Personalized Photo CD

George is a smallish town situated at the southern end of the scenic Garden Route in the Southern Cape region of South Africa. It is perhaps better known as the home town of international golfer Ernie Els. Because of its scenic location families in the town originate from all over the country and learners at Holy Cross are therefore likely to have close relatives in many other parts of the country.

Coull purchased a digital camera on behalf of the school three years ago. "I have been in charge of it ever since. I love taking photos and take loads of them every day. I load them on the computer for the learners to see and buy if they wish," explained Coull. "I wondered what else I could do with all these photos. I thought that it would be a good idea to develop a photo CD instead of the school year-end magazine. Each learner will receive a personalized CD with photos of his or her choice."

After proposing this to the school community the proposal was accepted and Coull set about her plan. Each learner is able to browse the library of photos and select photos that she/he would like to appear on their personalized CD. Learners set about this task with great enthusiasm and the school computer centre became a hive of activity through the year as learners browsed and selected new photos of recent school events.

Coull encountered a challenge in that the very young learners were unable to master the file management skills required to select and copy photos into folders. Coull explains her solution: "I struck on the idea of teaming up a junior learner with a senior learner. Once every six weeks we had a buddy week and the older learners helped the little ones to find photos and move them into their folders. Much chattering and discussion ensued. This proved so successful that last year the Grade 7 class visited their pre-school buddies on the second last day of the year, read their stories and played with them for the day."

The parents have responded overwhelmingly positively to the Photo CD and photos have been emailed to relatives all over the world. Not one feedback comment has been negative. The advantages of the Photo CD have been numerous, and not just a savings of R35 000 on the costs of the school magazine which it replaced. Learners learnt new computer skills, the buddy system taught socialization skills and parents had a good visual view of their children at school.

A simple idea has added much value to the school magazine concept. The information on the CD is now being revisited, repackaged and sent out far and wide, largely by email.