Hi. Yes! Our 7th grade is currently working on a Markup, Percent, Mark Down unit. They viewed a slide share and completed a worksheet. Next, they were assigned a silly item and created advertisement fliers - with original price, sale price, and percent saved . Items were nose hair trimmers, gym bag spray, baby gates, kitty litter, etc. In English, they took it a step further and wrote scripts for a commercial. Now were are filming them and making a commerical for their products - mentioning the math parts. "But wait! If you act now - you'll save $5 - that's an additional 50% off!" :)
Interestingly enough, we have just completed a case study on using digital cameras and Flickr in the classroom. You may find it helpful. Here is a link to it. Let me know if it was of any help to you...
The video is good.... and is a good launching point for the discussion. This is my experience with photography, as I used to teach photo. I had my students set up flickr accounts. However, the next year, my school district blocked flickr as flickr has unmonitored content. Boo.
I'd like to see how people use flickr in non-arts related classes.
I use them in a second grade unit "Kindness". Kids get together in groups, 3 kids to a group. I give each group a point and shoot camera. Each kid gets instructions on a small piece of cardstock. The intructions will say something like this: "Sharing Kindness, Take a picture of one person sharing a snack with another" or "Helper Kindness, Take a picture of a person helping carry something for another" . I have about 30 different cards with Kindness acts on them.
Each child uses a camera to setup and take the picture on their card. Each child will take some pictures and then pass the camera to the next member of their group, who will take pictures of the remaining two group members acting out the instructions on their kindness card.
I then take all the cameras and upload the pics to a shared folder on the fileserver.
The kids then use 3 or 4 pictures each to create a one page comic demonstrating Kindness acts using Comic Life.
The constructed comics from all the kids are exported as images and then used as a slideshow screensaver on their class computers. Good for open house and such.
We use Flip Cams in all classes to video oral presentations and little plays that the students do - our school is bi-lingual. They get a chance to see and hear themselves and we also e-mail it to the parents to see.
Our math teacher has students use digital cameras to take pictures of geometric shapes in school at home or around the community. They then have to make a presentation with the pictures, describing the geometry principles.
It let's you design training and assessment for vocabulary and you can include text, photos, audio and video
You can nearly build your own little Rosetta stone with it!
In an ESL classroom, you could use photography to take pictures of different items (perhaps different vocabulary words). On the back of the picture, you could put the 2nd language and the English language words and use the pictures as flashcards. Students could work in pairs or with the teacher. When the child is able to identify the item in both languages, have them make a sentence with the word/picture in both languages. You could even have the students help you take the pictures, that way they take some ownership of the activity.
ESL students could take photos of objects and actions they would like to be able to name and you could print them out, stick them on a wall and develop a students' needs driven class dictionary.