Hey do you want to see my great pictures???

If a picture says a thousand words then Flickr speaks loud and clear.

What the heck is this Flickr thing all about anyway? There are only so many things that can be done with pictures, right? You can shoot them, edit them, store them, print them and show them to your friends and family, that's it, right? Hold on there is much much more!!! Flickr opened my eyes to a whole new world that I did not know even existed.

REFLECTIONS ON LEARNING

I went into this week not knowing anything about Flickr at all. I had heard the name but did not even know that it had anything to do with photos and certainly had no idea of its power and popularity. I read about it in Web 2.0 for Schools and in Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Hmm, interesting but what did it look like? I went online and signed up for an account. Since this was still all quite new to me I was a little nervous about the information I was about to share as I signed up. It was helpful to read similar concerns on our class blackboard system from other students and the response from Joanne helped ease my concerns. I jumped in and created an account for myself to try out. Now I had to upload some photos. I chose a folder of pictures that I had on my computer from a trip we had taken to Amsterdam. Again I was still cautious and chose these pictures because they did not have many people in them as I am still nervous about sharing those family pictures with the world.

Now that I had some pictures posted, (here is one of my favorites) what could I do with them that was different. Well, I could organize them in a variety of ways. They could be arranged in "photostreams", I could add tags or keywords to them to allow me to organize and search at a variety of levels. I could add notes and label people in photos (if I dared to publish them). There were so many features that I have not had enough time to explore them all but I will come back to this and use it for my personal pictures for sure.

The part that struck me most about the site was its similarity in many regards to the other social networking site (Facebook) that I had just signed up for. The ability to share the photos with friends, family and the entire world opened up tremendous opportunities. Not only could you share your photos but you could search for any topic and find photos from others. You could comment on photos and have comments made to yours. I have not had any comments posted yet but I did comment on one of my classmates postings.

What I found most interesting in my learning this week was that I did not have enough time to explore all of Flickr. I went into the week thinking this would be easy but there are so many things to try that one week is only enough to give you a small peak at some of the potential.

PERSONAL LEARNINGS

The whole concept of pictures has always been an enigma to me. We started out with volumes of photo albums that are in boxes under the stairs and rarely come out. We progressed to digital pictures that are at least more readily available but still seldom "come out" to be shared. What is their purpose if they are not to be looked at and shared with others.

What happens when disaster strikes? If we have a flood or fire the paper photos are destroyed and unless properly backed up digital photos can be lost and destroyed easily too. The use of Flickr as a media locker is a great idea even if that is all it is used for. I plan on adding my files here when I can make the time to upload them all. This will at least provide me with a backup of our important memories should we have a computer crash.

The ability to organize my photos by labeling and tagging them is truly amazing. One of the problems that I now have with my digital pictures is that I can never locate any of the pictures that I am looking for because there is no way of searching for things. With tags I will be able to find pictures of my kids, the trip we took to Disneyland, or pictures form 2007.

Probably the best use of the site will be in sharing with family members. Our family has spread out the internet will allow us to communicate effectively. Family pictures can now be shared with others and comments can be added by relatives and friends at a distance. The exchange of thoughts and laughs as we share our pictures will certainly add to the fun of viewing each others photos online.

TEACHING AND LEARNING

Is there potential for using Flickr in our classrooms? The answer is definitely yes but it will not be easy and will take time before it is used as a routine tool in our classes.

There are many, many potential uses of Flickr in the classroom. I have thought of a few ways that I may encourage teachers in my division to use the site. In math we are encouraging the use of digital photography as young students explore 3D objects yet often see 2D pictures of these in text books. By having students take their own pictures of the objects they are working with they develop a better understanding of the the relationships between 3D objects and 2D images. If these are then uploaded to Flickr they can be tagged and commented on by the students to extend their learning even more.

I was struck by the quality of the images that can be found on the site. Below is an example of a picture that I discovered on Flickr.

Pictures like this could be used in a variety of ways. Parts of the insect could be labelled with tags or students could be asked to do the labeling. Photos of plants and animals from around the world can easily be located, studied and discussed with students from around the world.

The applications to Geography are obvious as well. Pictures of landforms that are uncommon in our parts can be readily identified. You can find photos of places anywhere in the world that you are studying. Another powerful application is studying current events. The recent tragedy in Haiti was first described and released to the world with web 2.0 apps such as Facebook. Mainstream media such as CNN used Facebook for some of its earliest reporting and there are lots of pictures of the devastation on Flickr with groups formed around this topic that could be studied in a classroom.

Although the potential is great it will not be a quick and easy sell for teachers. Even most new teachers that I have worked with are not comfortable using these tools? If they are not familiar with Flickr they have a lack of time or opportunity to learn about them. Although they may have grown up with computers and internet they typically have not grow up with Flickr. They certainly did not experience it in their education and thus have difficulty seeing how it can be used in their classroom. There are still all sorts of concerns regarding privacy of students. Another roadblock and area that is not well understood is the concerns around copyright. I am not sure if I have broken any copyrights in this blog. I have tried to use pictures from the "Creative Commons" area of Flickr assuming that I can use these but I really am not certain.

There is a lot of work to do with teachers to show them these new tools and how they can be used. In our division we have a small team of technology catalyst teachers. They work with teachers and classes doing just that. I will be checking with them to determine if and how they have used Flickr with the teachers they have worked with.

Until next time....