When You Give A Library An iPad......You Need An Instagram To Go With It

Today the 4th graders Skyped with our friend Diane Cordell.  She has been connecting with us this week in the library to celebrate Dot Day by sharing her love of photography.  Diane loves finding dots to take pictures of and put together a beautiful slideshow to share with our students to celebrate International Dot Day.  

You can read about her visit and see the pictures at this post....The 4th Graders Are Making Their Mark For Dot Day With Photography Haiku Deck Project.

Right before we connected with Diane, I showed the kids a set of amazing photographs our friend Robert Forbes has been taking while on a trip overseas.  Since he will still be gone for Dot Day next week, we are celebrating together by sharing dots from his travels and will even be singing a special song he wrote too.

They just loved guessing what the dots were in his pictures....and guessing where they were taken was fun too.

All of this talk about photography got two of my little friends thinking....

We have an iPad and stand that we use to record in the library, what about taking pictures?  

And what about sharing those pictures on an Instagram just for the library? 

They were right!  We have an iPad in the library that everyone uses already with the Camtasia Relay Fuse app and others.....Why not create an Instagram and letting the students take the pictures and share them too.

So as Diane was Skyping with the students and sharing her slideshow, I was creating a brand new Instagram for the library, with input from the two students of course.  We decided to call it the....

Van Meter Library Voice Instagram.   

They went to ReciteThis, which they learned about the first week of school, and created a profile logo that fit perfectly.  

I especially love how they described our Instagram.....And that it would be a place for all of our students kindergarten through 12th grade to come together through pictures.  

                                   

They captured the Skype with Diane....

and posted it on the Van Meter Library Voice Instagram.  

Diane got a great picture of the 4th graders from her side too.  

By introducing this to them, it also opened up a great discussion about using tools online.  We talked about being responsible, thinking about what we post and share, and always being kind online.   

When we finished the Skype, the 4th graders and I went outside to take pictures of dots all around us. 

All of the 4th graders also have their own iPad and love using it to take pictures.  

Our library iPad and stand came with us.  The kids do a great job of caring for it....

                                       

and taking turns using it to take pictures and video.

                                       

We also worked together to post them to Instagram.  

                                       

When the 2nd graders came a little later I told them we had a new Instagram for the library.  We also started by talking about being safe online and responsible, respectful, and kind digital citizens. 

                                        

I showed the students that we would be able to look at the pictures from the library on our Instagram and that we would share this with our school and others.  We talked about giving each picture a little title or description so everyone would know what was happening in the library.  

                                                 

                                                

It was fun to see the pictures that we were taking get added to the Van Meter Library Voice Instagram.

                                                

                                                

After the 2nd graders had their Dot Day coffee filter dots finished today, it was fun watching the kids get them all organized for a picture.  They were very proud of them and couldn't wait to show the world. 

I let them take the picture and I helped Eve post it on our Instagram.  

I just love what she wrote....

All 2nd grade's dot's tada! 

How fun to give our library and students an Instagram today!  Tada!