LIBE 477 Flickr
I am so excited about learning how to use a photo sharing website such as Flickr. Over the years I have taken pictures of my students during special events and fieldtrips and didn’t know what do to with them except print them off and make bulletin board displays. Now I have a unique way to share, learn and teach with my class!
After reading Richardson chapter 7, I learned some great ways to use this web tool.
I can put my students’ photos on the web and share with other audiences and invite other people from around the world to discuss the images. Students and teachers can annotate them and it would become a writing activity. Also, it seems that Flickr.com has a video hosting section where you can capture daily events and easily share with parents and the community. Of course it is the teacher’s responsibility to teach etiquette and safety on the internet as with any internet activity.
Richardson suggests a number of ways you can use Flickr in the classroom. Some of the ways that I plan on using them is for slide shows, illustrating poetry, teaching geography, reinforcing learning from a fieldtrip, cobbling together virtual fieldtrips, locating photos for assignments and re-teaching ideas in class.
Richardson mentioned the Creative Commons where the class can use photos and videos freely without permission from the producers. I am excited about using this feature. An activity that I would like to try is where a student goes to the Creative Commons section, types the first word that comes to them in the tag field, takes the first photo that comes to them and writes a story about it. I also like the idea of taking photos from this section and using Paint to modify or remix and then republishing them. The students would enjoy that.
Of course, fitting these activities into the curriculum may be a something to think about. Accommodating different learners and getting access to the computers is also something to work out. However, I feel this is a valuable tool to use in the classroom.
Next is the set up of my username and password! Let’s see how it goes in practice!
Wish me luck!
Val
Thanks, Val. It is great that you were so excited to learn about photo sharing and it sounds like you made good use of the Richardson book to support your learning journey. I like all your ideas for using flickr in the classroom. If you are going to post photos of your students online, you will likely have to make sure you have all the appropriate permissions and you might have to set the privacy settings for these photos, depending on the rules for school board. I like your idea about incorporating creative commons licensed images into your writing program!
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