Educational Uses of Photosharing

I have found such great suggestions for using photosharing with students. Jackpot!

I had remembered reading an article earlier this semester written by Joyce Valenza called “Open the Door and Let ‘Em In” in our course text, Toward a 21st-Century School Library Media Program (2007) © The Scarecrow Press, Inc., and recalled that she had mentioned using Flickr in her school. I went back to this article and found what she and her students were doing with photosharing. Valenza states, “On the most basic level, librarians can easily create galleries of student art/work or document library activities using tools like Flickr. I asked several students to collaborate in creating a school clip art gallery” (p.184-185). Valenza included the link to these photos, and they can be seen here.

Of course, I leaned on Will Richardson’s expertise in Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms again; (I’m beginning to think of him as my Web 2.0 guru). Not only did he provide his suggestions for photosharing with students, but he also led me to others who have suggestions as well. First, I’ll start with what Richardson shares.

With photosharing, you can
- capture daily events and share them thereby celebrating the work that is being done
- leave comments on and invite others to have discussions about photos, which can be done simply by the class or with people from around the world
- annotate and describe photos, for example, “Imagine being able to annotate portions of a Civil War battlefield or a fetal pig dissection for students to access and view” (p.104)
- create personal, organized albums that can be an online portfolio of work
- learn proper use of copyright, through the Creative Commons section
- use images to prompt creative writing
- take existing photos and remix and create new images with them (with credit to the original owner, of course!)

Richardson also highlighted a use of Flickr by David Jakes, who is an educational technology coordinator from Illinois and maintains a blog called The Strength of Weak Ties. Jakes “decided to create an imaged version of the poem ‘Chicago’ by Carl Sandburg by linking Flickr photos to the more tag-able words in the poem” (p.107). I wanted to see this illustrated poem for myself – you should too – right here!

Jakes also offers a goldmine of a list of uses of Flickr in the classroom. What blew me away, was that this post was written just over 2 years ago. Where have I been?? Anyway, included in his list is using Flickr for digital storytelling, virtual field trips, and teaching how to use social software, just to name a few examples. His complete list is excellent and should be explored by anyone considering using photosharing with students. Check out the complete list. (Thanks to my friend Ronda who shared this with me!)

My parting words on photosharing…

After what was a bit of an overwhelming tour through Flickr, I am now feeling re-charged as I see the value in this tool in its application in an educational setting. I feel as though I have a really great selection of ways to use photosharing with students and am quite excited to try some out. I definitely see the "hook factor" of this tool with students as it can be used in so many ways and it can meet the needs of different learners. I must however, continue my exploration of Flickr to get my head around as many of the details as I can before using this tool. Onward!

Photosharing - Exploring Flickr

I’m exhausted. I’ve been exploring Flickr and although I find it to be quite a user-friendly service, it has so much to offer and thinking I was going to get through it all in a few hours was “a bit” ambitious on my part. So far, I have set up my own account and uploaded, tagged, and described a few photos which can be accessed here. And just to try out one of the features, I also created a "Flickr badge" with those same photos (which can be seen on the right bar of my blog). Other than that, I’ve been reading and reading, clicking and clicking. I’ve read through many of the features, the terms of use, the copyright policy, the help forum, the FAQ’s, and more. I’ve taken some of the informational tours and watched an informational screencast as well. I’m overwhelmed right now. With so many features and things to get my head around, my initial feeling is that this is definitely a tool that requires a real commitment on my part to make sure I fully understand everything (is that even possible?) before embarking on educational use with it. Through my exploration though, I did get some answers to a couple initial questions/concerns that I had about free online photo programs. Here were two of my concerns, and the answers I found.

1. Are people posting inappropriate photos/content?

Flickr has some very clear and specific Community Guidelines that are to be followed as a user of this service. Inappropriate photos get flagged and taken down. That doesn’t mean you won’t come across them, so to reinforce, there is much need for an educator to have clear expectations for his or her students when using this tool, and for acceptable use to be fully understood.

2. Once photos are posted, are they available for the world to see?

Flickr offers the option of making photos privately or publicly accessible – the user gets to decide and select the option he or she wants. Users can also create “Groups” which are by invite only. To me, this would be one of the ways to use this program with students.

Through my perusal of this tool, here are a few other noteworthy characteristics of Flickr that I've keyed on:
- The Map feature - to put your photos onto a map or browse different parts of the map to see what photos people have taken there
- Creative Commons - a way to license your photos
- Discussion board - to comment and converse about photos

In short, this is an awesome Web 2.0 tool and even with my limited exposure to it, already I'm seeing much potential for it with students. I'm going to move on to sharing what the literature says about the uses of photosharing in an educational setting.

How timely!

As I was having my morning coffee and reading the paper, I noticed a little article about Adobe Systems Incorportated. Like Yahoo and Google, Adobe is also now offering a free online photo program, called Photoshop Express, which will be a version of their Photoshop software. I thought this was interesting timing as photosharing was the next tool I was going to take a look at. Through my readings, I have been made aware of Flickr and Picasa, and because of time constraints, was going to stick with Flickr. It is however, my intention to explore all three in the future....oh yeah, and there's Picnik and Shutterfly and...

So many photosharing sites, so little time!

Final thoughts on Blogging before I move on to another tool…

It has been interesting and fun blogging about, well, blogging. I am engaged in a learning process where I am researching blogging while doing it at the same time; that’s pretty cool. When I look back on some of the authors’ suggestions for uses with students, those uses are what I’ve been doing myself, and therefore I am experiencing the positive learning impacts of blogging.

I have been out of the classroom on maternity and educational leave for almost a year and a half now and am really curious to know if teachers and teacher librarians in my school division are using blogs and blogging with their students. I wonder if anyone really knows a great deal about this tool, or has read any of the literature I have come across. Or is it going to be me who introduces this tool to my colleagues when I return to work next fall? Regardless, as a result of my findings, I have been forced to think differently about my classroom practice and am definitely interested in using blogs with my students. The uses of and learning potential that this tool produces are too great to ignore.

The following video by Rachel Boyd which was obtained from Teacher Tube is a good one to wrap up my "Final thoughts" post.

A few more articles of interest on blogging

Bell, M. (2008). Celebrating communicating: Blogging redux. Multimedia & Internet@Schools, 15(2).

Hirsch, J. (2006). Is student blogging the new social disease? School Administrator, 63(5).

Sturgeon, J. (2008). Five don’ts of classroom blogging. T.H.E. Journal, 35(2).

More Educational Uses for Blogs

Additional reading has led me to find more good uses for blogs with students. McPherson (2007) suggests the following:

- students can visit existing blogs to explore opposing views, bias, credibility
- students can evaluate blogs which can develop online critical-thinking skills
- blogs can be used for inquiry units where students post their own information and reflections on the research they’ve carried out
- blogs can be used to introduce students to other Internet technologies
- blogs can be used to develop the reading and writing process, including typing, editing, peer editing and spelling

McPherson asserts, “Blogs are ideal contexts for initiating, connecting, and reinforcing literacies that students develop in the school library and classroom as well as at home” (p.156).

Reference:

McPherson, K. (2007). Literacy links: School library blogging. In E.
Rosenfeld & D. Loertscher(Eds.), Toward a 21st-Century School Library Media Program (p.154-157). Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc.

Educational Uses for Blogs - Will Richardson

I have been reading the book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (2006) by Will Richardson, Copyright © Corwin Press. (Permission to use the cover photo was granted by permission of the author and the publisher. No further use is permitted). I can hardly put this book down! It is an excellent resource on the use of different Web 2.0 tools to engage students. I have focused first on Richardson’s discussion of blogs and would like to highlight just some of the educational uses with students that he shares. The following ideas are from pages 40-42 of his book and have come from Anne Davis’s blog (where the entire list can be accessed).
- Online book club
- Literature circles
- Ongoing portfolio of work
- Journal entries
- Showcase art, poetry, writing, photos, final products from projects
- Link with other students somewhere else in the world
- Group work
- Post information such as calendars, events, homework, activities, additional information/links, readings
- Discussion forum to post comments, messages, reactions

Why blog with students? Richardson states,

Learning specialists Fernette and Brock Eide’s research shows that blogging in its truestform has a great deal of potential positive impact on students. They found that blogs can
- Promote critical and analytical thinking
- Be a powerful promoter of creative, intuitive and associational thinking
- Promote analogical thinking
- Be a powerful medium for increasing access and exposure to quality information
- Combine the best of solitary reflection and social interaction
(p.20)

(Access the Eides' complete post, Brain of the Blogger)

Richardson also extends his thoughts on how blogs improve student learning.
Blogs
- are constructivist tools
- extend the walls of the classroom
- archive the learning that teachers and students do
- support different learning styles
- enhance the development of expertise
- teach students new literacies
(pgs. 27-28)

So far, this book has been a thought-provoking read, full of practical ideas and sound pedagogical reasons for the use of blogs in an educational setting. I am going to set it aside while I do some other reading about blogs, but I will most definitely be coming back to it.

Educational Uses for Web 2.0 tools – An important first statement

Although my purpose here is to share educational uses for the Web 2.0 tools that I am exploring, I first want to state that through the reading I have done, it has been impressed upon me that it is important for educators to be fully aware of some of the issues surrounding the use of these types of tools, such as web safety, copyright, and school policies on acceptable use of computer/online services, to name just a few things. The responsible educator should make sure he or she is knowledgeable on these and other issues to ensure a positive and enriching learning opportunity for students. It is also imperative that an educator read through and understand all of the details, the terms of use, the agreements etc. provided by the Web 2.0 tools to which he or she is subscribing before using them with students. As there is much literature on Web 2.0 tools, it is recommended that an educator would avail him or herself to this reading on a regular basis.

Now, with that said, let’s get onto some specific ways that blogs can be used with high school students.

Side-tracked by Vokis!

I've been exploring a few blogs and have seen "Vokis" popping up everywhere. I had to check this out for myself and of course, add a Voki to my blog. So to add a little jazz to my blog, here's a little talking head that resembles me...well, not quite, but I did the best I could with the features they offered! So, what’s the purpose of having a voki aside from the fact that it looks kind of cool? Hmmm, well, it allows a 60 second clip to be recorded, so a person could use it for a greeting, or even include a message or announcement each day if they wanted.

A closer look at Blogger and its features

Now that I am basically set up, I wanted to take a closer look at Blogger’s features. I spent some time reading the “Help” resources for future use if needed. I perused the “Postings” feature to become familiar with what I can do with the posts I create. I also looked into the “Settings” and “Layout” features that I can control on my blog and changed a few things to suit my purposes here as well as learned how to add page elements such as photos, videos, etc. I am sure as I continue to use my blog and add other Web 2.0 tools to it, I will discover more of its features as I will be using them on an as-need basis. For now, I am comfortable with using it on a basic level. It’s time to look into some educational uses for blogs and share those here as well.

Beginning the Journey

For my University of Alberta TL-DL EDES 549 class, I am working on my final assignment which involves the exploration of a few Web 2.0 tools. My plan is to come to an understanding of how to create and use blogs, photosharing, and podcasts. I am going to be reflecting on my learning process along the way, as well as share a few of the educational uses of these tools in the school library programs for teens.

As is obvious, I’ve already started a blog. So how did I get here? In January, a friend had e-mailed me about a website called School Library Learning 2.0. This website was also mentioned on Jenn Branch's TL-DL Blog as something to explore. My friend indicated that it was a good tutorial site for anyone interested in learning about Web 2.0 tools. Too busy to look at it at that time, I bookmarked it for perusal at another time. Well, today that time came and I am grateful to have had that information, as that is how this blog has come to be!

I followed the instructions on the School Library Learning tutorial in order to create this blog through Blogger. Although School Library Learning 2.0 recommended a few different free online blog hosts, I chose Blogger as I have seen friends’ Blogger blogs and have heard that it was a user-friendly service – a quality I am in most need of! So, at this point, all I have done is set up my blog and then I created an avatar and exported it to my blog. Both the blog and avatar were simple to create, as I followed the instructions provided on Blogger, Yahoo, and the School Library Learning 2.0 tutorial. These things did not take much time or tech know-how as far as I’m concerned, and so I am feeling good about these first accomplishments. I have yet to explore all of the features of Blogger, and that is what I’ll move onto next. Following that, I have a pile of Web 2.0 literature to check out, as well as some online sources I know about. More to come!

So far, so fun! I am sensing that this can get addicting…