Photo sharing sites

Photo sharing sites are numerous and many people already use their accounts in social contexts such as sharing pictures with family and friends.  Photo-sharing is also a user friendly teaching tool that links curriculum content with the authentic resource of photos relevant to the research task.  It is always wise to give ask permission from the  photographers whose pictures you borrow, but many people have contributed their photos for free use under a Creative Commons license.    You can search the Flckr Creative Commons library here.

Use of Photos for Teaching and Learning

Whereas the previous post looked at ways to use photo sharing to promote the library, here I'm thinking of  how to use photos sharing with the classes that regularly come to research at the library. I`m thinking of the classes that come every year with the same assignment as they are already a "captive audience."  I've been a TL for only two years so I still have a lot I want to accomplish in terms of enhancing collaboration with teachers - some teachers are very open to my suggestions, but others just want to do their assignment the way they have always done it.  I respect their autonomy, so how do I inspire them and present myself as a resource to them ?  

1. English 8 - Poetry Unit  - Create imaged poems with Creative Common images in Flickr

(from David Jake . Page 108).

...create an imaged version of a poem by linking Flickr photos to the more tag-able words in the poem...the endless possibilities to create visual stories with Flickr, that could link Flickr photography with works from authors like Sandburg, or, of course, our students. Imagine taking a piece of beautiful photography and a likewise beautiful poem and merging the two together in a 21st Century product.." (Jakes 20005)

[source: Flickr - digitalART2's photostream]

THE TYGER (from Songs Of Experience)

By William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

 

2. ESL - Country Projects.  Create  "Photo Field Trips."  

A. Students search for images from a certain part of the world from at least three diferent people and then put them together in a PowerPoint presentation with reflection on what they found.

B. The class could take the existing assignment of researching from an encyclopedia and compare / contrast the information they found in the books with the images on Flickr.

C. Use Flickr with Google Maps and Google Earth.  [I tried this with Picasa and I couldn't get it to work on Google Earth]

From Peru Aug 08Edit HTML

3. Family Studies - Architectural Styles slideshow. In addition to searching books for architectural styles, students could also create a Picasa slide show of architectural styles using Creative Commons images.  Alternatively, the teacher could create a an architectural styles photo exam and ask students to identify the architectural style in each picture (ie: Art Deco, Bahaus, Arts and Crafts, Roccoco, etc.)

Flickr Creative Commons : puliarf

Sample Slide Show: Create a web album on Picasa then choose "embed slideshow" option to copy and paste HTML tag into blog. 

Ideas for using photo hosting sites in the library

1. Create a Slide show of Library Events for the library homepage : ie . authors, speakers, book fairs.

2. Edit photos to create personalized bookmarks or greeting cards from the Library. (I did this one using Picnik photo editor on Picasa)

3. Host a digital photo contest and offer book prizes. (ie: Spring blossoms). Students can upload photos








Reflection on the process :

I have been using photo-hosting sites for about 6 years now. I started out with Webshots as a way to share pictures of trips and outings with friends and family.  It was a great way of letting everyone know what I was up to and it was great getting feedback on the Comments section.  Now I use Picasa which works the same way but also has a desktop application that I use to edit my photos and do cool things like create collages and greeting cards.

The only downside of Picasa is that you can't download photos from the online album at full resolution. For that purpose I use Shaw Photoshare which sends fully downloadable pictures without clogging email.

These are pictures of a project I did with Social Justice 12 students and social justice picturebooks. The students read some social picturebooks to their Grade 3 reading buddies and then wrote and illustrated their own books.

This is an example of the "collage" feature which compiles all the photos in a folder. Can't get it to look very sharp here.

I like the scrolling marquee idea to show pictures of library activities in a more dynamic format. Also, the images would occupy less screen space so I could fit more images in a smaller space. I borrowed the code from the following site where it asks that I share it: Add a Scrolling Image Marquee to your Blog

Linking to Picasa Web Album. This is a web album of a trip I took with students in 2008. On the Web Album there is a Blogger logo to click which gives a link to the web album from the blog.

Europe 2008