Tag Archives: flickr

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

More great quotes about learning and change

4 Comments

Originally uploaded by colemama

I’m spending more and more time on Flickr. It’s a rich resource in terms of creativity and content. I wanted to remind you about the Group Great quotes about learning and change.  I’ve mentioned it before, so forgive me, but I think it’s worth featuring again.

greatquotes

 Contributors to this group add photos with quotations about 21st century education. I like the succinct way quotations express multiple ideas and concepts, but coupled with an apt image they are even more effective. These can be used as posters to stimulate thinking, to promote discussion or even to remind yourself daily of what’s worth thinking about.

Top contributors currently are Dean Shareski, Scott McLeod, Darren Kuropatwa, Langwitches and Darren Draper.

There are other people who are using images for conceptual purposes on flickr. I stumbled across a few today. Amongst these was Costel Mago who uses beautiful photos to support his insights.

Here’s one of his that resounds with me:

All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast.

pidgeons

Personally, I find that I’m turning to images more and more for a powerful and succinct way to express ideas. Flickr is a well of shared thoughts and ideas, as well as images. Dont’ underestimate what you will find there. Find the message in the picture.

I’ve been finding so much that’s valuable to my personal and educational life on Flickr lately; I think I’ll write another post about what I’ve found for learning and teaching in Art. See you next post.

21st century learning, art, flickr, learning, networking, photos, Web 2.0

Random facts I learned from Flickr today

4 Comments

They may be random, but I’m still learning.

Flickr is fun to browse, but more and more, I’m discovering Flickr to be an interesting way to learn. The photos take me into places I’ve never been, to things I normally wouldn’t see, often providing interesting background information.

Here are a few random things I learned from Flickr photos today

This photo was taken in Russia by seriykotik1970

russianbuilding

An art nouveau building near my office that was gutted by fire last week. Sadly it’ll now probably be demolished and ‘rebuilt’. In Moscow fires of this sort are often started deliberately by unscrupulous developers.
Designed by Lev Kekushev in about 1910.
Photographed in 2007

Turkish roosters are very colourful

turkishcock1

turkishcock2

Smarthistory is a group on Flickr which complements the website smarthistory.org. The purpose of this website and Flickr group is to enhance or replace the traditional art history textbook.

For example, you can learn about Matisse’s Red Studio from a short video using Flickr pictures of art collected by group members. 

Redstudiomatisse

If you read About Smarthistory, you will understand the motive behind the creation of this website and Flickr group:  

We are dissatisfied with the large expensive art history textbook. We find that they are difficult for many students, contain too many images, and just are not particularly engaging. In addition, we find the web resources developed by publishers to be woefully uncreative. We had developed quite a bit of content for our online Western art history courses and we had also created many podcasts, and a few screencasts for our Smarthistory blog. So, it finally occurred to us, why not use the personal voice that we use when we teach online, along with the multimedia we had already created for our blog and for our courses, to create a more engaging “web-book” that could be used in conjunction with art history survey courses. We also realized that this content would be useful to museum visitors and other informal learners. We are committed to joining the growing number of teachers who make their content freely available on the web.

Smarthistory is an excellent example of what can be done to create high-quality, free educational resources through collaboration. You’ll understand the scope of this project when you look at the site map which provides a hyperlinked timeline of art history. I also like to check out the discussion in groups.

The best thing about learning on Flickr is that you don’t expect to.  That’s why it’s so enjoyable.

21st century learning, creativity, Education, flickr, networking, technology, Web 2.0

Great quotes about learning and change – Flickr group

4 Comments

collconnections

Yes, another post about Flickr. This time, I’ve discovered the Group Great quotes about learning and change. The image/quote above has been added by canesinthecup. If you look at the rest of canesinthecup’s photostream, you’ll find more quotable quotes, such as this one:

teachersfailing

 This Schopenhauer quote is a favourite of mine and was added by colemama:

extraordinary

Darren Kuropatwa, an educator I’ve known since my involvement with Powerful Learning Practice Program, and who is a mentor to me, used a powerful Seth Godin quote for this slide:

educationgodin

I like his choice of Jared Klett’s image – very apt. Darren took the quote from a blog post by Seth Godin which has resonated with him.

It was actually Darren who initiated a collaborative slideshow within the PLP cohort. Darren selected the theme Teaching well for the slideshow. PLP cohort members were invited to sign up on a Google Document for a slide. 

We will collaboratively create a 20 slide presentation (not counting the title slide) called “Teaching Well”. 20 slides in 10 pairs of contrasts: “Teaching well is more like < slide 1 > than it is like < slide 2 >.” or however else you want to create contrast.

Each day one slide is added to the deck that builds on those that came before. The final 4-6 slides must bring the presentation to some sort of close.

The final product demonstrated, in its collaborative opportunity, that we are much more than the sum of our parts. It was fun to browse Flickr  in search of an image which would best illustrate the idea expressed. I still hope to do this with a class.

Darren included a few instructional slideshows. One of them is Brain Rules for Presenters. Another is Dodging Bullets in Presentations. And also Taking Your Slidedeck to the Next Level. All excellent guides to visual accompaniment to a conceptual presentation.

In a PLP discussion, Darren recommended his friend lynetter‘s  Digital changes everything on Flickr. She has 3 sets. One of them is Interesting Snippets which she explains is

my personal dumping ground for various cool quotes, the odd stat, as slides to talk around when describing how things are changing online and in media & communications generally.

It’s a great collection of visually supported quotations.

lynetter

So much to be discovered on Flickr. It really is more than just a bunch of pictures.

flickr, Interesting, internet, networking, photos, technology, Web 2.0

The story of the button demonstrates the power of social networking

1 Comment

Looking through my Flickr contacts’ photostreams, I noticed some photos of a button. Intrigued, I read a lengthy explanation, a short, true story, which I wanted to share. This is bigsumo‘s story.

A man sent an email via Facebook on a Monday morning in August. He was not sure if the email was being sent to the right people. He mentioned that whilst mowing his lawn in Corinda, Brisbane he uncovered a button. He notice some writing imprinted into the button. He decided out of curiosity to google it. He discovered that ‘TJ Moles Charters Towers’ referred to a man who was a tailor in Charters Towers. This was obviously his branded button to advertise his wares.

The man also discovered an old forum request on the family history site Rootsweb, from a couple looking for information on this person. Unfortunately, their listed email was no longer valid. He tried searching Facebook and discovered some names matching the description and within the hour sent a querying email looking for a connection.

An hour later that email from Facebook was answered by me. My wife and I were the couple looking for information on TJ Moles as he was the father of our adopted grandmother (that’s a whole other story) who herself was born in 1898 in Charters Towers.

I responded with great suprise at such an out of left field email. I explained our connection to the button’s owner and was very greatful to take him up on his offer to mail the button to us on the Sunshine Coast. To which he replied that he would pop it in the post on his way to work. The next day, Tuesday I was suprised to see, delivered to me at work, an envelope containing a button stamped with TJ Moles Charters Towers.

This button has travel long, somehow winding its way from north Queensland to Brisbane to be found late in 2009. It potentially started it journey somewhere between 1880 – 1940 (when TJ Moles passed away) when he ran his tailor shop (best guess).

More amazing is the very fast journey this button has been on in the last 24 hours, thanks to google and social networking! This button, though small is our only physical connection with our adopted family from that time. It’ll take pride of place in our family history collection!

What a great story! How else could you have discovered the button’s story without the online connections and collaboration? Another example of the power of Flickr.

art, creativity, Education, flickr, Interesting, photos, Remarkable, technology, Web 2.0

Eric Gjerde – Origami tessellations

1 Comment

twist

Still continuously amazed at what I find on Flickr. I used to think it was where people shared photos of their family, sunsets and the such, but I realise that its potential is far greater. It’s such a rich store of images, ideas, creativity.

Today I’m not feeling well, and so I’ve been living on the couch. No concentration for reading so I thought I’d browse flickr images.

Every discovery is like Christmas. Eric Gjarde is my discovery for today. On his Flickr profile, Eric describes himself as a geek.

I’m a massive geek. As with most geeks, I’m fascinated by all things technological; it’s what I do for a living, as well as a hobby (and obsession?)

What I really respect Eric for (apart from his awesome folding skills) is his willingness to share his knowledge and creativity about his specialty.

So while I enjoy folding all kinds of things, I’ve just been posting items which I have created myself. all of the items I post to flickr are independently created/invented/dreamed up by me, unless otherwise stated.

It’s a big deal for me, as I really dislike the lack of information sharing in the origami world- I want to bring some of the open-source style sharing to them, preferably via the Creative Commons licensing ideals. I’ve made some headway on that front by releasing diagrams and crease patterns under a CC license, available on my website – it’s located at www.origamitessellations.com.

Looking through Eric’s Flickr profile, I found the Flickr groups he has joined. Always good to see what else people are following.

Take a look at what Eric does when he’s not folding paper – it’s a mosaic film.

His origami sets are extensive and brilliant.

origamisets

Browsing through Eric’s other, non-origami, sets, I came across his mosaic set. If you have a look, you’ll be impressed with his mosaic tile photos. One of the best things about flickr is the possibility for conversation. And so, following this mosaic set, Eric answers questions about how he was able to make the mosaics, and offers links to further information. Fantastic.

mosaicphotoclose

Still discovering, and this time Eric’s comments led me to The digital library for the decorative arts and material culture. Anyone interested in the history of design and ornament for different cultures will love this.

Who said Flickr was just a bunch of pictures? I’m going to try and showcase Flickr and its educational uses at school.

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

Finding the extraordinary in the ordinary

Leave a comment

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

6 Comments

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?

Education, photos, teaching, Web 2.0

Stick figures in peril – Flickr groups

Leave a comment
Originally uploaded by superlocal
 
 
 

 

I enjoy Flickr for its access to a diversity of images, and have joined several groups to zoom in on a specialised focus of interest. Flickr groups also allow the geek to have a home, and I’m quite comfortable in some of these groups – in fact, I entertain myself exploring some of these esoteric groups.

One such group is ‘Stick figures in peril’ which is intrinsically funny AND also entertains with the ensuing discussion.

This image has tickled the imagination of some of its group members who have ventured to guess what the picture could mean.

stickfigures1

Here’s a funny sign

nokissing

indyfoto says:

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/no -kissing-all…
No kissing allowed at Warrington station – it blocks the platform

By Mark Hughes
Tuesday, 17 February 2009
The ‘no-kissing’ sign at Warrington Bank Quay station in Cheshire
Lovers hoping to bid each other an intimate farewell will no longer be able to do so in certain areas of Warrington Bank Quay train station after “no kissing” signs appeared following concerns that embracing couples were causing congestion.

The signs were installed on Friday as part of a £1m refurbishment of the station and have divided the car park and taxi ranks into “kissing” and “no-kissing” zones.

Interesting what you can learn from a Flickr group with a strange name.

I can think of ways to trigger discussion and imaginative speculation in the classroom using flickr groups images.  Any other ideas?

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

Flickr – take a closer look

3 Comments

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

2 Comments

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!