Sharing the Addiction

Today I put the finishing touches on my resource page on Flickr for teachers on my wiki.  I have included a number of ways that you can use Flickr in an educational context as well as links to tutorials and other tools that can work with Flickr. I am going to put a very brief summary here of some of the types of examples so it would pay to check out the wiki page to see an in-depth coverage of this topic.

Flickr to Share what is happening in the classroom

This is the most basic use for Flickr. Upload pictures of activities, displays or examples of work for others to view and to share ideas.

Use the Note Feature in Flickr for Interactivity

Flickr has the ability to add notes to parts of your image that will open in a pop-up window when you mouse over the area where you have placed the note. This can be used to ‘embed’ writing and information into your images. The only disadvantage is that the pop-up note feature only functions within Flickr itself and you can’t embed the images into a wiki or blog and maintain the notes. It is easy enough to have a link to the Flickr page however. The example to the left shows using this to create an online and interactive mihi (information about your background and heritage for non-New Zealanders). It can also be used for labeling, instructional writing or having information about each child within a group picture. It would be great if you could leave a comment on this blog post with other ways you might use this.

Using Flickr for Digital Storytelling

There are groups on Flickr where people submit photos that tell stories in 5 photographic frames. A New Zealand teacher with the Flickr username Hey Milly has created a group specifically for children to post their photo stories to and the example below was on this Flickr group.

 Using Flickr to Learn About Other Places

There is a map tool on Flickr that allows you to save images from your Flickr photostream into locations on a world map. This is not only handy for when you travel but can be great if you want to find images from other parts of the world if you are learning about them in class. You can ask to see the results on the map from everyone’s images and can then use pictures from these places.

Using Flickr as a Storage Site that Works with Other Tools

Flickr released to the public what is called its API. Other online tool developers where then able to use this to allow you to build connections between your account with them and your Flickr account. This saves you uploading the same pictures into all the different tools. An example of this is Big Huge Labs where you can make your Flickr photos into all kinds of things such as the motivational poster on the right.

Searching Flickr

Many people who upload their photos to Flickr make them public and apply a Creative Commons license to them meaning that you are legally able to use them as long as you cite your source. There are tools to search for these type of pictures in Flickr with search engines such as CompFight, Flickr Storm and FlickRiver.  You can also use the advanced search options within Flickr to do a Creative Commons search. See the wiki page for more detailed information on Flickr searches.

There are tutorials and more examples within each category on the wiki page. Enjoy using Flickr!

Tags: flickr, photos

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