I had never used flickr before this class. I toyed with it briefly when the course readings mentioned it in the first week of class. The latest chapter in Richardson was very helpful in understanding the logic of the site. I understand that people could be drawn to writing about an image. I was surprised, though, in browsing the site that a number of discussion threads are purely social and did not even involve an image. For example, given my interest in New Mexico, I looked for photos. But what I found were people going to New Mexico on vacation and asking for recommendations on restaurants, lodging, etc. This seemed quite odd to me, given that I thought flickr would be a photo site!
Picnik
I wanted to upload my own images for this assignment. However, I realized that I did not have photo editing software on my computer. Fortunately, this week's reading in Richardson mentions the web site: http://www.picnik.com/. I used this site to edit my photos. In case you want to do this, here are some helpful hints.
- You don't even have to register for this site, and it's totally free. The first step is actually to join flickr. By first joining flickr and linking your flickr account to picnik (picnik asks you if you want to do this), your edited pictures miraculously appear in flickr! Thanks, Richardson, for the advice!
- Once you've linked to flickr, you can upload photos. Since I was working with old film pictures, I had to scan them first. One tip: scan a whole bunch at once. Once you upload the file to picnik, you can divide up the photos through its easy editor. This saves you the time of having to scan each individual photo!
My slideshow represents the American Southwest. Given our class theme of spaces and places, I chose photos around the theme of contrast.
You'll notice the first photo sets this tone. It is both a gateway to a beginning (looking through a door-like arch) and a huge contrast between the red rock and the evergreen forest beyond. The Carlsbad Caverns and White Sands pictures look like they could be on the moon! The mountains and canyons show contrasts in light, color, and seasons.
Adding the Native American sites allowed me to showcase that some of the Southwest's wonders are human made too. From ancient history to living history, these dwellings evoke the oneness with the land that used to be a way of life in the Southwest. The bison represent what white settlers have done to the land and its inhabitants, often treating the indigenous inhabitants like animals.
The sunsets are a colorful contrasts and a fitting way to say goodbye to my first flickr slideshow. I hope you enjoy the photos and the story they tell:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/43170540@N07/sets/72157622384265737/show/
Teaching with Flickr
Visual literacy is a key literacy. In my courses from First-Year Composition to Business Writing, I have had students write about magazine ads and other "staged" visual representations. I ask them to interpret what they see. For example:
- Why were the colors chosen for the ad?
- Analyze any text.
- Why were the particular people chosen?
Flickr would allow a teacher to upload an ad or other visual, or choose one from its commons collection. In a literature class, writing about a painting from the time period of the piece could force students to reflect on history. After studying literature, students could find value in looking at a work of art representing the story. When I was an undergraduate, we did this with paintings that represented Greek myths. The final exam was a slideshow (old-fashioned slide projector!) of images, and students had to write about the myth from viewing the slideshow.
Voicethread
Voicethread was fun. As with my vlog, I didn't script anything. But I knew what I wanted to say in general. Two or three takes (or more when the phone rang during recording!) was all it took to make it sound good. The tutorial http://www.videosurf.com/video/silli%27s-voicethread-tutorial-for-k12-educators-12188608 from the Ning was gold. I think it is neat how you can have voicethread call you to record your posts! I went out and spent $30 on a Logitech USB headset. The tutorial's directions for using a microphone helped.
Here is my voicethread: it's my flickr slideshow with some of the points I make above about the American Southwest:
http://voicethread.com/share/645951/
Like you I had never used Flickr, picnik or voicethread until this course.
ReplyDeleteI like the photo editing site:
http://www.picnik.com/ because it does allow you to upload photos from anywhere you may have stored them. I easily pulled some photos I stored at Flickr.com into picnik and was editing in no time.
I did run into some errors when the photos wouldn't upload.
I like voicethread, but it kept telling me that I had used up my three voicethreads even though I hadn't recorded anything that I kept.
With that, I resorted to using Windows Media Players to record a voice track for my mini-slide show about the Letters I found campus.
Jon, I like your teaching ideas using Flickr.com images. I have found that images can evoke much from students and are a good prompt.
I like to use my own images to prompt my own creativity. I think a good use would be to have students take their own images and return and write about them in different ways. For example, write a poem about a scene, object or image, or perhaps make up a story about a place, a person or thing within an image.