process, especially when we attempt to redefine a task using a technology that is new, or at least new to policy makers. Sometimes they need a little bit of convincing in order to change a policy or approve a project... sometimes they need a lot. Either way, the work is worth it. Every time.

Here is what I've found works well:

1.      Know Your System - Find out how information flows in your school division. Who do you need to talk to first? Make sure to provide them with enough information about what you want to do and why it's important for kids. I usually send a follow up email so that they have something in writing that they can send up the chain.

2.      Be Transparent - Provide as much information as you can about the program/web tool/device you want to use. Give them all of the information they need. If possible, include examples of other teachers doing what you want to do.

3.      Power in Numbers - If there are other teachers that want to do what you want to do, enlist their help. It's best if everyone is sending the same message and it's harder to ignore a message being sent by a group of people.

4.      Welcome Guests - Invite your principal or upper admin to come into your classroom and see how you embed technology in your teaching. Offer to show them what you do or explain in person.

 

Sometimes we need to be creative and compromise a little in order to be able to use the technology we want to use, and at the same time respect the policies that govern us. For this particular project, I created "The Rules of Instagram" for my classroom. I created the rules for a couple of reasons. Most importantly, I want my students to be responsible contributors of this digital community AND to learn to take great photos. Secondly, wanted to ensure that my school division would be on board and support the project (Rule #3 - Stuff not People, ensured that they would).

Many of the classroom and schools that are participating in the challenge are following our "Rules" for the photo challenge. Here they are:
 



NOTE: If your Instagram account is private, your photos won't show up in our Instagram gadget (on the side bar of this blog) or in a hashtag search. If you have a private account, only the people that you've allowed to follow you will be able to search and see your photos.

How to search hashtags from your computer

OK... so I've had a few people ask me how they can search the #eduphotoadaymay hashtag online on a computer (aka non-mobile device) that does not have Instagram installed, as it doesn't appear that you can do so on the Instagram website. Well, there are a couple of ways: first, if you look at the #eduphotoaday feed on the right-hand side of this blog, you can click on it, and then when the SnapWidget window opens up, click on the #eduphotoadaymay hashtag (hashtags are coloured blue, as opposed to black for the rest of the text), and some Instagram photos with that hashtag will show up. However, when my students and I tried this from our computers at school (when they were choosing #eduphotoaday Instagram photos to do some writing about), we only got a limited number of photos (9) that come up - not ideal, considering that as of this writing, there are already over 100 photos with that hashtag... in less than two full days (well done, folks!)! A better way to look at photos from this project is to go check out the website Statigram - from here, you can search Instagram usernames or hashtags, and all of the photos with that hashtag (provided they are from accounts that are not private) will show up. I've included a screenshot of the Statigram homepage below - just type #eduphotoadaymay into the search box near the top of the page, and you're good to go! Or... if you're really lazy, click here, and it'll take you right to the search results. I hope this helps... and thanks for playing along!

Day 1: An Awesome Beginning!

Wow. Today was awesome! The first day of #eduphotoadaymay was very exciting! 68 photos showed up on our hashtag on Instagram, and Twitter was buzzing with tweets about our crazy little idea. Thank you to all of the teachers, classrooms, students and other iPhotographers who participated today. If you haven't joined us yet, jump in at any time! Remember to hashtag your photos #eduphotoadaymay and the word of the day.

Here is a sample of some of the photos from today:

 

Here are some of the things people were saying about #us on Twitter: