Leigh+Anne+teaching+and+learning

This picture was taken back in late April of 2008. The foundation for our new house had just been poured. This is my son, Nicholas, age 5. He's excited about the new room he'll have in the new house. In late June of 2008, the house was done being framed. It happened almost overnight. In early August, the outside was nearly completed. The inside still had a ways to go. Drywall was completed, but no appliances were installed. On Sept. 6, this is the house. It is completed inside and outside. Looks like we might have to water the lawn pretty regularly for awhile. We are planning to move in Sept. 23, if all goes well. Whew, I'm tired just thinking about it. At the door are my husband, Glenn and my other son, Luke. My daughter, Elyse missed getting to see the inside today. I am still really learning about digital photography and how to download onto websites. I had a lot of problems downloading pictures into the wiki and editing the text around them. I found this very frustrating. I probably spent 4 hours total just on loading the pictures after editing into the wiki. I know that is a ridiculously long time, considering the results. I just kept making the same errors over and over again. I have even used wikispaces in the past and still had problems with this project. I will say that I love paint.net. It is by far the easiest and most effective software for photo editing I've ever used. I've tried photoshop in the past, and it was just too complicated for me. This one had many of the same effects and features as Photoshop but was so much more user-friendly. I'm going to use it exclusively from now on.

A digital photo story technique like the one above could be used in the classroom to show step by step instructions to children, as well as cause and effect relationships. I used to make social stories for my son in order to show him what we were going to do, and in what order they would be done. For instance, we once wrote a story about my sister-in-law's wedding so that my son could understand why we were all doing the out-of-the-ordinary activities that we were doing during that time. I used digital pictures of family members, as well as menus and pictures from the restaurant where the rehearsal dinner would take place, to tell the story. We read it over and over and was able to "tell" the story to others using the pictures, even though he was only 3 years old. Using "social stories" is a technique that his teachers in developmental preschool showed me to modify behavior. I have found that the stories work even for children who do not have developmental delays or issues. My older son was a little jealous of his little brother's special book, and wanted to read it, too. He memorized the menu selections and when we got to the dinner, he already knew what he wanted to order. Stories that show step-by-step directions could really be used with any age group.