Children document their hospital stays with a digital camera

Mrs. Lena Joelsson

I work as a hospital teacher at The Department of Pediatrics at Skåne\'s University Hospital in Malmö, Sweden. At the hospital school we teach pupils with medical diseases or / dysfunctions.

Teaching degree, Malmö University, 1978.

Bachelor Degree in Psycholgy, Lund University, 1982.

Montessori pedagogic, Lund University, 1998.

Hospital teacher, Uppsala University, 2001.

Special Education Degree, Malmö University, 2001.

The photo project between the Hospital school in Malmö and Malmö schools\'

 culture department started the school year 2008/2009.

With the help of a digital camera the pupils in this project document their stay at the hospital and at the hospital school. The pupils describe and document their weekday time at the hospital and the pupils brought the camera with to different wards, examination rooms, out into the park and to the school.

During this project the pupils could concentrate on the digital camera, taking photos and get knowledge about how to edit photos in different computer programs and for a while in their minds, in their thoughts, leave their illness.

The pupils who wanted to and had the energy to do so edited their photos in Adobe Photoshop, used Photo Story or Power Point, made picture series, enlarged photos, made collage, saved their photos on USB-sticks, in their cell-phones or sent the photos by mail to their home computer.

The project has got good response from the ward staff, the parents and the teachers at the pupil\'s ordinary school.