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Uses of Microsoft Photosynth in Geography

Photosynth

I’ve been aware of Microsoft’s Photosynth for a while now, mainly via a post from Ollie Bray.  However, I’ve never had time to sit down and explore uses until now.

I’ve created a quick example and have thought of a number of ways in which these could be used in Geography.  I will write more about Photosynth next month as we will be using it with pupils as part of our 21st Century Learning Alliance Fellowship project.

Teacher using Photosynth using a projector

The Photosynth below shows an area of the Geography department at my school.  It’s not great, with a matchup of only 65%, but I wanted to reflect the time and ability of students.  I took 85 pictures using an Olympus uTough 8000.  The software was easy to use, but did take some time meaning that complete Photosyths would not be able to be created within the space of a one hour lesson.

This could be used in class in a number of ways:

1. Space and a sense of Place are core principles of Geography.  What do pupils like about this space?  How do they feel?  How would they change this space? Does the resource accurately reflect that space an place? For example, does this place always look the same?

2. Photosynths could be created of fieldwork locations – this would allow classes to revisit them, and for those who missed out on the trip to visit them for the first time.  Alternativly, a fieldwork location could be risk assessed by a class before visiting there – this links in nicely to Every Child Matters and Personal Learning and Thinking Skills.

3. In combination with Community Clips, pupils and teachers could record their thoughts and feelings about this place while they explore the Photosynth.

4. The above idea could be expanded into a transition project – get different pupils to create and narrate over areas of the school.  Then get the next intake to explore the school, assess how accurate the Photosynths were, and possibly create their own.

5. I really like playing around with the representation of space, so get pupils to create Photosynths of places that make them look scary, busy or looking like a ghost town.  The conversations that would lead to and follow such work would tap into deep Geographical concepts.

6. If your school is undergoing a building project or any form of change, Photosynth could be used in order to create a digital time capsule of the changes.  More on this one at a later date….

7. The Highlight function could be used to provide directions, thoughts, poems and chants about a particular location in the photograph,

8. I’ll be starting with my image with Year 8 this afternoon.  I’m going to ask them to tear it apart, and then do better!

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  1. Alan Parkinson16 June 2010 at 13:55

    Here's my first effort for what it's worth too...

    http://livinggeography.blogspot.com/2009/03/first-photosynth-hunstanton-cliffs.html

    ReplyDelete

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