Occasional papers
	ICT and learning ICT Subject Leaders An ICT policy	Inspecting ICT  ICT in Geography  Digital Imagery in the  Classroom
My CV Publications Occasional    papers Services Steam pages Home	Paul Heinrich, November 2002.  First published in "Connected 10". Digital Imagery in the Classroom Digital imagery has been around for many years now though it is only recently that relatively cheap and good quality cameras have become available. While most would struggle to match the image quality possible using film, few school activities require high quality prints. It is the immediacy and flexibility of the digital image that is the key to its use in the classroom - no wasted film, simple (at a basic level) manipulation and enhancement, integration with most standard software, can be emailed and only printed when really necessary. Digicams - an introduction Digital cameras usually use a device known as a CCD to sense the image, which is then manipulated by the camera's in-built software and saved to a storage device such as Smartmedia or Compact Flash memory card. The quality of the CCD is measured in megapixels - the more pixels the more information that is sensed and recorded. Cheap cameras may be of less than 1 megapixel while the most expensive professional cameras currently exceed 6 mp and 12 mp will soon be available. Cameras for general school use will normally have between 2 and 4 megapixel CCDs, though really basic cameras can still provide decent images for web pages. Many other factors need to be considered when purchasing cameras - build quality and reliability, image storage media, lens quality, optical and digital zoom range. Models are changing all the time so read reviews in the many digital photography magazines before buying. As a rough guide look for a minimum of 2.1 megapixels (4+ if possible), 3x optical zoom (ignore digital zoom - it merely degrades the image) and a Smartmedia, CompactFlash or similar memory card. Those from camera manufacturers such as Olympus, Canon and Nikon tend to be of better build quality.Many schools like the Sony Mavica, which uses floppy disks or mini-CDs as the storage medium - very simple to transfer the images to a computer. To avoid trailing leads consider also the "Flash Path" reader, a device that lets a memory card be read via a floppy disk drive. Various card readers are available that can be permanently connected to a USB port - slot the card in and drag the files between windows. Further guidance is available on the BECTa website at:  www.becta.org.uk/technology/infosheets/html/cameras.html Classroom ideas Using a modern, automatic digicam is simplicity itself, easily within the grasp of children from four years old! Recent ESCR research found that, "children as young as four years old show a remarkable aptitude for photography and are perfectly capable of framing a portrait shot. The photographs gave an insight into how youngsters view their world. Four year olds mostly took emotionally stimulating photographs such as those of their parents or visually stimulating pictures such as those featuring bright colours and patterns. The research also shows that by the age of seven children became quite adventurous in their subject matter and could easily stage and pose photographs." And older children? "Interestingly, eleven-year-old children were more likely to take outside photographs in a natural setting and their pictures were less likely to feature people. . . . Fifteen-year-olds however began to use photography more as a social activity with many describing photography as an activity to engage in with friends." After that, the sky's the limit! But how can digital imagery be integrated into a crowded curriculum? Checkout these ideas, gleaned from a few minutes web searching: If studying colors the pupils walk around the classroom, school or outside taking pictures of the color they are studying. If studying numbers or shapes, assign each child a number or shape and they photograph things that correspond with that number or shape. With the alphabet begin with each letter and have the pupils make pictures that begin with that letter. Gather them into some type of publication. Pupils should be able to create ID cards (or birthday, Xmas etc cards) that include digital pictures, either of themselves or something of their choice. Pupils take a picture of their choice and then write a few sentences or create a storybook using pictures and their creative story. Create a "body part" book or multimedia presentation in science. Take pictures of "people who help us" for a classroom display. Digital images can enable exploration of the local environment from the child's perspective. Record plants growing over time. Photograph student artwork for display on the school website. Create a virtual reality field visit. Image processing Once the snaps are taken what do you do with them? The first task is to transfer the images to a computer from where they can be viewed in either the software that came with the camera or any number of image processing applications. Even RM's Colour Magic can enhance and modify images, though many better tools are available, from the industry standard PhotoShop downwards. Software from the camera manufacture will suffice for most children but the more able in KS3 can exploit professional applications successfully. Basic image manipulation tasks include sharpening images, removing colour casts and cropping. If your software has it try using "Intellifix" to improve images - simple, automatic and can dramatically improve image quality. Use the "Unsharp Mask" function to sharpen images. Some special effects are worth exploring - monochrome, sepia, watercolour and similar but never lose site of the audience for the finished product. Older pupils can explore the clone tool, layers and other advanced facilities. Digital images can be very memory hungry. Cameras usually save pictures as JPEG format files (.jpg) and this is the form in which to save them from your imaging software. Bitmaps (.bmp) and TIFFs (.tif) files can be very large indeed! Printing Images The quality of a printer image depends on many factors - camera CCD and lens, printer quality and settings, ink and paper quality being key. Most lower priced cameras can produce acceptable printed images up to 7 x 5 inches with A4 possible with some 2 mp cameras.. A photo quality printer, with suitable glossy paper will give a much better result than a cheap printer and copier paper! As a general rule, use at least a 120g inkjet paper and ensure that the printer is set to this type. Beware - the higher the quality of the printing the more ink used - printing 10 A4 glossy prints can empty a £15 (or worse) ink cartridge. Only create high quality prints when absolutely necessary - and shop around for compatible inks and paper (once the printer is out of warranty). Information sources For lots of classroom ideas follow the links from: www.emtech.net/CEESA00/digital_camera_course_reader.htm www.ngflscotland.gov.uk/connected/connected6/ICTPractise/EinICT.asp www.creativeclassrom.org/ma02tech www.brunswick.k12.me.us/lon/lonlinks/digicam/teacher/home.html A range of digicam and scanned images to illustrate curriculum applications have been posted to the School Improvement Service website at www.portsmouth.biblio.net . A tool to batch convert files to .jpg format, Image Converter, can be downloaded from www.download.com . Don't forget the scanner When did you last use your scanner? These versatile tools often sit unused for long periods when they are, in fact, another wonderful tool for creative digital imagery. A flatbed scanner provides a quick method of digitising standard photographic prints, images from books (within copyright rules), children's artwork and much more. Better scanners may have attachments to allow copying of negatives and transparencies (slides). But why not experiment? Protect the glass platen with a sheet of clear acetate e.g. an OHP foil and try copying leaves, bark, flower, petals, fruit etc. Or try scanning fabrics, crumpled paper, indeed anything that will lie reasonably flat. Explore the effects of different scan settings - 72 dpi (dots per inch) is fine for images displayed only on screen or printed to A5 size on plain paper using typical school printers. This resolution will result in small file sizes, especially if saved in JPEG (.jpg) file format. Scanning at 30 dpi (the quality of magazine printing) and saving the file in TIFF (.tif) format gives much higher quality at the expense of huge files - often 15 mb or more. Even at this definition JPEG files are adequate for most purposes including photo-quality printing. Scanned images can be use in many ways - to illustrate word processed documents, in multimedia work, as a basis for further art and design activities or for use on the school website. A teacher's resource bank of images can soon be developed. Digital video Digital video is a new tool whose potential is only at the early stages of development and evaluation. With a growing range of good quality digital camcorders available at relatively low cost, and editing software such as iVideo standard on Apple Mac computers these tools are increasingly affordable by schools. Modern software enables video clips to be compiled in a similar way to a slide show of still images. BECTa have undertaken projects in this are ad further information can be found on their website at www.becta.org.uk . A BECTa CD-ROM "Teaching and Learning using Digital Video" is also available- see the website for details.   This article was written by Paul Heinrich and first published in "Connected" Issue 10.   "Connected" is the ICT Newsletter for Portsmouth School Improvement Service. Home    Other essays and publications Last updated: 16th September 2001 This article may be freely copied for educational purposes provided that its source is acknowledged.