Thing 5 - Flickr and Photo Sharing

Note:  You may need to do this activity outside of your school district because many photo sharing sites are blocked by school district Internet filters.

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 libraries are creating thanks to Flickr.  The Library of Congress has even started adding images in Flickr.   (Other photo sharing sites include Smug Mug –http://www.smugmug.com/ ; or Picasa – http://picasa.google.com/ ).

Explore these links to see how Flickr is being used:

• Dave Jakes – Thing to do with Flickr in Education –http://www.jakesonline.org/flickrsites.htm
• Libraries that Flickr or 365 Days of Library Pictures in Flickr. - http://www.flickr.com/groups/365libs/
• Flickr and Education -http://www.flickr.com/groups/33384223@N00/
• NECC Conference -http://flickr.com/groups/necc2008/pool/
• Inauguration 2008 Pictures -http://www.flickr.com/photos/inauguration/
• Super Bowl 2008 -http://www.flickr.com/groups/superbowl42/

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 either a link to the image or if you create a Flickr account, you can use Flickr's blogging tool to add the image in your post. Another option you have for including images in your post is to use your blog’s photo upload tool.

--OR--

b. If you are up to an easy challenge ... create a Free account inFlickr and use your location's digital camera to capture a few pictures of something in your school library. Upload these to your Flickr account and tag at least one of the images “23things” [NO space between the “23” and “things”]  and mark it public. Then create a post in your blog about your photo and experience. Be sure to include the image in your post. Once you have a Flickr account, you have two options for doing this; through Flickr's blogging tool or using Blogger's photo upload feature. 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.

PS: A quick word about photo posting etiquette and cybersafety - When posting identifiable photos of other people (especially minors) get the person's permission before posting their photo in a publicly accessible place like Flickr.  And if you are using this for students in a classroom, make sure you have permission from parents/guardians to post pictures.  Check with your district regarding policies about posting student names, etc. before doing this.  Remember, if you use this in your classroom, you want to model “best practices” for students at all times.

Discovery Resources:

• Flickr Learn More tour(6 steps)
• Mediamazine Flickr Tutorials
• Flickr:Popular tagsInteresting- Last 7 days
• Montagr– create a photo mosaics from photos found on Flickr.
• Flickr Services (3rd party applications & mashups) and here's another Flickr sitethat lets you create movie posters, CD covers, magazine covers and so on.

  
  
  

Curriculum Connections -http://calcurriculum.pbwiki.com/

Go to the Curriculum Connections wiki and see what others have suggested and add your own ideas.

Blog Post: “Thing 5” - Post what you have discovered on your blog and add to the Curriculum Connections wiki -http://calcurriculum.pbwiki.com/.