Project 365 …er…6

by Pam Harris

I’m delighted that Sam asked me to share one of our AAC projects. Josh and I showed a powerpoint presentation about Project 365 at the 2007 Closing the Gap.
Project365 is something I heard about from my daughter last year. The premise is simple – take a picture every single day of the year. The idea came from Taylor McKnight at PhotoJoJo.com. I started to think about it, and how my son Josh and I could try it. We wanted Josh to practice writing, and he needs structure to do so. What if he wrote daily about the picture he took?
First, he needed to learn the vocabulary of photography.

From there, we created a light tech board.

And then we were ready to go! He would take his picture, upload it to his blog and then use his talker to write a few descriptive sentences about what he saw or how the picture made him feel.
Example:

This is Josh dad red Shelley Grandma and mom
This has been a wonderful experience for many reasons. Josh isn’t only getting the writing practice we hoped for, but is able to make connections to people through his blog. He is paying closer attention to the people and things around him. His responsibility for this daily task is increasing. He is learning and mastering technology popular and important to other people his own age (19 now).

In fact, we enjoyed it so much that we’re doing it again. We’ve begun Project 366, but now we’re using Flickr to upload, write about and host our pictures. Want to join us? It’s a great investment of your time and Josh would love to see what you have to share. You can google Project365 for tips and variations or make your own – who says you can’t do it weekly? With themes? All of one location? The possibilities and outcomes are as infinite as your imagination.