Memory "Books"

In my school district, the students are fortunate to be able to purchase a full color yearbook starting in Kindergarten. Even with the existence of a yearbook, second and third grade teachers have their students make their own classroom memory “books” full of pictures taken by their teacher or fellow classmates throughout the year. This year, one teacher decided to start her memory “books” at the end of September and has had monthly “scrapbooking” sessions to keep up with the sheer volume of pictures her classroom photographers snap.

This entire project can also easily be turned into a portfolio of student work. Helen Barrett describes in Collect, Organize and Publish Image Based e-Portfoliosusing Apple’s iPhoto.

Why do this?

A project like this provides the students with experience using the chosen software or website, thereby making other uses of it easier. When choosing a format, it is a good idea to think about how the program can be used for other purposes throughout the year.

Depending on the format, writing practice is incorporated. This includes the use of complete sentences, capitals, periods, and correcting spelling using spell check.

This is a good exercise in putting events in order. Students need to know how to sequence events especially, when writing or recalling what they have read.

Students can reflect on and review past events and learning situations. Each individual’s work and projects can be included in his or her final piece.

Format Considerations

The first step is to decide how the final project will go home with the student. Do you want it to a printed copy? Black and white or color?  Do you want it to be a movie that can be watched either on a computer or on a DVD player? Are you going to add copyright free music? Is it going to be emailed as a PDF or movie file? Does the file size matter if it is going to be emailed?

Paper or Electronic PDF Copy

The most basic way to complete this project is to use a word processing program. Pictures can be imported into the program and descriptive captions can be added. A step up from this is to use presentation software or websites such as PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Presentations. Presentation software definitely helps with the formatting and overall organization (whereas word processing programs may put pictures on different pages from their associated text, thus requiring the insertion of page breaks). Each slide can be a different event, topic, or project. Other programs such as Comic Life or paint programs that allow for pictures to be imported can also be utilized.

As an option, if you are planning on printing this out and trying to save on paper, multiple pages can be printed on one sheet of paper. Some programs will automatically allow this or just select the option when you go to print.

If these are going to be emailed to parents, I recommend saving them as a  PDF. This format is more universal and will ensure that what the students had created opens and looks the same on any computer. If you need help making the PDF see: How do I create PDF documents with Mac OS X?.

Movie – More Like Moving Images

The best option for this would be to use a program like iMovie, which integrates the iPhoto library right into the program to create easy access. Voiceovers can be utilized to provide the additional information that does not fit on the title pages or in the captions.

Music can come from various sources such as the program being used, copyright free websites, such as dig.ccmixter, or be original pieces created by the students.

Distribution of the movies is typically accomplished by giving each student a DVD with only his or her own project. Sometimes, the teachers allow the students to decorate the DVD cover and label. Copies of these can be given to the students to decorate with markers.

If these are not being distributed as a DVD to watch in a DVD player, make sure to export the project to a movie file such as QuickTime. Simply putting the iMovie project file on a DVD does not work.

Also, be sure to keep a copy of the students’ project for a week or two beyond its completion to make sure that the students can view the projects and that the DVDs work.

Getting Photos to the Students

Sharing photographs can be done in a number of ways. We normally put the pictures on a file server to which the students have access. Our current network is extremely inadequate for this next option, but it is possible for the teacher to share the images directly from iPhoto on his or her computer. This will require the teacher computer to be turned on while the students are accessing the photos. A third, more time consuming, way we have made photos accessible to the students is by actually copying them from a flash drive or CD directly onto each computer’s desktop.

Conclusion

As with any project, apply your creativity to the resources to which you have access. There are unlimited options as long as you are open to them.