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
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
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.
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.
Henri Matisse is a nice artist 😉 I love impressionism. Very colourful arts without any shades.
Seeing those exotic roosters takes me back to the farm and hearing their wake up call at dawn. Love their demeanor and spunk. This is a wonderful overview of some of the serendipity at Flickr.
That’s what I love about Flickr – serendipity.
What a wonderful comment you left on my blog, Tania. Thanks for your kind words. I draw my inspiration from people like you, though, who continue to share their own ideas, thoughts, and reflections. Just as Flickr is serendipity, so can be our connections online! Thanks.