Our PLP 8 students have now been working with the iPad for two months. One of the big goals for PLP 8 in terms of skills is for our learners to gain a grounding in storytelling and the skill of using the still image.
Those goals tie in very nicely to our work with Everyone Can Create guides, especially the Photo guide.
This week, we began with Chapter 1 in order to gain some foundational skills with images prior to heading out on our Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door project.
Meg is committed to getting the best angle!
One of our favourite things about this guide as PLP teachers is that it all relies on tools that exist on the iPad already – no extra purchases required! Plus, because it’s based on tools that exist on the iPad, it gives our learners excellent skills at using the iPad itself and not relying on extra apps.
The chapter begins with photographing something familiar and using different angles, lighting, and locations. Since it was such a beautiful day, we went outside to get some diverse shots.
As Anders explains, “When I went outside I had more options to take more interesting photos. I used the plants and the natural light to make the basic lamp into an exciting photo. My favourite photo was when my lamp blocked out the sun creating this cool effect of light.”.
The next activity was assigned as homework. Students were tasked with tasking a photo walk and building an album around a theme.
This was another popular activity with the class, although as Kaia explains it wasn’t always easy to complete since, “To take my pictures I decided to go to the grocery store to take some pictures of warm coloured foods ( I got many weird stares but it was worth it”.
However, as Grace adds there was a lot of learning: “What I learned from this activity was how much beauty we take for granted and we should take the time to capture it.”
Finally, students used their learning from the chapter to create a personified picture. The slideshow here shows just a few!
Don't hurt my friends!
Overall, as Malaika says it best when she reflected, “Let me just start off by saying that this project was surprisingly fun! I learnt so much from this project, and guess what… I only used one app! … In “camera” there are so many cool things you can do, you can crop a picture, touch up the brightness, change the filter and even draw with marker on your picture!”.