Glogster

media type="custom" key="9593610"

Click here to view my Glogster online

The journal article that I read gave several tips on how to take a great photographs. I found this article in EBSCO databases.
 * 1) Changing the light settings on your camera according to the environment will assist one to take wonderful pictures.Your camera will automatically adjust itself to a normal setting, but the light is not always perfect, such as an overcast or cloudy day. For example, if the sun is shining bright during the day you need to adjust the exposure button and turn it up. This way pictures will not turn out to be a grayish color. When it is dark out, you need to turn the exposure button down to get a great shot around the campfire in the evening. Play around with your camera ,so you can feel comfortable with the settings and light exposure ability.
 * 2) The next step is to stabilize your camera and not move it while you are taking pictures. If you do move, blurring the picture may result. A tip to use may be to place it on a wall or a nearby table.
 * 3) When taking a picture, you can view the shot on the LCD lens or the viewfinder. Use the viewfinder for a more precise picture and check the picture through the LCD lens after the shot has been taken.
 * 4) When taking a shot, turn your camera vertical instead of horizontal. This helps to focus in on the object or person you are capturing. Many times when one takes a picture horizontally one will have the background of people they do not know, a messy room, and an object of something not desired in the picture.
 * 5) Now that one has taken some photos it is time to upload them to your computer. This is the time one can clean them up a bit, take red eyes out, and adjust the lighting a little more.

 The person taking the photograph is the real artist, not the camera itself. To achieve better results from your camera experiment with looking at your subjects from different angles. Walk around and ask them not to pay attention to you. On capturing the perfect shot one needs to find the subject looking as natural as possible. Forced photos where everyone is posed is not going to seize the most intriguing moment. Focus your picture on something simple and remember the purpose for taking the shot. Hold the camera still against your body for support as you wander around. Get right up near your subject and look at it from above, below, extremely close, and angled. When one is trying to take great family pictures ,whether you are inside or outside, always turn on the flash as this will help reduce harsh lines and shadows. Have the subjects you are taking photos of look as candid as possible. Remember to take the shots in thirds, imagining top, middle, and bottom proportionately. Insist on the area around a subject be clean of clutter or anything that will be distracting in the overall picture. The best time of day to take beautiful pictures is right after sunrise and right before sunset. If lighting is not going to be ideal always use a flash to soften the light, especially midday. Be willing to move in, out, and around your object or person. If possible, try to enclose the subject near a meadow of flowers, a brook, trees, and rocks. This will create more depth and beauty in the overall picture.

There are many uses for technology in the classroom. I plan on teaching K-3 and I would use digital cameras in making a journal of the field trips we choose to go on. I would have the children each experience taking pictures with digital cameras of their favorite part of the field trip and document it by writing a couple of sentences about what they discovered and learned. I would download these pictures on separate pieces of paper to be bound in a journal documenting their photos and some of mine. This would be an ongoing project that would serve as a technology project documenting their personal experiences. I would have them give input into what the students would like to have included in their journal.

The next article I read about gives the history and the advances in digital cameras. I found this article in the encyclopedia databases.  The article shows the popular trend in digital camera and electronics. The surge began in the 1990's for professional and personal use. One could change the picture and make many changes to its original form.The first digital cameras were introduced to the world in the 1980's. To buy a digital camera during that era exceeded thousands of dollars.In 1999, the quality of the images and the price came down so the average American could afford a digital camera. Many wondered how digital preformed in comparison to film. One of the major differences in digital cameras is one could take a picture and see the results immediately. Using film one would have to have the film developed, carry around enough rolls of film for the camera, and wait until the film was developed to view what they had captured on film. Digital cameras work by capturing light that are broken down into pixels. For color pictures these pixels are separated into the colors red, green, and blue. When adding these colors together one receives a similar replica of the object being shot.A digital shot is made up of thousands, possibly millions, of pixels. The digital camera stores the images on a disk that can be accessed by a computer with special cables. The pictures are then downloaded to the computer for the person to view. Printing digital images is easily accessible to the average person. Depending on the type of printer one purchases and the higher dots per inch or dpi will give the printer resolution to rival the quality of film. To store your photographs on your computer the compact disc is the most permanent way. To preserve and save your photos that were shot with film, one may choose to scan the images that converts them into pixels and stores them in your files. In this way you can save your photos and memories for many generations to come. Digital shots can be duplicated in many different ways. There are software tools that can upgrade the quality of the image in a number of ways. These adjustments to digital photos vary from color, setting, background, and placing a person in another setting. The increase in popularity for digital cameras continues to rise as it becomes more affordable.

 As a classroom activity, I would create an introduction in how to use digital cameras. All the students could to learn how to operate a digital camera and take quality pictures using the top ten tips of getting a great shot. I would get parent involvement, by having the parents come to class and provide digital cameras to assist the other children learning the basics in camera usage. We could make this activity a scavenger hunt in finding different objects to photograph around the school. Then we could all share our findings and look at the pictures on the computer and make a collage of our findings. This would be a great group assignment. In using the encyclopedia database, I found it very easy to navigate and research. Using the search bar and the information on digital cameras was simple to find many articles on this subject.

The next article I researched was from the database Thinkfinity. It was about using a digital camera in the classroom.  The article was broken down into three questions about why use digital cameras, where to start, and what should I be concerned about? The educators who contributed to this article did a great job in highlighting the many uses in the classroom. First, children love to take pictures and one can view their shots immediately. The students love hands on learning and can view these images on a screen, Smart Board, or to an email account. The student becomes more engaged in the topic being investigated when using a digital camera. Second, the children need to have some training before the use of a digital camera and this can be done in the classroom. When they have completed the competency requirements in the handling of cameras, as a teacher, one would then take their picture and issue them a license to be a photographer. It would be important to stress to the students the need to take more serious shots and not to be messing around or the privilege may be taken away. These are expensive technology tools that need to be handled with care. Third, find out what your school policy is on publishing pictures, be sure to check with your principal. Fourth, train the students to have a critical eye when choosing the pictures to develop. Having the students teach one another in class is a great way to instill leadership and competency. To learn how to use a digital camera, one must have a hands on experience.  Have the children help decide from a couple of choices what they want to do with the pictures in learning this technology. Some suggestions for taking pictures could be during a special event at school. Take images of places in your community and make a brochure about their community, have them take pictures of a geography lesson of famous places in the world. Have the students choose a letter then walk around the school and take a picture of the object with the letter that each student choose. Take pictures on a field trip and download them when you arrive back at school and have them write a paper, draw a picture, and act out the the things that they saw and have the other children guess what they are displaying. I can see after looking through the many articles on digital cameras the use is c <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">reative and endless. The database site was simple to navigate with a wealth of information.