Week 2

 Photos and Images

Photo sharing websites have been around since the 90s, but it took a small startup site called Flickr (now owned by Yahoo!) to catapult the idea of "sharing" into a full blown online community. Flickr uses "tags" or what we would call keywords to help identify and search for photos. For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a good look at Flickr and discover what this site has to offer. Find out how tags work, what groups are, and all the neat things that people and other classrooms and libraries are creating thanks to Flickr.

 Thing #4:


Discovery Exercise:
In this discovery exercise, you have two options...

a. Take a good look around Flickr and discover an interesting image that you want to blog about. Be sure to include a link to the image. Another option you have for including images in your post is to download the Flickr photo that interests you, then embed it directly on your blog.

 --OR--

b. If you are up to an easy challenge ... create a Free account in Flickr and use your location's digital camera to capture a few pictures of something in your school. Upload these to your Flickr account and tag at least one of the images "Academy District 20/20 Learning" and mark it public. Then create a post in your blog about your photo and experience. Be sure to include a link to or the image in your post. So go ahead, explore the site and have some Flickr photo fun and if you're interested in looking at some photo hosting sites, then check out Picasa Web Albums from Google and another service called Smugmug.

Safety Notice:

A quick word about photo posting etiquette and cybersafety - When posting identifiable photos of other people (especially students!) get the person's permission before posting their photo in a publicly accessible place like Flickr. Never upload pictures that weren't taken by you (unless you have the photographer's consent) and always give credit when you include photos taken by someone else in your blog.

Some photos uploaded in Flickr are published under a Creative Commons copyright – consider whether you might want to do this with your own photos. Here is a great explanation of what Creative Commons is all about.

Student Access to Flickr in District 20: Currently, students do not have access to Flickr because of the possibility of them encountering some objectionable content there. However, you can still make good content from this site available to your students. How? Through FlickrStorm. You can search for photos you want students to be able to view or browse through, save them to your tray in FlickrStorm, then click on the icon to download and link to your tray. A permanent URL is generated to access that set of photos on the page, but you also have the option of saving the page – perhaps in your school’s public drive where students will be able to access it. This is what you will need to do for students to be able to access the photos you’ve selected.
HINT: when searching in FlickrStorm, you should use the advanced search feature. Here, you will have the option to only search for those photos that are licensed under Creative Commons.
Discovery Resources:
 [Note: Please remember to include WEEK# and THING# in your heading posts.]

Flickr mashups and 3rd party sites.

Flickr has encouraged other people to build their own online applications using images found on the site. Through the use of APIs (application programming interfaces), many people have created third party tools and mashups* that use Flickr images. Here is just a sampling of a few ...

Like many web 2.0 sites, Flickr has encouraged other people to build their own online applications using images found on the site. Through the use of APIs (application programming interfaces), many people have created third party tools and mashups* that use Flickr images. Here is just a sampling of a few …

  • Mappr - takes Flickr images and allows you to paste them on a map
  • Flickr Color Pickr - lets you find public photos in Flickr that match a specific color.
  • Montagr - create a photo mosaics from photos found on Flickr.
  • Poster Maker with inspiration sayings (add in any picture and saying)
Discover more mashups, web apps, and Flickr tools.

 Thing #5


Discovery Exercise:

Your discovery exercise for this "thing" is to: Explore some of the fun Flickr mashups and 3rd party tools that are out there. Create a blog post about one that intrigues you. You might want to check out FD Toys' Trading Card Maker. So have some fun discovering and exploring some neat little apps. If you are up to the challenge while you're at it, create a trading card of your own.  Or a movie poster or magazine cover from this Flickr site.* Mashup Note: Wikipedia offers some great articles that explain mashups. Basically they are hybrid web applications that take features from one application (like Flickr) and mash it up http://mappr.com/)

 Curriculum Connections:  

Idea #1: Use Flickr toys to make a magazine cover. Many classes make their own magazine. This would be perfect! Example for covers: "Crusade Times," "Heading West," or "Genetics Today." Students could create a magazine cover and headlines for a famous person, historical event, or story character.

with another (like a map) In this example, you get Mappr (

Idea #2: Create trading card sets. Liven up student projects that are ripe for change. Each student could create a card or student groups could design their own trading card pack. Trading the cards can be a fun game, but they can also be useful for recommended reading, books, illustrators, authors, and historical bios/dates. How would you use them? How about using them as Flash cards for vocabulary, periodical table, foreign language or ELL.

Idea #3: Have students search the Flickr Library of Congress American Memory Collection to find photos to use for historical trading cards: http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/collections/

Idea #4: Have students use these image generators as part of historical figures for a history report or characterization assignments about a character in a book.
Sample Lesson plan: http://images.apple.com/ca/education/iwork/lessons/pdf/iWork_BeFamous.pdf


Glogster

Glogster offers teachers and students a highly creative tool to build what they bill as “electronic posters” – think of it as a combination of blog and electronic scrapbooking on steroids! You’ll see.

Start by creating an account on Glogster EDU. Once you’ve done this, you will be able to view some incredible examples of Glogs that students and teachers have created. Here are a few favorites:

Bob Dylan
B-7: A First Grade Teacher’s Glog
Math Sites
Pond Animals
Generations

Advantages of Glogster EDU over a regular Glogster Account:

You can’t see content from Glogster when you are making Glogs in the EDU zone. (consider that some of the regular Glogster examples might not be appropriate for students)

You can embed your work in wiki pages.
All Glogs you made with students are PRIVATE. (unless you choose to share)

You can easily set up accounts for your students….just register for the EDU zone (fill in the number of accounts) and it will automatically create student accounts for you (maximum 200 students for each registration).

Each teacher and all his students are connected as a friends.

You can see Glogs of your students on their profiles.


 Thing #6


Discovery Exercise

Create a Glog that includes some of the Flickr pictures you’ve been exploring – or one that you might potentially embed on a classroom blog or wiki for a student project example. Details of how to embed this kind of object into a wiki (or blog) will be shared at our wiki training.

Challenge! If you want to try it, go ahead and see if you can embed your glog in your blog!
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