Flickr as a Tool for Photo Sharing

Will Richardson explains how to use Flickr in his book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts. Educators can use photos and videos to capture and share daily activities in the classroom with parents, community, and colleagues. A class can have its own photostream. It is important to take into consideration that not all the images on Flickr are appropriate. Teachers have to explore the site, know the risks, and set guidelines up for the students.

Flickr basics from Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts: This is free as long as users stay within the provided free space allowed per month. With editing and file saving it is possible to save and post 500 images per month. The last 200 will be posted in the photo stream. The account has to be active over 90 days to stay active. A $24.95 annual fee provides unlimited storage and viewing. Teachers can create one login for all of the students or have them create their own accounts. They will need a valid email. This works if the school has GAFE, which can be monitored by the teachers. To add images to the user folder, find the image on the local computer or device, and click “upload”. You can use the email setting as well. Flickr includes photo and video editing. Another option is to edit images first, or on a site called “Picnik.com”. It’s possible to restrict access to images to friends, family or invited viewers. Flickr will ask users to tag images with keywords to they can be connected with similar images on Flickr. Flickr allows users to create private groups.

Flickr uses in the classroom: Create presentations and slideshows, virtual field trips, illustrate written work, document school work, teach geography. Users can annotate images by adding notes to parts of the image by dragging a box across an area and typing text into the box. When viewers drag their mouse over the image the annotations pop up. Teachers and students can use this to explain parts of a cell or a battlefield. For assessment purposes, students can be asked to annotate, or label parts of an image. Richardson says that under the Fair Use Doctrine, it is permissible to use any digital image you find on the Web as long as you attribute the source and add a link to the original image. Also, Flickr has over 25 million photos that have Creative Commons copyright licenses, which are useable based on the image’s specific guidelines. It is possible to start online discussions about images on Flickr by adding comments to photos. These conversations can be public or private. Users can subscribe to these discussions using RSS feed. Teachers can track what their students are writing using the RSS feed. Richardson recommends using Flickr to connect people on a global scale, using tags with similar themes or topics. Users can subscribe to a tag by RSS feed. When studying other countries or cultures, classes can interact with people from far away places. Leaving a comment on an image, students can learn more about the photographer. Students can do this safely by not sharing private information about themselves. Another idea is to use Flickr with Google Maps or Google Earth. Richardson provides steps for linking latitude and longitude tags to pictures, and how to share these with others. Flickr has a map tool. Users can set up separate albums for types of pictures. It has a slideshow function as well. These tools are in the “Organize” link. Students can create their own online portfolios with annotations and descriptions, and comments by peers and teachers. Flickr can be used to teach topics such as botany or current events.

Using Flickr in my classroom: One of my goals in my work is to integrate multiple disciplines in my learning experiences. My current emphasis is critical thinking, collaboration, self and peer assessment, and strengthening Jewish identity. The thinking skills are all emphasized in the NETS-S standards. The idea of integrating learning with personal meaning and identity is an important aspect of authentic learning. I used Google maps for an Abraham project earlier in the year. We followed the journey Abraham took from his birthplace to Canaan, Egypt, and back to Canaan. If we used Flickr, we could add more photos and interact with the photos with notes and sharing. Currently, we are learning research methods, including use of interviews and artifacts. Flickr would be a powerful resource to teach the value of artifacts in telling a person or place's story. My students are only seven or eight years old, but they respond to visual images, particularly because they are beginning and intermediate readers. I'm still concerned about inappropriate images. I would definitely have to create separate collections, and restrict the students to safe images.

Additional tools that use Flickr:. This is a link to a blog post with ways to use Flickr: Flickr Toolbox: 100+ Tools for Flickr Addicts”.  Flickr Storm is a way to search for images and create a story. This is a link to instructions for using Flickr images to create stories. The 50+ Ways to Tell a Story Wikipage has instructions to create stories using Flicktion.

The App Garden on Flickr is a collection of user made apps that use the Flickr API (Application Programming Interface). Flickr encourages users to create their own apps, provides instructions, and a place to publish them. I tried to comprehend if I might be able to use any of the apps for my own work. but they were too complicated for me. I found that some were very specific, such as one created by a church in Washington D.C, and a few were no longer active. 

I will need additional exploration and experimentation before I will be able to use any of these apps.

The Flickr website has a clean and uncomplicated look. The homepage has large “recommended” photos, important links, and frequently used links on the side, such as “The Commons”, and “Flickr Blog.” Clicking on the links at the top, there are drop down menus to additional links. With the volume of photos and all the applications that Flickr offers, it is important for users to find their way with as little confusion as possible. The Explore tab at the top has links to Recent Photos, The Commons, Getty Collection, Galleries, World Map, App Garden, Camera Finder, The Weekly Flickr, and FlickrBlog. The World Map has over two million geotagged photos. There are pink circles to click and show photos in specific locations. Then there are annotations and thousands of comments attached to the photos. At the bottom of the page, users can type in a location and links to photos will come up. I typed in the zip code where half of my children live, and local photos appeared. I searched for Ukraine, and most of the photos were of people, and everyday scenes. There was one protest photo, but the link function didn’t show the same view. Here is a screenshot of the map.

Challenges:

Finding photos that are Creative Commons and permitted for posting on a blog is not simple. I spent over an hour searching and attempting to embed photos. There was a setting for Flickr to access my Blogger site, but that didn't help me to embed photos. I tried to search under specific topics, including the city of Netanya and the topic of “joy”. Most of the photos that I liked were not available for sharing. I couldn't find a way to save photos in a ‘favorites’ group. There was a ‘gallery’ option, but the photos I tried to save were not creative commons. I was able to add comments to photos, which was enjoyable, but it was not useful for my work in the long run.

The assignment for this segment of the Web 2.0 course was to add a photo to our Flickr site. I added some family and vacation photos to my site. We were supposed to add a “note” to one of our photos. I couldn't find an “Action” drop down menu. The Flickr site has been updated over the years, and it probably doesn't have the same layout that it did when the course instructions were written.

While I was in my Flickr account, I found out that I had another account, which I created with my gmail professional account. I signed out of my yahoo email Flickr account, and signed into my gmail account. This wasn't a bad arrangement, since I needed to keep personal photos safe, and use a different account for public photos. The profile needed to be set up, including privacy settings. I set the settings for “public”. Now I was able to upload photos and attach notes and tags. I set up the Blogger and WordPress sharing, and was able to post one of  my own photos on my Blogger site.

Moral of the Story:

If some folks find their way around these applications easily, more power to them. Will Richardson titled his chapter “Fun with Flickr”. Maybe if I was having fun, I would find this easier to master. 

My experience tells me that I will make many mistakes before I find my way through a new application or skill. This is not “fun”. However, I know that it is important to try different settings and to persist. Now that I know how to add photos and share them, I will be able to make use of Flickr in new and innovative ways.

Reference:

Richardson, Will, “Fun with Flickr”, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, 3rd Edition, Corwin Press, 2010

Social Bookmarks

The last thing I need is for my students to be surfing the Net with no guidance. We'll need to use a social bookmark system.

The pure volume of data online demands that we find practical ways to organize and archive what we need. Social bookmarks are an online tool which make it possible to save, tag, sort, and share articles for specific uses. In education, we can use social bookmarking to share valid and reviewed resources with students and colleagues. The use of annotations and tags gives us the ability to create our own categories, which is important for future access and applications.

The two main social bookmarking tools were Delicious and Diigo. Del.icio.us was created in 2003, and popular for many years. More recently, educators have been using Diigo, because it had tools such as highlighting, sticky notes, and classroom student accounts, which were free to educators. I had heard of Delicious. I was wondering if it was the same or different from Diigo. I researched the differences, and decided to stay with Diigo. I already  had a Diigo teacher’s account, and it made sense to stay with that.

I have five groups on my Diigo account, including an #IEASC group, and a public group of educators who use Diigo. I started a group for the #Smart Choices Project critical thinking curriculum that I am co-writing. The collaborators will explore how we will utilize Diigo. We have defined five tools for critical thinking that we are incorporating in our design. They are, Awareness, Questions, Research, Decisions, and Actions. The Research piece will provide participants experience evaluating the validity and point of view of sources. Using the Diigo tools will enhance our program’s ability to guide our students in this process. Students will also be able to add their thinking process to the Diigo group, which peers and educators can review.

The specific NETS-S standards which we we are using for our Smart Choices Project include research and information fluency, communication and collaboration, and critical thinking and problem solving. The participants will need to evaluate and synthesize the sources, and determine what their own values are in comparison to those of the sources they evaluate. We are incorporating authentic problems such as how to manage time and social activism into our program. Participants will be guided in creating projects which will demonstrate their abilities to work collaboratively and communicate clearly.  Although we haven’t incorporated use of a social bookmarking system yet into our curriculum plan, it has great potential to provide experiential opportunities for participants to practice the ISTE standards which they will need to be successful in work and personal life.  

This article defines social bookmarking, and explains how to use it.

7 Things You Should Know About Social Bookmarking, Educause Learning Initiative, May 2005

This article provides a detailed comparison between delicious and diigo, making the case that diigo is more flexible and suited for education. It includes screenshots and links to tutorials for using diigo.

Classroom Collaboration Using Social Bookmarking Service Diigo, Educause Learning Initiative,  December 2011

This is an article which defines social bookmarking. It has links to other articles, and was updated in January 2013.

Sites to See: Social Bookmarking, Education World, January 2013

This is a step by step tutorial on how to use bookmarking for teachers and students.

Bookmarking Without Borders, Education World, retrieved Feb. 18, 2014.

Using RSS Feed Readers

 Exploring possible tools for RSS feeds was initially frustrating. Bloglines was blocked by my firewall. Mozilla Live Bookmarks seemed complicated. Pageflakes drew a blank. Netvibes was interesting, but it offered more than I needed as a beginner. I read Will Richardson's chapter on setting up RSS feeds, but the instructions were confusing to me. I signed up for Merlot, but wasn't able to add it into my Feedly. Maybe I'm not doing it right, but for now, I saved the link in my Diigo account.  

This week,  I tried Feedly. It was easy to set up, and there was an app for my iOS devices. It was also free. The links on Richard Byrne's "Free Technology for Teachers" provided a rich set of new resources that I added to my feed. Now that I have Feedly set up, I can move over the blogs that I'm sending to my email inbox, and maybe there will be less "stuff" flooding it.

I'm still confused about a few things.When I tried to add a URL for www.mathpickle.com to my reader, an error message came up. The instructions said to add the full URL, but that didn't work either.I tried to add NASA Education to my reader, but it didn't work either. This was the URL: http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/#.UwE6BIWhaO0.  Why do some of the links in the RSS feed discussion board come up as bookmarks instead of URLs? How would I use those to add to my reader?I found a really rich Math and Science website, and wanted to add it to my RSS reader, but I couldn't figure out how to do it. I pinned it on my Pinterest board and automatically Tweeted the pin. Then I tried to add this site to my RSS reader, and only the Russian version was accessible.

I had no trouble finding feeds for teacher tools. The difficulties were mostly for student resources. There has to be an easy solution here, but I don't know it yet.

Two websites that I have used in my Middle School classroom are PBS Kids and NY Times Learning Network. When I tried to link PBS Kids to my RSS feed I found Dragonfly TV, which has podcasts for and by kids on science. I added that to my reader.

The NY Times Learning Network is a blog that has short articles on hot topics for teens. The teen readers blog their responses. This is a good exercise in authentic reading and writing. I noticed that one of the articles was about sexuality. This would not be a topic for public or open discussion in some private religious schools. An option would be to use specific articles and have kids blog locally about them, without including a link to the whole site.That would defeat the purpose of having an RSS feed. This comes down to the question of whether an open RSS feed is really the best idea for a younger age group of students.Younger children still need to learn to understand their values and evaluate sources. It makes sense to keep those resources for older students. Once students have been trained in critical thinking, and making independent decisions, this can work.

Using RSS feeds in the classroom would require students to practice NETS-S standards for research and information fluency. They would have to analyze and evaluate the sources. They would have to select their own information choices from the teacher provided choices, and report their findings in some format. Students would also be able to practice communication and collaboration, by participating on online blogging. They could blog on their classroom blog on on a student or outside blog, depending on the students and the design of the lesson. Critical thinking and problem solving would be a very important skill to practice in using RSS feed. Students need to evaluate the validity and bias of sources and compare and contrast their own point of view with that of the resources.