Shared photo streams will change your classroom. In case you missed the memo when iOS 6 was announced:
With Shared Photo Streams, you can share just the photos you want with just the people you choose. Select photos directly from the Photos app in iOS, iPhoto or Aperture on a Mac, or even a Windows PC. Enter email addresses of the people you’d like to share with (or add new photos to a Shared Photo Stream you’ve already created).
CNET has a great tutorial for how to use shared photo streams, but I don’t care as much about how to create it. I care about how to integrate it into the classroom. That’s where the magic is, and the implications for the classroom are huge!
Class Photo Stream
Take photos of your class, your students, and your work. Create a photo stream for your classroom. Share the URL with parents. Share student work, homework examples, experiments, and classroom activities. Take a photo, and instantly your class parents can see it. This could almost replace a classroom website.
Sync to the School Computer
Easily get photos to your work computer. In the past, I would take a photo on my iPhone, email it to myself, open the email on my laptop, and download the photo. Now, all I need to do on my phone is add that picture to a photo stream. I created a photo stream just for getting photos to my work computer called Laptop Share. Those photos show up at a URL like https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A1JtdOXmJsI, and I can download the photos.
Student Projects
Students can share their own photos, and classmates can like or comment on photos. If you’re using Evernote for student portfolios, you’re already taking photos of student work. Feature the best work (it’s already been photographed for Evernote) in a student’s or class’ photo stream.
Special Events
If your class has a performance, game, or other epic event, take photos on your iOS device. Add them to a new photo stream, and share that photo stream with families.
Visual Literacy
Create a photo stream dedicated to visual literacy. Share a captivating photo, and ask students to write about it. They leave comments in the stream, so it will show up as more of a threaded discussion than a journal. If you’ve never tried this, writing about an interesting photo is a powerful, simple writing prompt.
Here’s a photo that tells a story. Students could write about the firefighter, about the helmet, why the helmet has soot. They could write a story about how the captain that wore this helmet saved the day… you get the idea.
Conferences
The next time you attend a conference, share the photos you take. Instagram and Twitter are temporary sharing solutions, and email photos is just annoying. A shared photo stream allows your friends and colleagues access to photos you want to share.
If you’re already using shared photo streams in your classroom, please share how else you’re integrating it. If not, I hope this gives you some ideas that you can apply today.
