Pedagogy First!

week Four-Flickr-Flowers

Some how I was asleep at the wheel last week, I had created a Flckr account, explored the possibilies and forgot to enter my post for Pedagogy First!  We are living in a time where there are many modalities to store and share photos.  As a Mac user I find iPhoto and my me.com very useful for the simple family stuff.  Flickr-type sites would allow me to have a class site independent/private plus the annotation.   I still need to make the next step of being able to embed these into my teaching space, slow progress.  Here is the Flickr link to my annotated photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/54671571@N02/5063277698/

I am not sure how that gets into the blog posting so here it is unannotated as well.

 

Flickr and Vocabulary

When uploading pictures, I have used different kinds of online software such as "Picasa". When searching for copy right free “Creative Commons” images, I have used Flickr. After exploring Flickr's annotating tool, I find it very useful to introduce and to practice new vocabulary words. For instance, next week I will be teaching a lesson about identifying furniture and rooms in a house. I was able to search for an image of a living room and with a couple of clicks I was able to label the furniture. I will be using this picture to introduce the target words. Also, I am thinking about having my students work in small groups, and find pictures of rooms in a house, then label the furniture on it.

From FlickrPoet to Tag Galaxy

Here's an interesting link to uses of Flickr to enhance language learning:  http://educationaltechnologyinelt.blogspot.com/2010/05/visual-literacy-flickr-fed-web-20-tools.html

For help with annotating Flickr images

Hi! I noticed not everyone had annotated their images. The trick is to use Add Note:

The gives you squares to add annotations to. 

But that only shows when someone is actually IN the Flickr website.

To add the image with the annotations elsewhere you need to use the Mbedr service: click here to get to Mbedr. 

Blog + Flickr = Blickr?

These are the things I look at when I explore Web 2.0 technologies:

1. Does the login tie to any existing logins that I already have (ex:  Google Docs with Gmail), so I don't have to remember yet another login or password.  Flickr does this with my Yahoo account, so I like it.  I think there must be a hundred other accounts I have out there for various Web 2.0 sites, and I can't remember anyone of them.
2. Is it relatively easy to get started, especially for the basic features, or is the learning curve so intense that I need to spend half of my life learning the material (ex:  Adobe CS5 Production Suite or Final Cut Studio).  Uploading an image into Flickr is a painless process, so I like it.
3. Are menus easy to navigate and does each menu contain just enough selections, or is it littered with path after path navigation.  I'd give Flickr a "B" grade on this. 
4. Can I use what I create to share with others in other sites (Web 2.0 is after all social networking technology). For some darn reason, I had the most difficult time embedding my Flickr image with its notes using Mbedr.  It took me three tries, and I KNOW I didn't do anything differently the third time, but it finally worked.  Still don't know what I did incorrectly the previous two times. 
5. Do I see a use for this in what I do, apart from personal enjoyment.  The Time Warner advertisement comes to mind:  "You first.  The technology follows."  I don't think I am there yet with this one, and I'll be interested in seeing how others employ this technology in their teaching. 

My Blickr

Week 4 - Getting to know Flickr

This was my first experience actually working with a Flickr account.  I've been invited to see other people's pix here before but have never taken the time to explore this as a teaching tool.

Uploading a photo was easy and following Lisa Lane's tutorial on annotations from Alan made a lot of sense.  I could have used this feature last week because I taught a unit on photographic composition.  For example, I could have used annotations to describe the principle at work and direct their eyes to that area of the frame by placing it in the box.  This will be a huge help for my students in the future because the power point I post for them as a .pdf is large and difficult to navigate and digest.  Flickr will allow me to give it to them in snack size, mini moments of learning... when they need to see it ...one frame at a time or the whole unit at a glance.  This is exciting.

I set up a group on the site for our POT Cohort #3.  Digital Rights Management is a big issue in my field so I wanted to know how to make the material "by private invitation only."  I entered the email addresses from Jim's last email and composed an invitation to the group. I hope that didn't annoy my fellow cohort members or break any rules.

I used the caption and this example to express my frustration with the "ole boy" nature of the most powerful organization in my industry for cinematographers - the ASC.  Last time I checked, less than three percent of their membership are women. For the young women you see in the photograph, this is a huge problem.  Hope I can be part of the solution as a producer with the capability to hire and as a professor with the mandate to set a good example. Very fun exploration.

A silly Flickr thing (Week 4 / Cohort 2)

It isn’t necessarily related to my application of last semester’s knowledge to the class, but I did this fun thing in Flickr to try an experiment -- I wondered who would be interested in it.

Here’s what I created, using Flickr’s note capability (Notes: instructions from Alan Levine, 2006) and Mbedr so you can put the photo elsewhere on the web with its annotations (I had to use the iframe option -- I guess Typepad doesn't like object tags). Here’s the result:

Here’s the fun part. I posted to my personal friends and colleagues in Facebook, but got very little response. My thought was, hey, what I did here was cool, why doesn’t anyone care?

Then I posted to my technology network in Twitter, and that started what is called a “meme”, where others pick up on what someone does and do the same. Here are the responding Flickr images from two of those colleagues, folks I’ve never met in person: Mike Bogle (whom I do know online) and David Jones (whom I don’t). I like the social power of some of these tools, but my experience points to the fact that you need the right crowd.

To what extent are our students the right crowd, I wondered? I went to my Moodle class for History of England, where I had posted a similar annotated picture of a medieval map:

Students responded to it as an assignment, but not to the image I’d made. So this week, I asked them in my comments, “Hey! Wasn’t anyone impressed with my map?”. So far one student has responded she was, with a smiley face. :-)

My friend Flickr

Here is one of several photos I uploaded to Flickr.  It's a cool website and I really liked the feature where I could map where this photo was taken.  I would like to take credit for taking it but it wasn't me.  My brother sent me this series of photos taken of an eagle family nesting on Denman Island.  If you squint and use your imagination you can see our family cabin behind one of the bizillion fir trees on the coast.  I found Flickr to be easy to use.  I am wondering if everyone will be able to look at the photos as I set the access for family and friends.  The quality of most photos is spectacular BUT the one thing that really irks me, and this isn't Flickr's fault, when I searched the galleries using the search term "nurse" or "student nurse" many of the images found are those of the "nasty nurse."  GRRRRRRRRR!  That image that the public/society has of the sexy nurse really damages the profession - but that is a vent for another blog entry.

 

Week 4 Prompts

Here are the prompts for this week's contributions to the blog. Posts are due by next Wedenesday:

Cohort #3

Week 4: Photos & Images

• Explore Flickr and learn about this popular image hosting site.
• Upload a photo or image into Flickr and annotate it.
• Create a blog post about what you did, and include your image and a link to it.

Cohort #2

Continue to share your reflections on your implementation of what you learned last semester in your class this semester / and continue to offer your ideas and guidance to our newer blog participants. At this point, you should be working on your fourth post to the blog this semester.

 

Photos, Flickr, Jing & Screencast

I've used Flickrs on a limited basis (http://www.flickr.com/photos/profkelley/).  Mainly when I want to share a visual... and I don't mind who else sees it.  I think of Flickr as the 'image version' of YouTube.

My main use of Flickr is to find creative commons licensed images.  These images can then be used in presentations that I make public outside the classroom.

Some blogs require that you upload your image elsewhere and provide the url... then the image is included within the post. In this case, I consider whether thie blog is 'public' or 'private.'  If public, then I'd upload the image to Flickr, and use the Flickr URL.  If the blog was within a password protected environment (e.g., an option with NING), and I did not want my image 'out there' then I'd bring the image up on my computer screen, take a 'snap shot' with Jing, and upload the image to ScreenCast (image would not be public), and insert the URL from ScreenCast into the blog.

Jing is free... so students could use this option also for uploading images not to be publically viewable.

Many options out there.

Robert

P.S.  When Jing, you can also edit the image easily (add arrows, highlight, frame, or add text).. and then upload it Screencast : )