The idea of this project was shared by Carla Arena in her LT SIG webinar "Rethinking the language classroom - from mobile to learning". In that webinar she shared lots of ideas about the use of mobile devices in classroom activities and projects.
Since it's not allowed to use some mobile devices in our school, I liked the idea of the Alphabet Game project as it depends on the use of cameras which I could easily get permission to use with my students.
The idea of the project is that students are divided into groups. The Alphabet letters are divided among the groups. Each group is asked to go around the school taking photos of items that start with the letters they are assigned. An extension of this activity is that after they finish taking photos of items of all alphabet letters, they go back to class and each group writes a story containing all the words of the items they photographed.
My students were very excited to know they are going to bring their cameras to use at school. On the day assigned for this activity, I explained to them the activity. They got very happy and much more excited when they knew they are going to leave the classroom and move around the school taking photos !! The alphabet letters were divided among four groups of students. They ran down the stairs, full of a high spirit of challenge ! They moved from one place in the school to another taking photos. They started with the playground, then moved to the library, computer lab, bathrooms, corridors, kitchen, and every corner of the school !! They even acted some words like "Queue" as they queued up and asked one of them to take a photo of their queue !! Another challenge was the letter "X" as they couldn't find an item starting with "X" in our school !! Four of the team lied on the floor in the same shape of an X and the photo was taken !!
After that, they all went back to class and sat in groups checking their photos and thinking up a story that contains all the words of the items they have photographed. By the end, they put up the photos and the story together and made up a wonderful product !!
Here is a photopeach where you can see my students in all steps of that exciting project. You can add your comments at the end !!
Enjoy it !!
ABC photographing class on PhotoPeach
