This has been a really fun week for me as I’ve explored an old tool and looked at it in a new way…digital photography and now the idea of sharing it with the world (or perhaps a small community of invited users). I am a huge fan of using photography in the classroom! Over the past few years, my objective was simple, to capture the students in action as they are learning, print off the images and share them with the class in the form of a poster or sent home (in print) in a newsletter. After this week of reading, exploring and experimenting with photosharing sites, it’s opened up so many new opportunities and ideas for me to expand my love of using photo images in my teaching practice.
I began this journey reading Will Richardson’s chapter on “Fun with Flickr” in his book, Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts and other Powerful Webtools. It is very evident that he is a big fan of the potential and vast warehouse of photo imagery possibilities that Flickr has to offer. The list of possibilities had my creative wheels spinning, from writing “Flicktion”, keeping up with current events, using it for sharing classroom learning with parents and more importantly with other schools around the world! So off I went to explore this famous “Flickr” site. It was everything Richardson had promised and more. There was so much information and various ways of manipulating Flickr images that I was somewhat overwhelmed at first. However, I dove in and created a Yahoo account just so I could experience it first hand. As you can see from my first uploaded image to my blog (below), I figured it out.
My exploration of photosharing sites did not end with Flickr. I began searching the net for various articles or thoughts on photosharing sites. I ran across a wiki from the online journal Classroom 2.0 http://wiki.classroom20.com/Photo+Sharing that listed a few other photosharing sites. Once again, I began my “clicking” frenzy as I began to investigate more possible sites for sharing photos with my students, parents and “community at large”. I found such sites as Webshot, Smugmug, Photobucket and Zoto just to name a few. I loved Bubbleshare ! It seemed very user-friendly, but what caught my eye was Scrapblog . I guess I’ll have to take a moment to admit my secret obsession with scrapbooking (even though I don’t have an ounce of time to commit to it). I am addicted to buying all the fabulous scrapbooking tools, paper and stickers available on the market! The summer is my chance to catch up on my daughter’s birthday scrapbooks and now I’ve started School scrapbooks for each of them too. But let’s get back to Scrapblog… with only one click, I fell in love!! My two favorite passions all in one place! I couldn’t resist! Below this post you can witness my first attempt to create a scrapbook on line. I wanted to share my new found knowledge with my students and parents (as well as with you) so I created a “virtual Open House” for those parents who were unable to attend our Open House on Tuesday night.
For those artistic and creative souls in your class (and there are many!), this is so much fun to play with and create! The numerous templates, stickers and editing functions could have your students busy and having fun for hours (perhaps a bit dangerous for those of us with limited time in the computer lab!!).
As I continued to investigate photosharing, I came across another wiki at http://www.teachinghacks.com/wiki/index.php?title=Photo_Sharing_in_Education which listed several even more great ideas as to how to incorportate photo sharing into our teaching practice.
Here are just a few of their ideas:
1. share, comment, and add notes to photos or images to be used in the classroom
2. embed your photos into your school or class web space
3. inspire writing and creativity
4. create a storybook using shared images
5. create a presentation using the photos, annotation and slideshow in flckr
I guess you can tell, I am really excited about this Web 2.0 discovery and the many possibilities it will have for me in my classroom (and future school library…here’s hoping!)
This week I also set up my RSS aggregator with Google Reader and uncovered some amazing educators and experts in the field of Web 2.0. One of my favorites was David Warlick. With all my research on photosharing this week, I came across some inspirational words from his Colearner wiki from his presentation entitled “Harnessing the digital landscape” http://davidwarlick.com/wiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage
“Never before has the classroom become so much a part of the world around us. Small digital cameras have affected how we look at war, love, family and friends, poverty, wealth, culture, and nature. Students can record their environment, share these images with each other and the world, and become archivers of their own experience.”
Photosharing has definitely allowed us the capabilities to expand our students’ learning from the pencil and paper, the textbook and the highlighter and the ego-centric nature of their four classroom walls to the global culture that is growing and developing around us!
With all the positive educational opportunities available for learning with photosharing, one has to play devil’s advocate and reflect on possible downsides. This brings me back to my constant concern with parents and their overprotective nature which will not allow photos of their children “on the internet”, which I can’t blame them. Fortunately, from what I could tell in my “investigations”, all of these photosharing sites are quite secure in their “sharing” choices (public or private…or specific e-mail addresses, passwords or groups). Now it becomes the teacher’s role to inform the parents so they can make the choice for themselves.
Another “fear” of course, is the inappropriate material that can ‘inadvertently’ surface when searching for photos on such image databases as Flickr. This has been a hot topic of discussion in our course work with EDES 501 this past week which has given me a whole other issue to explore. I definitely agree with my colleagues who feel it is a perfect opportunity to make it a “teachable moment” and educate our students on the risks and appropriate responses to unwanted images. Even with these few downsides, I’m still in awe of the capabilities that photosharing can have in our teaching practices. In the words of Richardson, “the power of the Read/Write Web is being able to create and connect content through publishing in ways we never thought possible”. So now it is time to explore those possibilities and make those connections. Photosharing seems like a good place to start for me!
I began this journey reading Will Richardson’s chapter on “Fun with Flickr” in his book, Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts and other Powerful Webtools. It is very evident that he is a big fan of the potential and vast warehouse of photo imagery possibilities that Flickr has to offer. The list of possibilities had my creative wheels spinning, from writing “Flicktion”, keeping up with current events, using it for sharing classroom learning with parents and more importantly with other schools around the world! So off I went to explore this famous “Flickr” site. It was everything Richardson had promised and more. There was so much information and various ways of manipulating Flickr images that I was somewhat overwhelmed at first. However, I dove in and created a Yahoo account just so I could experience it first hand. As you can see from my first uploaded image to my blog (below), I figured it out.
My exploration of photosharing sites did not end with Flickr. I began searching the net for various articles or thoughts on photosharing sites. I ran across a wiki from the online journal Classroom 2.0 http://wiki.classroom20.com/Photo+Sharing that listed a few other photosharing sites. Once again, I began my “clicking” frenzy as I began to investigate more possible sites for sharing photos with my students, parents and “community at large”. I found such sites as Webshot, Smugmug, Photobucket and Zoto just to name a few. I loved Bubbleshare ! It seemed very user-friendly, but what caught my eye was Scrapblog . I guess I’ll have to take a moment to admit my secret obsession with scrapbooking (even though I don’t have an ounce of time to commit to it). I am addicted to buying all the fabulous scrapbooking tools, paper and stickers available on the market! The summer is my chance to catch up on my daughter’s birthday scrapbooks and now I’ve started School scrapbooks for each of them too. But let’s get back to Scrapblog… with only one click, I fell in love!! My two favorite passions all in one place! I couldn’t resist! Below this post you can witness my first attempt to create a scrapbook on line. I wanted to share my new found knowledge with my students and parents (as well as with you) so I created a “virtual Open House” for those parents who were unable to attend our Open House on Tuesday night.
For those artistic and creative souls in your class (and there are many!), this is so much fun to play with and create! The numerous templates, stickers and editing functions could have your students busy and having fun for hours (perhaps a bit dangerous for those of us with limited time in the computer lab!!).
As I continued to investigate photosharing, I came across another wiki at http://www.teachinghacks.com/wiki/index.php?title=Photo_Sharing_in_Education which listed several even more great ideas as to how to incorportate photo sharing into our teaching practice.
Here are just a few of their ideas:
1. share, comment, and add notes to photos or images to be used in the classroom
2. embed your photos into your school or class web space
3. inspire writing and creativity
4. create a storybook using shared images
5. create a presentation using the photos, annotation and slideshow in flckr
I guess you can tell, I am really excited about this Web 2.0 discovery and the many possibilities it will have for me in my classroom (and future school library…here’s hoping!)
This week I also set up my RSS aggregator with Google Reader and uncovered some amazing educators and experts in the field of Web 2.0. One of my favorites was David Warlick. With all my research on photosharing this week, I came across some inspirational words from his Colearner wiki from his presentation entitled “Harnessing the digital landscape” http://davidwarlick.com/wiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage
“Never before has the classroom become so much a part of the world around us. Small digital cameras have affected how we look at war, love, family and friends, poverty, wealth, culture, and nature. Students can record their environment, share these images with each other and the world, and become archivers of their own experience.”
Photosharing has definitely allowed us the capabilities to expand our students’ learning from the pencil and paper, the textbook and the highlighter and the ego-centric nature of their four classroom walls to the global culture that is growing and developing around us!
With all the positive educational opportunities available for learning with photosharing, one has to play devil’s advocate and reflect on possible downsides. This brings me back to my constant concern with parents and their overprotective nature which will not allow photos of their children “on the internet”, which I can’t blame them. Fortunately, from what I could tell in my “investigations”, all of these photosharing sites are quite secure in their “sharing” choices (public or private…or specific e-mail addresses, passwords or groups). Now it becomes the teacher’s role to inform the parents so they can make the choice for themselves.
Another “fear” of course, is the inappropriate material that can ‘inadvertently’ surface when searching for photos on such image databases as Flickr. This has been a hot topic of discussion in our course work with EDES 501 this past week which has given me a whole other issue to explore. I definitely agree with my colleagues who feel it is a perfect opportunity to make it a “teachable moment” and educate our students on the risks and appropriate responses to unwanted images. Even with these few downsides, I’m still in awe of the capabilities that photosharing can have in our teaching practices. In the words of Richardson, “the power of the Read/Write Web is being able to create and connect content through publishing in ways we never thought possible”. So now it is time to explore those possibilities and make those connections. Photosharing seems like a good place to start for me!
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