Thing 5 - Flickr

Photo sharing websites have been around since the 90s, but it took a small startup site called Flickr to catapult the idea of “sharing” into a full blown online community. Photo sharing is simply the publishing or transfer of a user's digital photos to an online site, enabling the user to store photos and share them with others – either publicly or privately. Flickr has become the fastest growing photo sharing site on the web with over two billion images, and is known as one of the first websites to use keyword “tags” to create associations and connections between photos and users of the site. (More about tags in Thing 12.) The key element that makes Flickr so unique is that online collaboration and community are interwoven as main components. Flickr also provides safe online storage of your photos.
Watch this video to better understand how photo sharing works.




If you can't see the video, click here to watch it on the Common Craft website.

Photo sharing with Flickr incorporates visual literacy into teaching and learning. Students can search for photos to help with research or projects, and educators can upload photos for classes, school events, special projects and so on. Think about using Flickr for presentations, art history/appreciation courses, geographic or historical tours, writing prompts, digital portfolios, field trips, simulated travel for foreign language classes, visual documentation of school events and student artwork, digital storytelling, and illustrating poetry. The possibilities are endless.

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To complete Thing 5 you must:
A. Explore the Flickr site
B. Search for and download a photo
C. Reflect on Thing 5 on your blog
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A. Explore Flickr -
For a quick overview start with the Flickr Learn More tour. Click on "Start the Magical Feature Tour" at the bottom of the page. (It's not necessary to create your account yet - we'll be doing that later.) Next watch the following video to learn about ways to explore the pictures on Flickr.



B. Search for photos -
Go back to the main Flickr page and try searching by tag. Tags are keywords people use to organize their photos. Enter a tag in the SEARCH box. Try volcano, Thoreau, frog, perspective, happiness, or some of your own. Remember that all photos are self-tagged by the person who uploads them. Your idea of the meaning of a tag may be something entirely different than another person’s. Also be aware that because anyone can upload photos and tag them as they wish, you may come across images during your search that you feel are inappropriate.Find a photo you want to download, and click on it to go to its page. To download the photo, right-click on the image and choose "Save image as..." Rename the photo and save it in an appropriate folder so you can upload it to your blog later.Be sure to consider copyright laws when using pictures from the site. When viewing a photo on Flickr, scroll down the page and look in the right column where you will see rights to the photo under Additional Information. If it says All Rights Reserved, you do not have the right to use it without obtaining permission from its owner. A good solution is to use photos that have Creative Commons licensing which gives certain rights to users. Flickr photos licensed under Creative Commons can been accessed here. The Library of Congress also has public domain photos on Flickr here.

So go ahead, explore the site and have some Flickr photo fun and if you're interested in looking at some other photo hosting sites, then check out Picasa Web Albums from Google and another service called Smugmug.

PS: A quick word about photo posting etiquette and cybersafety - When posting identifiable photos of other people (especially minors) get the person's permission before posting their photo in a publicly accessible place like Flickr. Never upload pictures that weren't taken by you (unless you have the photographer's consent) and always give credit when you include photos taken by someone else in your blog.

C. Reflect -
Blog Prompt for Thing 6 - Create a post on your blog about one of the photos you downloaded. Why did you choose a particular photo? What is it about the photo that you found interesting? Be sure to include the image in your post. Use Blogger's photo upload feature to do this.

Classroom Connection

Idea 1: Visual imagery has always been a source of inspiration for writers. Use Flickr photographs as writing prompts in the language arts classroom as creative or narrative assignment inspiration.

Idea 2: Storyboards have been used as visual sequencing tools to assist writers in developing pllot. Use multiple image sets for digital storytelling projects.

Idea 3: Photographs offer a glimpse of place and time that text cannot. Use geotagged photos for exploration of a particular geographic location. Take students on virtual fieldtrips through a tour of geotagged images.