10 ways to use Photosynth for teaching and learning

What is Photosynth?

Photosynth is a free, web based service provided by Microsoft that allows you to use digital photography to capture and view three dimensional images of a landscape or object. There are two ways of going about this:

Synth - This stitches together photographs taken from different perspectives to create a three dimensional, interactive view.

Panorama- allows you to create a 360˚view from a fixed point. This version is available as a free app for some smartphones.

You need to install Silverlight before you can view photosynths (this only takes a couple of seconds).

Why use Photosynth?  

• There is no need for specialist equipment other than a digital camera (or camera phone- more on this later) and access to the internet to upload your images.  
• A number of people can contribute images to create a photosynth of the same scene. This offers a number of educational possibilities.
• The interactivity of a photosynth is an obvious advantage. It allows students to explore environments in a way that isn’t possible with a traditional photograph (this is especially true of the original version, as opposed to the smartphone panorama). The potential for thinking skills activities is great.
• The finished Photosynths are available online and therefore available for use anywhere. They can be embedded in a website and social sites such as Facebook.
• It’s possible to geotag a photosynth and place it on Bing maps. It is therefore possible to place the images in their broader context.
• You can also view photosynths that other people have contributed on Bing maps; there are thousands of them. 

Here are a few of my ideas:

Creating your own Photosynths.

1.  Group Synths

There may be a particular event, object or landscape that you feel needs to be documented in three dimensions. In that case, arm your students with cameras and get shooting. Encourage them to take photographs from a number of perspectives and try to overlap the shots so that they can be stitched together (One person will have to collate the images and upload them to the website, which can take a while). The most famous example of this is the inauguration of Barack Obama.

2.  Guerrilla Photosynth

Set your students a challenge to photosynth something along a particular theme. It could be something as simple as a colour, an object or even an emotion. Mission explore is an excellent website that encourages people to interact with their environment by issuing inventive challenges in such a way. They have a number of missions that require photographic evidence to earn points.

3.  Show and Synth

Encourage your students to take a photosynth of an object or landscape of particular interest or significance to them in their local enivronment. These can be discussed, explored and then mapped.

4.  A Photosynth gallery.

Why not record the hours of work students have put into creating a wall display or gallery of art work by synthing them? It’s even possible to see a sculpture from every angle! This work could then be embedded on your Department's website for students and parents to view.

5.   Synth trail

A photosynth of a particular area of the school could be shown to the students- the objective being to locate it on a map. If your school has a sympathetic mobile phone policy (David Rogers is working on this in his school), you could create an orienteering style exercise where the physical location of one photosynth would reveal a QR code to the next...

6. Where’s that synth?

How about spending an afternoon ‘photosynthing’ landmarks in your school catchment area? If you take care to ensure that there are identifiable landmarks within the environment you’re capturing, you could use them as the basis for a mapping exercise. Students should be able to identify the location of each synth on an OS map by scanning the synth for the landmarks.

7.  Photosynth fieldwork

This is quite an obvious application, particularly for Physical Geography. In terms of Human Geography, I took a group of Sixth form students on an excursion to the city of Newport, South Wales to study socio-economic and environmental variations in different locations. We used photosynths to compare each location and compared them with census data (admittedly, you could achieve similar results with Google street view in this instance).

8. Photosynth mysteries

This is a thinking skills exercise where the clues to solve the mystery ‘Why is Mr. Rogers cycling to work?’ are hidden within a photosynth of my classroom. The clip below takes you through some of the clues. The exercise is designed to encourage independent learning, environmental awareness and improve the attainment of students ability to write geographical explanations. I teach in a Welsh medium school so the clues are in Welsh, but you get the idea.

 This concept could be developed to create a photosynth crime scene, where students are invited to look for clues. CSI  have already used this idea, with some success. Creating the 'set', as it were, would take a bit of planning and effort, but once synthed the fruit of your labour would be available to every student with an internet connection.

Using other peoples Photosynths

9. A World tour

There are hundreds upon thousands of photosynths available for viewing. Some are awe inspiring, others not so much. The National Geographic Society, for example, has created some lovely synths such as Macchu Picchu, the Colosseum of Rome, Stonhenge and the Taj Mahal. Initially, students could be encouraged to explore the World through chosen photosynths. They could describe each environment using suitable adjectives. Perhaps this could be done using audio recording software such as Audacity to create an audio tour? The broader context of the image could then be explored- where was the photosynth taken? What is the history of the landmark? What is the social and economic background of that particular country?

A natural extension of this exercise would be to plan a world tour of these landmarks. Students could research the cost of flights, hotels, internal transfers, medical advice, the best time of year to travel etc.

Students could collaborate by using software such as OneNote within the classroom. A slightly different slant, involving a degree of creative writing, would be to encourage the students to create a travel blog. This kind of thematic exercise allows pupils to explore the nature of tourism and globalisation from a number of different perspectives.

10. Through the keyhole

There are many photosynths of the exterior and interior view of buildings, churches and houses that can be used in a number of ways.

For example, where do you think this photosynth was taken? Why do you think that? What kind of person lives in this house? Why has s/he decorated his/her house in this way? What does each decoration symbolise? This could be the starting point for a thematic scheme of work based upon Christmas, encompassing globalisation, Religious Education etc.  

This view of Santa Marta could also be used for a similar ‘Who would live in a place like this?’ kind of exercise.

From the act of creating a photosynth, to the exploration of the finished article in three dimensions, photosynth has the potential to provide a number of educational experiences.