Web 2.0: Using photo-sharing sites and photo blogs to tell a story

Welcome!

In this workshop, I will be showing you an innovative way to teach your students to use their creativity and problem solving skills to tell stories using Web 2.0 tools (this include photo sharing sites, photo sharing blogs, and social media).

The exercise is catered towards a high school demographic, but could possibly be tweaked for various age groups.

Also, these exercises can be used in many different subjects (I will give some examples on how to use these exercises in math, science, history, and media/communication classes). I would say that this exercise would be an excellent activity for a media/communication class since people in this field are constantly having to communicate visually; whether it be in movies, magazines, commercials, etc.

First of all, let's look at our audience:

This lesson is perfect for these students because it is relevant to what most of them are doing on a daily basis. They are probably already using photos to tell stories about themselves on social media. Many of them have already used the problem solving skills it takes to figure out how to tell a story visually.

Why this will catch their interest:

As stated, many of these students use social media on a daily basis. One of my favorite professors always stated that we need to cater our lessons to what is relevant to the students today! One of the examples she always used was one that she implemented with her elementary grade students who were learning their multiplication tables.

She would always observe her students to see what interested them at the time (because it is always changing). She began to notice that on their free time and during recess they were often playing the card game "War". For those of you that don't know how to play War:

• It is a two player game.
• You distribute the deck evenly.
• Each player places the card that is on the top of the deck face up on the table.
• Whomever placed the higher ranked card down wins both of the cards.
• The winner is the person who eventually ends up with both of the cards.

She decided to create a multiplication war game. When the cards were placed on the table, the numbers of the cards had to be multiplied. The first student that could say the correct answer to the multiplication problem would win both cards. The kids loved this so much that she soon caught them playing "Multiplication War" on their free time.

I use this example because many teachers might be hesitant to use social media for part of their assignment. However, it is what is relevant with our students now. It is something many of them enjoy. Also, it is a tool that they will be using outside of high school to help them paint the picture of the person they are becoming. Some of them may even be part of the social media teams for their future employers and organizations.

Resources Required

Outside of your normal classroom, you will need the following:

Teacher

• Computer and Projector – You will need this in the classroom to be able and present the topic as well as show examples.
• Computer Lab – You will need to rent this lab on two (or however many you desire) separate occasions. One day to research potential topics and 1 day to upload the project. This will need to be spaced out. *If you have media/communication students, you may want an additional day to edit the photos if they have learned photography editing.
• Place on the Web to upload the images – for safety reasons, we will most likely want to post these on an educational and secure platform. You can use a classroom blog or other Web 2.0 site that allows the students to upload the image, place a caption, and see each other’s posts. 

Students

• Camera – most students either have their own cameras, can borrow their parents, or have a camera on their phone. Some schools may have opportunities to check-out camera’s for a limited time.
• Username to logon and post on the chosen Web 2.0 platform.

Optional

• For media/communication students you may want to give them the opportunity to take their creativity to the next level by using an editing tool similar to Adobe Photoshop. If your school has this software, or something similar, make sure to make it available to them.

Here are the basic objectives of this lesson. Please take note that the objectives may vary and possibly increase depending on the subject that this exercise is being used for. I will discuss the possible objectives for each subject that I have catered this lesson for in sections below.

Basic Objectives

• Students will learn to use creativity in deciding on the story they would like to tell (based on the criteria and topics provided to them from the teacher).
  • For media/communication students, often times this “story” is a possible answer to a problem they are trying to solve. Often times a company is trying to solve a problem when mass communicating. For example, a publishing company may notice that they are not selling many books to the young professional crowd. What could they post to maybe target this demographic? Maybe a computer manufacturing company is trying to make their image more personable? How could they post an image that would make the company seem more personable?
• Students will learn to use problem solving skills in regards to communicating a story to an audience visually.
• Students will learn how to functionally post these photos/images on a photo-sharing social media site.
• Optional: Students will use the rules and functionality they have learned from twitter [discussed further in workshop “Web 2.0: How to use Twitter to write better, funnier, and more concise”] to write appropriate captions.

***Extra Credit – Another great thing about using Web 2.0 tools in education is that it has the power to bring people together and build communities of common interests. For students that want some extra credit, they can research on their own how to properly use hashtags in their captions. If done correctly, you could award them extra credit.

Task

Ask the students to tell a story visually via a photograph or a collage of photographs. It ultimately has to be saved and uploaded as one image, but can have multiple photos within the one image.

The topic of this story/image can vary based on the subject. 

Media/Communication

Teachers Note: these courses often go by different names depending on the school district: digital graphics, mass communication, digital media, design communication, visual communication, web site design, photography, photojournalism, etc.

Ask the students to tell a story visually via a photograph or a collage of photographs for a specific product. Present the students with various products and a problem that the company is trying to solve with this visual representation on their social media site. For example, a certain publishing company is trying to get more book sales, a computer company is trying to seem more personal, a telecommunication company is trying to have a better community presence.

Provide the students with examples. Sometimes the problem is simply that they want to sell more of a specific item. Often times jewelry stores are the best story tellers in their advertisements. Here is an example of a story being told by Zales - with the intent of selling more of a specific jewelry collection:

Additional Objectives

• For the media/communication students: they will also learn how to solve a company problem in regards to a products sales or a products image.
• They will learn how to target their specific audience and how to best communicate to that audience to get the message they want communicated to that audience.

Math

Ask the students to tell a story visually via a photograph or a collage of photographs. The story they will be telling is how others use math (hopefully the specific math topic that they are currently learning) to solve problems on a dialy basis. A great way to start is to have them look at the real world word problems that they are currently working.

Provide the students with examples. If you are teaching trigonometry, a great example is an astronomer using trig to find the distance of a nearby star from Earth. They could collage a few pictures of someone, maybe even themselves, calculating this out. They could even include a picture in the collage of someone looking at the star from a telescope.

Teachers Note: This exercise is great for those that are constructive learners. This exercise will help them understand how applicable the subject they are learning is!

Additional Objectives

• For the math students: they will learn how the skills they are using can be used in real world activities and future careers. It will make them understand how applicable math is on a daily basis.

Science

Ask the students to tell a story visually via a photograph or a collage of photographs. The story they will be showing is a job that someone is doing in the specific science field you are teaching. A great way to start is looking at research or work that people are doing in your field. If you are teaching Chemistry, a great example is to show someone performing research to find a cure for an illness (as always the students and their friends can be the actors in these stories).

Teachers Note: This exercise is great for those that are constructive learners. This exercise will help them understand how applicable the subject they are learning is!

Additional Objectives

• For the science students: They will learn how science is used in the real world to solve problems.

History

Ask the students to tell a story visually via a photograph or a collage of photographs. The story they will be showing is that of a figure in the portion of history that you are currently discussing. In this instance, they will be pretending to be that figure in history. If that figure had a social media site, what story would they be telling to their audience?

Teachers Note: This is a great exercise for those students who learn things when the subject is more personable. In this instance, the students not only have to learn about this figure, but they have to try and place themselves in the figure's shoes. They have to think, "how would this figure represent themselves?"

Additional Objectives

• The student will learn specifics about the person they are presenting including characteristics (if known in historical contexts), achievements, lifespan, etc.

Process for the Lesson Implementation

Introduction to Task and Fundamentals

1. Make sure you have the necessary resources and that you have reserved the labs if computers are not available in your classroom. If you are going to suggest your students edit their images, ensure you have reserved labs that have photo editing software installed on the systems. Also, make sure that you have given enough time between to two lab reservations for the student to have picked a new topic if the first one was way off topic, and captured the image on their own time. This is because in the second lab session, they will either be uploading or editing the image they have captured.
2. Introduce them to the task. Explain the objectives and functionally go over how it will all work (see Task tab for further details).
3. Explain to them the specific story they will be telling. As explained in the task section, this can vary based on the subject you teach.
   1. Media/Communication – present to them the various products they can choose from and the problem they are trying to solve with the social media presence/image post. Since this class is more in depth in regards to all aspects of communication, you might want to go into an audience analysis exercise. There are also other aspects, like which social media site will set the best tone for the story you are trying to tell and to gain the results you are looking for? You may also want to go over some photography basics, or even some photo editing basics.
   2. Math – You will want to give them some real world examples or word problems that they can get inspiration from.
   3. Science – You will want to go over some jobs/careers that use the specific branch you teach to give the students some inspiration.
   4. History – You will want to make sure you have covered some figures that they could use as well as some other figures that have not yet been discussed but are applicable to the subject or time period you are currently teaching.
4. As stated in the task section, give them ample examples. After you do this exercise once, save those examples to use next time you assign this task. You can show professional examples, but often times that can be overwhelming for the students since they often times cannot replicate the same quality of a professional photographer or professional advertiser. You can even create your own examples to show the class.
5. Use your first reservation in the labs to allow the students to decide on their topic and what story they will be telling. They should be given ample time to search and you should be available as a resource to answer any questions. Since they are given some freedom in the topic they pick, you will most likely be needed to provide guidance or assist in inspiration. Have them select a topic and submit to you what they plan on doing.
6. Between the time that you have between the first lab session and the second lab session, review the topics the students have picked. Make sure to review these soon. If the student is way off topic, you will need to provide feedback to get them on the right path. You may have to pick a topic for them so they will have ample time to gather the image before the second lab session.
7. In the second lab session, you will have the students upload their images to the computer. From there, you will either:
   1. Non-Media/Communication students: walk the students through uploading their image (and a possible caption) to the Web 2.0 platform you have picked. If they decided to collage the images, give them some time to do this (they can do this in paint, and if they want to get more detailed than this, it is something they will have to do on their own time).
   2. Media/Communication students: allow the students time to edit their photos. Be available as a resource in the event that they do not know how to do a specific task in the editing software to get the desired effect.

Suggested Evaluation Scale

Please take note that I did not use an exact grading scale because I want to leave this as customizable as possible. If you want to weighta certain objective greater, you have the freedom to do so. Also, please take note that depending on the subject you teach, there may be more objectives that need to be added and graded upon.

Make the Lesson Your Own

As you can see, I have left this lesson plan wide open for your own creative inspiration. Web 2.0 tools are great for both teachers and students to explore education further. Web 2.0 tools can deliver content, supplement lessons, as well as be used as tools for constructive learning. 

I encourage you to use this lesson because it allows the students to use creativity and problem solving skills in a platform they are comfortable in - Social Media.

Please see our brochure for further information about this workshop - App-Lying Technology in the K-12 Classroom.