CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas—Lively conversations are more than just fun for primary students. Language skills soar when students have opportunities to communicate for a purpose.
Second-graders at Kostoryz Elementary, a Title I school located in an urban neighborhood in this city on the Gulf Coast, are engaged in ongoing discussions about pictures, thanks to a digital photography project launched by teacher Laura Salazar.
"Students practice taking pictures of nature, classroom centers, art, or anything else they like," Salazar explains. Then students' photos are enlarged on a video monitor. "Students discuss what they were taking pictures of and how they can improve their photos. My focus is to get a clear picture for the audience the student is addressing."
As a class, students and teacher brainstorm how the photos can be used. "Our goal is to create a personal calendar for the upcoming year," Salazar says.
Students are assigned to take photos of one another and also learn how to save images to a disk. Each month, students use the bank of photographs and publishing software to create a calendar. They use the personalized calendar as a launching point for talking about holidays. Math lessons are woven in, too, as students review concepts such as even and odd numbers and other patterns. By spring, students should have enough images collected so that Salazar can create a personalized calendar book for each child's parents or guardian. She has four computers for students in her classroom and access to a school technology lab once a week. Classrooms have been networked for three years.
