My Fifth Graders Join Club Click, Our Virtual Student Photography Club!

Last spring, Diane Cordell and I thought it would be fun to get others involved in "Club Click", the student photography club that the two of us started with students at Van Meter, after we had lots of interest from friends on Twitter.   What fun to make our "virtual" photography club reach even more places, students, and teachers.  After all....Diane is in upstate New York....over 1,000 miles from Van Meter so what is a few thousand more miles between all of us.  

This was also the first year that I would bring Club Click to the elementary students.  

When John Schu and I spoke about Club Click coming to his school, we decided that our 5th graders would be a great place to start.  We both introduced Club Click to our students and set off to create slideshows of our schools to share with one another through Skype.  

John's 5th graders at Brook Creek presented their slideshows in small groups to our students in the computer lab this fall.  They were amazing!  My students were so excited to create their slideshows to show them too.  

One of the BEST parts of this project was talking to the students about photography.  Diane Skyped in with the students and talked about the photos that she takes.  I showed them many examples and different devices that I used.  I showed them photographs from my camera, iPhone, iTouch, and iPad.  We talked about different apps that can be used and editing the photographs in iPhoto.  

We also discussed using images in works that they produced.  I touched on copyright and fair use.  From the Little Van Meter Library Voice website, I showed the students places they could find images to use.  

I told the students that they could bring their own device to take photos.  Some of the students brought cameras but most of them had phones and iTouches.  I also have 10 iTouches and two cameras in the library that they can use anytime.  

They were so excited to set off in their groups to capture photographs of Van Meter to tell their story.  

And when they got back to the library....they couldn't wait to get started and show off the photographs they had taken.  

The groups worked together to choose and edit the photographs they were going to include in their iPhoto slideshows.

I loved watching the groups work together too.  They would ask each other to watch the slideshows and then go back into them for more editing.  Some of the groups decided that they needed more photographs so would go out and take a few more.

Once the slideshows were perfected, I uploaded them onto the Van Meter Librarian YouTube channel.  They will be easy to share with John's students and the others who are part of Club Click.  

We hope you enjoy the slideshows of Van Meter, too.