Colour mixing recorded on a digital camera

Anne-Marie McDermott is very keen for pupils at Hazeldene Nursery to use the digital stills camera themselves. Working with a group of four pupils, she encourages them to take photos of an activity where different food colourings are poured into water to see what happens when the colours mix and merge. The pupils help to transfer the photos to a laptop, print them out and put them into a 'talking photo album'.

Print full text of case study

Teacher profile

Anne-Marie McDermott trained as a primary teacher and has taught since 1978, with a ten-year break while her children were young. Over the years she has taught in six different schools and has also spent some time as a supply teacher. She has a postgraduate qualification in early years education and joined the staff of Hazeldene Nursery when it opened in 1998.

At the nursery, Anne-Marie has special responsibility for ICT. She acquired her ICT skills partly by attending courses - Masterclass training and a special course on Microsoft PowerPoint - but mostly by studying the manuals that come with equipment, by using the 'Help' button on the computer and by trial and error. She is interested in building up the use of ICT beyond computers at the nursery.

Hazeldene Nursery is in Newton Mearns, to the south of Glasgow. It formerly housed hospital administration offices but was refurbished as a nursery by East Renfrewshire Council in 1998. Now it has two large airy playrooms on the ground floor and a small garden outside. The nursery caters for 100 pupils in the morning and 80 in the afternoon. Currently there are six pupils with special educational needs and 11 who speak English as a second language.

The nursery has five computers - three in the office and one in each playroom. The staff use different software packages with the pupils, including a programme that helps the development of mouse control. The digital still camera is for use both by pupils and by staff, who make a point of recording events at the nursery throughout the year for the school photo album.