Category Archives: flickr

21st century learning, Education, flickr, internet, networking, photos, Web 2.0

Finding the extraordinary in the ordinary

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Just found a quotation supported by an image in the group Finding the extraordinary in the ordinary through a tweet by Darren Kuropatwa (@dkuropatwa). Love the group. A rich store of inspirational images and graphics, which can be used either for a presentation or to spark conversation and ideas, or even as a poster.

seeingthings

The photo was uploaded by flickr member colemama

global

No wallmaps or globes was uploaded by Scott McLeod and genemac110. I’ve been finding Flickr to be much more than a collection of images. This group is an example of the rich resources which can be collaboratively shared. The more I browse Flickr, the more surprising groups and sets I come across. Images are sometimes supplemented by information, links and, as in this case, heated discussion through a link to Scott’s blog.

flickrpool

I’m going to add some recent Flickr finds:

Art:21 connected to Art:21 PBS.

Smarthistory flickr group –

Please help us make art more accessible.
The Smarthistory flickr group gathers pictures of artworks on location to enrich the information on smarthistory.org. Smarthistory is a multi-media website that serves as an enhancement or replacement for the traditional art history textbook.

Look at www.smarthistory.org/Red-Studio.html for an example.

Vintage dictionary and encyclopedia pages

Vintage science illustrations

I’m finding the extraordinary in the ordinary online on a daily basis, and the reason for this possibility is the sharing of images and information which I wouldn’t otherwise come across. It’s just a matter of finding the time to browse this incredible, growing resource, and also the time to put into practice the ideas for education that spring from this.

21st century learning, art, creativity, Education, flickr, photos, technology, Web 2.0

Kissing, the pavement and squashing heads on Flickr

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I think I’m in Flickr phase. I’ve had my Blue Period, and now I’m in the middle of my Flickr Period.

Today’s obsession will focus on Groups. There are so many interesting, sometimes strange, and varied groups on Flickr. I’ll give you some examples:

Beautiful Kiss

The pavement

Photo by splintered

Prints of darkness  A place where darkness comes to light, a place for smart photos that aren’t too bright…

Photo by Prudencebrown121
Vanishing beauty  As my father would say, “old things, falling down”

Photo by suspiciousminds
In numerical order  In Numerical Order, photographs are posted to the Group in numerical order.

Photo by vin60
Film noir mood  ;

Photo by Sanchi Saez Agurto

I crush your head “Inspired by Kids in the Hall, these will be pix where you take your fingers and squish the head of someone else.”

Photo by Jeff the Trojan

Social documentary photography A place for professional documentary photographers to discuss emerging technology, marketing and the impossible act of making a living through photography.

Photo by Andrew.David
Visit the world travel guide

Photo by Quejaytee

Gossamer glimpse  “this group is intended to showcase photos of (and through) transparent stuff. delicate fabrics, screens, dirty windows and other such veils will ideally fill our photos’ frames.”

Photo by ratsbeyfus
The secret life of plants 

Photo by Sammie Lynne

Graves, tombs and cemeteries

Photo by njpara31

Flickr fan art   “or any kind of artwork featuring the letters ‘F-L-I-C-K-R'”

Photo by alleluja

Macro photography

Photo by jamesdunbar42

Rural decay  Rural Decay, Pictures of Barns, Silos, Farms and other Rural buildings decaying.

Photo by Mattreynolds

Green is beautiful   

Photo by Peter Hajas

Tell a story in 5 frames

Photo by Robx

Colour and colours 

Photo by edi.peck

Whatever the weather  picures of cloud formations, weather patterns, rough seas, etc.

Photo by johnstravel

Altered signs 

Photo by _kriebel_

Apart from wasting (no! it’s not wasting; but it does eat up time) on these quirky little groups, I do believe that a little ingenuity in conjunction with these groups will lead to some interesting classroom projects.

Some of them leap out –  Tell a story in 5 frames

There’s no need for me to spell out the possibilities for an enjoyable project involving choice, creativity, visual literacy, storytelling skills, etc.

What about Rural decay  or Flickr fan art for art students?

Lots of photography ideas for sure. And don’t disregard the quirky ones, eg.

In numerical order and I crush your head.

There are many more groups and definitely many more ideas to be gleaned from these groups. What are your ideas?

art, creativity, flickr, photos, teaching, Web 2.0

Flickr – take a closer look

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I use Flickr to upload my photos, when I need images, and to share photos and the stories behind these photos in groups.

Today I went for a walk around other parts of Flickr. Here’s what I saw.

I scrolled down to the bottom of the Flickr homepage and clicked on ‘Explore’. Here’s what I found.

This photo is from M_Jose’s photostream, and comes with a caption:

Sometimes (always), we “need” (no must) to stop and look inside (it is an option not an obligation)

Flickr explains the ‘explore’ option:

Flickr labs have been hard at work creating a way to show you some of the most awesome content on Flickr.

We like to call it interestingness.

What’s ‘interestingness’?

There are lots of elements that make something ‘interesting’ (or not) on Flickr. Where the clickthroughs are coming from; who comments on it and when; who marks it as a favorite; its tags and many more things which are constantly changing. Interestingness changes over time, as more and more fantastic content and stories are added to Flickr.

To explore, you can choose a month of selected flickr photos; here’s an example:

calendarflickr

When you click on one of these photos, you get to see more interesting photos for this day

jan1calendar2

 

You can also explore many geo-tagged photos, for example, I chose Manchu Pichu, Peru

geotagged

I picked Machu Picchu terraces from Stut’s photostream

An amazing photo of extraordinary detail. The rest of the photostream turned out to be just as impressive. Some people are very talented, not to mention lucky to be able to travel.

There are tutorials on how to explore, how to geotag your own photostream, or you can do a location search on geotagged photos.

Why not explore the map of the world? I entered ‘mosaic’ in the search box of the map of the world and got this

mosaicworldmap1

Great find for art classes! There were so many interesting results. Here’s one of them:

It’s from Nir Toba’s photostream. Fascinating to read about the photo.

All the photos in one layout.
It took about 15 hours, in 2 sessions, and every letter had about
30-50 takes until i got i right (and lot’s of gasoline!).

This is a part of my portfolio for graphic design school,
& if you we’re wondering: yes, these are real photos, not photoshop… 🙂

I also looked at the church of St George, Oplenac, Serbia by Katarina 2353

Interesting to note that the photo belongs to several photo sets that are also worth exploring (it never stops!): Serbia(Belgrade), religion and mythology, Balkans, and architecture. I love the information that’s included with the photo:

The church of St. George and the mausoleum of the Karađorđević dynasty was built at the top of Mali Oplenac (Little Oplenac). King Petar I decided to build a church and a mausoleum for both his ancestors and descendants to fulfil a wish of his parents buried in Vienna.
The church is covered with white marble from nearby Venčac mine. Interior is covered in mosaics, with more than 6 million pieces.

What’s also interesting is the interpretation of ‘mosaic’. This lends itself easily to various possibilities in art or English lessons. Compare the previous images for ‘mosaic’ to this one by Lucy Nieto

This belongs to a set ‘mosaicos de fotos’ which is an amazing page of colour and design

mosaicosdefotos

Here’s yet another interpretation of ‘mosaic’ by Katarina 2353

I could go on forever, but the trouble with that would be that forever is a very long time. And the Flickr site is always changing. Every time I reload a page, a different photo is showing. I think the post is getting too long, so I’ll hurry up my last observations. Other ways of exploring include popular tags, flickr blog, most recent uploads, and more. The camera finder  page checks out the most popular brands of cameras used.

camerafinder1

Why not look at the sitemap to get a comprehensive view of what’s out there. I know that I haven’t explored every aspect of Flickr, but I’m tired now, so I’ll leave the rest of the exploration to you.

Don’t forget to let me know what you find.

21st century learning, creativity, Education, flickr, photos, teaching

Images4Education

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I’ve joined the Images4Education group on flickr.

images4education

 

Like all photo groups, the collaboration and community is fantastic, but there’s the added focus on education. There’s something satisfying about using images that have a story or explanation, images that come from real people that we can communicate with. It’s easy to check permission and always possible to contact people for permission of use when you’ve added them as a flickr contact.

What’s even better is the NING supporting Images4Education.

One of the administators of this group, Carla Arena, offers 3 supportive offshoots:

a NING group

a wiki

a flickr-related discussion for the group

Shame that I’ve been too busy to participate in the 6-week online workshop focussing on using images in education.

In this six-week online workshop offered through the Electronic Village Online, participants will be introduced to various online image manipulation tools and will learn how to effectively incorporate these resources into their teaching practices. They will explore how images can be used in educational settings for photo sharing, storytelling, slideshows and comics creation, as well as understand how Creative Commons licensing can be beneficial for classroom use.  By the end of the workshop, participants will have the chance to develop a plan to begin incorporating digital production into their lesson plans.

All is not lost, as browsing through the NING will attest to. Blog posts, discussions, photos and videos are some of the treats in store for you here.

Currently the focus is on digital storytelling.  Members share their stories and links to their presentations. Sometimes a favourite book is recommended, for example, 99 ways to tell a story, and sometimes favourite tools will be reviewed or showcased, such as Capzles or other tools.

What may seem like a trivial theme always turns out to be a fascinating learning experience. A good example is ‘What’s on your table. A gastronomic view of our group’.  Scroll through this page and you’ll learn about cultures and customs through colourful photos of food and get-togethers.

moldovancabbagerolls

 Some of the images are clickable and take you to a page with information about the picture.

Here’s a photo with everything on my plate (yes, I know! I’ll have to exercise the whole month after this gastronomic orgy!). We put the Feijoada over the white rice, eat the oranges and the collard greens. Some put the fried plantains with the rice and beans.On this photo, you cannot see the fried yuca and the cassava flour which are also very traditional side dishes to the Feijoada. You have to try it! It’s irresistible. Even better with cold beer or Caipirinhas, our national drink made of lime. 

The NING has excellent groups such as one dealing with everything you need to know about using flickr, or everything you need to know about Creative Commons.

There’s a slideshows group, a Moodle tools group (which I’m yet to investigate), and a lesson plans group.

I usually zoom in on the discussion forum for ideas and links.

forumimages4

The best way to discover what else is available is to have a look for yourself. Images really are a wonderful way to engage learners and use creative teaching methods. There’s more to it than meets the eye!

21st century learning, creativity, flickr, photos

Shahi – A visual dictionary

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Have you noticed that the world is becoming increasingly visual? Well, that’s OK with me because I actually understand things better when text is accompanied with images. I’m sure I’m not the only one. In the learning realm, images – either still or moving – aid and enhance textual presentation: photos, maps, film, video clip, images on websites, visual search engines – and now a visual dictionary: Shahi.

Shahi is a visual dictionary that combines Wiktionary content with Flickr images, and more!

What I like about Shahi is the different perspectives you get from the same word. Let’s take the example ‘racism’. Here is one of the results; I like the humour and originality:

The word ‘dangerous’ yielded these results amongst others:

and this:

Definitely not what I expected!

Thought I’d try a verb – collaborate:

Never know what you’ll find.

As a teacher librarian I’m thinking of collecting images to go with fiction genres. Here’s fantasy:

What about crime?

A metaphorical meaning: photography is not a crime

Classroom possibilities beg to be discovered! Comparison of different interpretations of the same picture, guessing games, inspiration for students’ own images to accompany words, springboard for creative writing, collaborative slide presentations on a theme or message, and so on.

Thanks to Amanda for sharing this.

By the way, this reminds me of a post from a while ago,  A picture’s worth a thousand words.

21st century learning, creativity, flickr, media, Teacher librarians

Sharing commonstuff

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Two things worth mentioning today, not new things but things that made me think about the happy movement towards sharing and collaboration.

Larry Lessig’s TED talk isn’t new but I had another look at it and it’s a very clever presentation in favour of rethinking laws that prevent creative remixing of existing material on the web. It would probably sway even those who are resistant to changing copyright laws. Lessig’s instinctive talent for minimalist presentation accompanying logical argument which takes a surprising perspective, reveals  the absudity of copyright laws as we know them. What is he saying? Young people are using digital technologies to say things differently, and these tools of creativity are becoming tools of speech because this is how young people speak.  Larry’s point is that the law hasn’t reacted positively to these new developments, that the law is strangling creativity. He speaks out on copyright issues with a vision for reconciling creative freedom with marketplace competiton.

The talk is quite long but worth sticking with.

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q25-S7jzgs]

The second thing: looking through Flickr, I noticed information about The Commons which was promoted as

Your opportunity to contribute to describing the world’s public photo collections.

The key goals of The Commons on Flickr are to firstly show you hidden treasures in the world’s public photography archives, and secondly to show how your input and knowledge can help make these collections even richer.

You’re invited to help describe the photographs you discover in The Commons on Flickr, either by adding tags or leaving comments.

Here’s an example of what you will see on The Commons.

Children riding a horse to school, Glass House Mountains
from State Library of Queensland, Australia

The organisations involved include The Library of Congress, Powerhouse Museum, Smithsonian Institution, National Media Museum, State Library of New South Wales, Australian War Memorial, New York Library, State Library of Queensland, and many other institutions from Australia and overseas.

The program has two main objectives:

  1. To increase access to publicly-held photography collections, and
  2. To provide a way for the general public to contribute information and knowledge. (Then watch what happens when they do!)

Some people are sceptical and scared of the new democratic collection of collaborative knowledge and creativity. Personally, I’m excited by it. You only have to look at projects such as this to see the magnitude of data compiled by people all over the place. Frightened people have insisted on ‘peer-reviewed’ information only. But wait – isn’t this peer-reviewed too? The collective controls the accuracy of incoming data? We have to think elastically – information is shape-shifting, and if we have new technology and creative ways to collect it and remix it, then we’ll also find new ways of ensuring its credibility. It’s like the librarians’ favourite – information literacy. Well, let’s not get stuck  following the letter of the law without understanding its essence. If information literacy is the ability to manage information, then we need to keep up with the new ways information is presenting itself. And as educators we need to prepare students for the new types of literacy. Let’s embrace the new explosion of creativity demonstrated by young people now. As Larry Lessig says, it’s not stealing, it’s a new take on what’s there. It’s like a composer taking a well-known theme and reworking it, taking it into different directions.

21st century learning, Education, flickr, teachers, teaching, Web 2.0

What does learning and teaching look like for me in 2009?

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photo by aussiegall

Paul C of Quoteflections tagged me in a meme which goes a little like this:

What is the focus of learning for you in 2009?

What are the important new things you are teaching ?

In her meme, Joyce Valenza wrote

The landscape continues to shift and that means reinterpreting our standards for emerging tools, issues, and innovations. 

 The landscape is shifting and my own landscape is too.

 Here are 5 things I would like to focus on in teaching and learning this year.

1. Collaboration:

I’d like to focus on collaborative learning – encouraging students to learn from each other. I’m working on wikis for art and English, as well as a fiction blog, and this year I hope to bring the school community into it. I’d like these tools not to belong to me, but to be shaped by the whole community.

2. Global connections:

It would be good to break out of the metaphoric echo chamber this year. I’d like my learning and teaching to connect to people outside of the classroom, whether it be another class, another school, a different country or culture. I envisage using things like Voicethread to share ideas and opinions, commenting in blogs to build personal learning networks, and possibly Skype for author talks.

3. Picture it:

With the explosion of visual media, I’d like to think more visually and encourage students to do so. My teaching will expand the concept of literacy. I’m talking about focusing on visual literacy, learning to deconstruct images, creating visually, and exploring multiple layers of meaning in  images. Students are comfortable with imagery but  need to learn to use and manage visual images metacognitively.

I’d like to involve students in Flickr – putting pictures up, browsing the vast archive of flickr images, understanding Creative Commons, favouriting photos, connecting to others by commenting on their photos, participating in a photo project. I’d like to continue to show students visual search engines, such as Viewzi and SearchMe, and I’m pretty sure that similar search engines will continue to evolve.

4. Thinking!

In this changing landscape where learners need to be discerning and critical, there’s an ongoing need to focus on critical thinking. Not cramming content, memorising material or copying and pasting. Making kids think, question, debate, disagree, compare, synthesise, rethink.

5. The learning process

I’d like students to understand the learning process.

I will be constantly saying: don’t be afraid of making mistakes; that’s how you learn. Don’t be alarmed if something is difficult; it’s part of the process. Don’t give up, but push ahead. Don’t settle for what comes easily, take the challenge and go with what’s hard. Move out of your comfort zone. Know the fluctuation of emotions during the research process. Go with the flow. Learn something real.

That just about wraps it up. My learning and teaching goals for 2009. It’s good to make yourself write them down. Here they are, right in front of me, and I can come back to them at the end of the year to evaluate my progress.

Just realised (a day later) that I have to tag people for the meme. Ok, the following people are tagged; let me know if you’ve already done this and I’ll change my tag list.

Darren Kuropatwa

Frances Manning

Jenny Luca

Judy O’Connell

Jennifer Clark Evans

21st century learning, Education, flickr, photos

The 365 photos challenge

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cimg5757

 

Seems people are taking up the 365 photos challenge on flickr – committing to posting one photo per day for a whole year. Why, you ask? Well, that’s what I asked myself too. Why would you want to commit to more tasks on top of the already toppling mountain of daily tasks?  In my usual contradictory way (contradicting myself usually) I found myself joining 3 of these groups which just means I upload the same photo a day to each of these groups. Just in case I miss out on the interesting photos, since different people will be found in each of the groups. The 3 groups are Twitter 365 project; 2009/365photos; 365/2009.

Just today I followed Jo McLeay’s lead and decided to give my 365 photostream a home, so here’s the link to my new blog. If you look at the twelve days of photos, you’ll realise why I’ve been absent from blogging for so long – lots of things to do in the physical world.

Just a few thoughts. As usual. Apart from the fun factor, I think this kind of project has some promising educational possibilties.  Getting to know people in your personal learning network through photos and others’ comments is different to knowing them through text comments only. It adds a personal dimension, and the comments don’t have to be cerebral. I imagine the end result will be an interesting testament to my year – memories I may have otherwise forgotten.

I can imagine this as a class project, can’t you? Maybe one which includes teachers, and gives students an insight into teachers outside of the classroom.

Education, flickr, Web 2.0

Bring Show and Tell into the 21st century

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peacock

Does Show and Tell sound old fashioned to you?  Think again…

Remember Show and Tell in primary school? In my primary years (a long time ago), Show and Tell was possibly the only time that the teacher stepped aside and encouraged students to take centre stage to share sundry news items and paraphernalia. Think about what’s happening – a variety show led by students themselves. You can say or show almost anything – news (world news, local news, trivial or important news, news about your dog or about your uncle), opinions, and the freedom to bring in ANYTHING you like – stick insect in a jar, your dad’s gallstones, the latest in technology (for me, that was my talking Bugs Bunny), strange money, photos of a trip to exotic lands, a special book, something you have made, a science experiment (remember growing your own crystals) – wonderful, wonderful things. I imagine Show and Tell still happens in primary schools.

But why stop at primary school? How often does a student get free reign and the attention of the whole class? When else does the student audience get to see such a great show. By secondary school – correct me if I’m wrong – everything fits into neat little curricular boxes. Very full boxes. No room for randomness, for the unexpected, for student-directed sharing; no procession of ever-changing wonders, no exchange of opinions on student-directed topics.

And another thing. The time limits for each Show and Tell slot allow for a quick succession of small, tasty morsels. If you’re not interested in one thing, the next offering could be more to your liking.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Doesn’t this remind you a little of Twitter? The short, quick exchange of goodies just discovered, great links, photos worth sharing, questions offered to the group? Is blogging or microblogging our new version of Show and Tell? A reclaiming of our natural desire to share and learn with each other? Our instinctive knowledge that learning happens from and with others, and not just from the teacher?

What do you think?

What are your best Show and Tell memories?

Education, flickr, learning

early images of reality from picture books and today’s clickability

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We take for granted today the clickability of information. We should think back, really think back properly, to the days before we had the internet as a source of information.

I was talking to my son today about our early conceptions, and we shocked ourselves about uninformed and xenophobic ideas we had of people and cultures when we were children. My primary school years situated me in a very narrow place, although not as narrow as some, since I did come from an ethnic background. These are very interesting times because we are developing and learning like crazy but we don’t have a great deal as points of reference, so our learning is coloured by our often incomplete or erroneously formed concepts. To put it another way, what information we do gather is not always correctly understood and is even reconstructed by our own imagination. I say imagination because you need a great deal of it to fill in the gaps between the isolated pockets of knowledge and understanding.

So, I remember growing up with Australians who were either ‘real Australians’ or from a European background (Greeks, Italians, Macedonians) and Russians from my own cultural group which was always a minority (and none at school). Since I loved to read, my knowledge in these days was gleaned from books, most of which I owned and some from libraries. Information books didn’t seem to abound, and picture books were often teachers of the world beyond my own. I remember learning about dark-coloured people with grass skirts or slanty-eyed people, people living in teepees or igloos or swimming underwater every day. Now, that’s not a deliberately racist description because, since my information was delivered through a visual medium, my knowledge of these people was almost entirely visual. And not a realistic depiction but usually a cutesy illustration.

Now we take it for granted, but a little context to information is just a click away on the internet. Google Earth or Maps would have given my little snippets of information of other cultures a geographical location, and joined all those floating, isolated bits of knowledge into a world map; Flickr could have given me an easily accessible collection of pictures. Of course, information books with photos abound, even picture books with beautiful photography which deliver early aspects of reality to the preschool child.

How has this affected my development of knowledge? Do I still harbour distorted ideas of the way things are in the depths of my subconsious? Or have I worked hard at reconstructing and revising the way I see and understand things? Is this a blessing in disguise, a constant practice for maintaining elasticity and flexibility in the course of life and my understanding of it?

Meanwhile, I remember my picture book worlds with nostalgia. I used to imagine myself in the pictures, and dreamed of living on the little island where the smiling grass-skirt girls lived, so tiny that you could walk it in a couple of minutes, always sunny, water crystal clear, fish and birds abounding, all things provided for idyllic living. Did you wish you lived in any of your picture books?