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This is an archived site and is no longer maintained. There will be no further updates to this site.
A CILT Seed Project Final Report
Ann Rivet, Rebecca Schneider, Joseph Krajcik
University of Michigan
Carolyn Staudt, Stephen Bannasch
Concord Consortium
September 30, 2000
The CILT Ubiquitous Images project explored the capabilities and affordances of digital camera use by students. Digital camera technology is improving extremely quickly and these devices are rapidly becoming ubiquitous. Until recently, integrating digital visual recording into student investigations has been rare. The features of digital cameras allow students to capture and analyze images over space and time in a series of investigation. Hence, working with digital images allows students to experience phenomena that might normally remain abstract.
In particular, the areas of ecology and environmental quality particularly suit the use of digital images to support students' understanding. There has been a long history of using images to convey messages about natural areas, such as through the National Geographic Society or the Sierra Club's fantastic photographs. Images can increase interest in the material being presented, particularly if the subject is of local concern (Young, Witter, Montgomery & Chilcote, 1994). However, there is almost no empirical evidence to support the use of images for learning about ecology or how this should be done.
Although national science standards recommend supporting student understanding of natural processes by studying areas close to home (AAAS, 1993), it can be difficult to apply general ecological principles to specific sites (Parker & Pickett, 1997). Ecosystems are incredibly complex, and site processes and factors change continually over time. In addition, if students are to construct understanding through inquiry as recommended in the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 1996), they need to collect a variety of evidence from their local area and capture the complexity of the system in a representation that they can understand and share with others.
The advancement of digital camera technology may combine the power of photography with the power of technology to support students in learning about their local environment. The use of digital cameras can be particularly powerful because they allow students to view their images while still in the field and reinforce the link between the image and the experience. Alternatively, photographic representations of the environment can collapse time through seasons or years. Digital photographs can also help to represent very large-scale data such as an ecosystem, similar to the use of microscope cameras or computer images to capture small-scale phenomena in areas of biology and chemistry.
Through this project we sought to describe how students and teachers use digital photographs to facilitate thinking about science ideas connected with their local ecosystem. We were guided in this by several questions. These included first, how do students and teachers use digital camera technologies, including the manipulation of images in student-created artifacts, to represent their ecosystem? Second, how do students enjoy and value digital photography. Third, how do students use their digital photographs as evidence collected from their local ecosystem, such as when making predictions and conclusions about the quality of their local ecosystem?
As part of this seed grant project, we completed two small studies. At the Midwest site, Ann Rivet, Rebecca Schneider, and Joseph Krajcik from the University of Michigan worked with seventh-grade students as they took pictures of their local stream and used these images as evidence to make predictions of the water quality of their local stream. Students then integrated these pictures into web pages to communicate their findings of their water quality study to the local community. At the northeast site, Carolyn Staudt and Stephen Bannasch from the Concord Consortium worked with fifth-grade students as they took pictures of their local pond and used these images to enhance their studies of a year-long collection of data. Over the course of this project the teams from the two centers met to exchange and compare ideas, methods, and philosophies. By collaborating together towards a common goal, we are able to share findings that span the two projects and provide recommendations for future use of digital cameras in learning situations, design specifications for new cameras, and directions for future research in this area.
In this report, we will first briefly review the context and data analysis from each of the two settings, and then present an overall statement of our results and recommendations.
Ann Rivet, Rebecca Schneider and Joe Krajcik at the University of Michigan worked with three classes of 7th grade students and their teachers in a private suburban middle school. The students were previously involved in a year-long water quality study of the creek behind the school. Students used a class set of five Olympus digital cameras to record images of the creek during their third seasonal data collection visit. The students were give two tasks. First, students were to take pictures that would help them make predictions about the outcomes of quantitative water quality tests they would conduct later. Second, students would use these images in web pages they would create to present the outcomes of their water quality projects.
Ann and Rebecca collected data from these classrooms as this project progressed. The data included: 1) fieldnotes in and out of the classroom as students worked with the cameras and the images on the computer, 2) student responses to a short-answer survey about using cameras and images, 3) teachers' meetings and interview, and 4) copies of students' work (images, predictions and web pages). Each data source was reviewed and coded into multiple categories, including evidence of feasibility to use the digital cameras, evidence of student interest, and evidence of using images as evidence. For each data type, clarifying sub-questions were developed for each category to guide coding. Through coding we looked for trends in the data, highlighting particular examples of successes and challenges in each of the categories. We then looked across the coded data in each category to develop findings, supported from evidence from multiple sources.
Carolyn Staudt and Stephen Bannasch at the Concord Consortium worked with a 5th grade class in a suburban middle school. Each of the twenty-six students logged, sketched, and collected data of a local pond and its feeder stream. Although the students had their own individual handheld computer for note taking and data collection, student pairs collected data at the same specific location on the pond for the entire school year. In the spring, students were asked to enhance their studies with the use of digital cameras.
Four cameras were provided for the study. While the pictures were being taken, students concentrated on the unique features of each of their sites, including speed and depth of the water at each location, scum and lichen collected around the rocks and debris, and vegetation and grasses growing at each site. Few of the student sketches captured these characteristics of their sites. Each photograph was printed in color and the students annotated each photograph one week after their final visit to the pond. They were asked to especially remark about information or special features that they did not record in their notes during the data collection session. A comparison of the detail of the photographs to the student sketches provided a better understanding of how cameras in the hands of the students promote a better contextual experience in the field. \
We have articulated findings from this project in three areas that span the two
projects.
Feasibility: Overall, we found that students were very successful working with the
digital cameras and the images. Classroom observations, teacher interviews, and student
artifacts all show that students and teachers were able to use the digital cameras
with relative ease. Teachers needed little instruction prior to introducing the camera
in the classroom. Likewise, students were able to use the cameras in the field after
only brief instruction from the teachers. The majority of the pictures taken by the
students were clear and sharp, and had quite a bit of detail.
At the Midwest site, viewing images and working with web pages was greatly facilitated by the existing computer infrastructure of the classrooms. These classrooms each had eight networked iMac computers with Ethernet connections to the Web, and a networked G3 teacher station. The cameras were unable to interface with the student iMac stations. Instead, the images were downloaded to the teacher station by the teachers, and then accessed by the students from the student computers over the network. Students were then able to use the pictures on the computers to both make predictions about water quality tests and to include in their web pages about the quality of their local stream.
At the Northeast site, four randomly selected students took pictures of each of the individual sites on the pond. Since the area of study was quite rugged and covered a large area, the student photographers carefully roamed from each site, taking a close-up and group photograph of each study site. Even though only two cameras had zoom capability, student photographers had no problem focusing the camera on the unique features that each individual group designated and often pointed out other features that were of additional interest. Since the cameras at the Northeast site were of varying types, the initial five-minute training for each student photographer and the downloading process was different for each camera. All pictures were downloaded at the Concord Consortium, enlarged and printed on paper.
Student interest: Across both sites, students appeared to be genuinely engaged and excited about working with the digital images. All of the students participated in taking and working with the digital cameras. Students took their time selecting aspect and subject of their photographs. Student also showed interest by sharing, both visually and actually giving, their photographs with others once they returned to the classroom. At the Midwest site, many of the student groups requested permission to return to the stream to take addition images. Many of them stated that they wished for more time and more opportunity to take pictures and work with the images. Teachers were also quite pleased with the cameras. They felt that using the cameras made the stream analysis experience more special and personal for the students.
At the Northeast site, students were very serious about having the most important
features of their site captured on film. Student photographers asked questions openly
to the students at each site: “How is this different from what it looked like during
the winter?”; “What causes the scum?”; “Is the water higher now than it was last
time?” On the day that the student photographers were roaming from site to site,
the teacher was remarked at the increase in the level of discussion from that previously
seen while students were just sketching their individual sites on the handheld computers.
Images as evidence: We found that students were capable of using the images as evidence
to support their predictions or their conclusions. At the Midwest, a majority of
the students used some aspects of the photographs as evidence for predictions of
water quality tests. For example, one student supported his prediction for high
levels of dissolved oxygen by stating, "We predict this because in the pictures
the water was moving really fast, actually faster than we had ever seen it move before."
Another student stated that, "The picture that my partner and I took of the
sides of the stream caving in helps us rate turbidity." In a similar manner,
students were able to use the images to support their claims of water quality in
their web pages. Students commented that the pictures helped them see details that
they might not have seen at the stream and allowed them to take their time as they
analyzed their stream. Several students commented that the images provided data
to prove their claims about water quality. A student stated in class how one of
her photos shows that "it definitely slopes down from the condos. We have talked
about that a long time. This picture proves it."
However, not every student actually used the images as evidence. Some students instead
used their previous experiences at the creek or previously collected data to make
their predictions and support their claims. As part of her predictions, one student
wrote, "the pictures we took…didn’t help that much because we already know what
are [sic] stream looked like, because we had already done this twice before."
Several students commented that the digital images were useful for making predictions
about some of the water quality tests, such as temperature, turbidity, and dissolved
oxygen, but not useful for predictions of other tests, such as conductivity and pH.
Many students did not use images frequently as evidence in their web pages. One
possible reason for this is that several students ran out of time working on the
web pages and were not able to complete them. Another reason could have been the
fact that the digital cameras were introduced at the end of the water quality project.
As expressed by the student above, many students probably already understood the
content and did not need the images to support their learning.
At the Northeast site, the students became more retrospective relating to seasons and differences in weather conditions when they annotated the pictures then they were during their regular visits to their study sites. The sketches that the students made on the handheld throughout the year markedly showed only characteristics relating to the present conditions existing at the student’s sites, while the annotations on the enlarged photographs generally compared conditions that existed during the fall to those during the winter or the spring. Students clearly looked at the photographs as evidence of change throughout the year of study. They also asked many of the same questions that they voiced with the student photographers on the enlarged photographs, many of which could have been the basis for further investigations. It must be noted, that this comparison may have been due to the fact that the students were only asked to annotate photographs at the end of the year-long project.
Based on our findings, we have developed a set of recommendations for further exploration of the use of digital cameras in educational settings.
Recommendations for Digital Camera Design: The Olympus cameras used at the Midwest site were quite good in the classroom setting. However, we have developed some recommendations that we feel will help extent the use of digital cameras into more classroom settings. First, the cameras used in the Midwest site were not compatible with the iMac student stations in the classroom. It is crucial that the cameras can be used with whatever technology exists in the classroom, including the increasing presence of iMacs. At the Northeast site, where the students worked with handheld computers, it would have been very advantageous if they had cameras that could be used with the handhelds. It would be more meaningful if the students’ notes and pictures resided on the same handheld and could be downloaded and viewed by the students at the same time. Ideally, it would be even better if photographs that the students took in the field could be annotated on the spot. Presently, none of the handheld camera applications permit annotation on captured pictures by writing or typing on the screen. Finally, there is the issue of cost. Without the support of this research opportunity, the cameras are prohibitively expensive for most educational settings. If large-scale use is the goal for this educational technology, the initial cost for the equipment and software will need to be reduced.
Recommendations for Future Research: Several questions still remain to be answered before we can make definitive statements about the benefits of using this technology in educational settings. Such questions include, how is using the digital cameras embedded in a content investigation an effective task structure? How do students at different grade levels use the images as evidence? In what other types of investigations and topics can the digital cameras be used effectively? What improvements can be made to the hardware and software designs for educational settings? What is the role of the technology infrastructure of the school to the successful use of the digital cameras? How would year-long use of images taken in the field promote better student-initiated research? It is our hope that this initial study will lead to future project that focus on the benefits of using this new ubiquitous technology.
Recommendations for Classroom Use: Based on the findings of this study, we recommend that the digital camera use needs to be situated in a learning task which focuses on specific content ideas. The task needs to be structured and focused so that the objective of the activity is not just to use the cameras, but to use them for the purpose of understanding science or demonstrating student understanding. Without this task structure, the digital cameras and the images become simply toys and photographs. By focusing the goal other than using the camera itself, students will view the camera as a tool and images as data which support their understanding.
The successful collaboration in this project was beneficial for all members involved. It provided a unique opportunity for members of different organizations, researchers and teachers, and junior and senior researchers to work together and share ideas. A key aspect of this collaboration was the opportunity to meet together twice, once for a two-day retreat before the research project began and again near the end of the project to compare methods and findings. These meeting proved vital to the success of the project, for it gave each of us the opportunity to express our vision and our opinions in a face-to-face setting. At the initial meeting we developed together our statement of goals for this project, which framed our data collection and guided our analysis. The strength of this collaboration stemmed in part from the fact that this project built from previously developed working relationships between the team members from the Concord Consortium and from the University of Michigan. Another key to the success of this collaboration is that the group remained small, and thus we were able to coordinate meetings, conference calls, and deadlines with relative ease. This was an enjoyable project for all members involved, and we look forward to collaborating again in the future.
Further information has and continues to be posted at www.concord.org/ui. Although not complete at this time, the web site will include future papers about this Ubiquitous Images project that contain more detailed data analysis, as well as examples of student artifacts from this project.
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Page last changed Oct 19, 2000 by Stephen Bannasch