Flickr

Although I have heard of Flickr, I've never attempted to use it before this assignment. I was surprised at how simple it was to get started. I created my account (kcorbin08) and immediately began uploading photos. The one to the left would be the picture I tagged for the classroom webpage. This is Benny, my nine-month-old lab mix puppy. This picture was taken when we brought him home when he was much smaller, cuter and less destructive than he is now.

After uploading some photos I explored Flickr a little bit and I kept thinking of ways that it could be helpful in the classroom. For one, I'm always searching google for pictures to help with a lesson plan or assignment. Although that method works, it often has a wide range of pictures, some can be inappropriate, and finding the right one can be time consuming. Searching photos on Flickr seemed alot quicker, easier and eliminate those problems. I was also thinking that Flickr would be a great way to organize photos for my lessons. I could not only store them there, but I could also share them with other teachers and students as well.

Reading the article, "The Promise of Social Networks" gave me a lot more insight on how to get the most out of Flickr and other social networks in the classroom. For starters, Flickr has more capabilities than simply uploading photos. It also has email, instant messaging, and ways to make some photos private, others public and tag other people in photos you wish to share. These capabilities are great for a classroom, I've used them a lot in college, however, they could also be helpful in an elementary school class. Students could use this webpage as a way to creatively do an assignment and share with everyone in the class. One great example the author discussed was how teachers in the past often had their students cut pictures out of magazines for a project to share with the class. Flickr would allow students to search pictures online, comment on each, and tag other students with the finished project. This prevents a lot of mess, is more environmentally friendly and gives the students more options than what is limited to a few magazines. On top of all of this, technology makes a lesson more exciting to many students. And sometimes just that would be enough to reach a student that otherwise couldn't care less.