Flickr

...or more truthfully, the site where I can look at pictures of places I would love to visit as well as other interesting (but maybe not always relevant to this assignment) stuff.

At first it took me a little while to get my head around what I could use from Flickr. I had heard of the site before and knew that I could access pictures could be used freely on the web however all of the pictures I found where fully copyrighted. After much searching I discovered a tag down the bottom of the page that allowed you to search within the creative commons and ta-dah! I now have my own travel album and I haven't had to hop on a single aeroplane.

The pictures that I selected are all able to be published and reproduced as long as the orginal work is attributed to its owner (this can be found at the bottom of this post).

Having decided that the pictures I selected would form a make believe photo album I opened the pictures in Picnik (which is next to be discussed) and gave the photos the polaroid frame treatment.

Flickr is an online photo library that aims to "help people make their content available to the people who matter to them" and "enable new ways of organising photos and video" (Flickr, 2009). As I mentioned earlier photos that are fully copyrighted are also on the site. It is important that we abide by copyright laws and also provide our students with an understanding of the legal issues of using other people's work. Here it would be useful to use a YouTube clip that explores the differences between copyright and creative commons.

As a teaching tool Flickr provides a photo bank for teachers to access free of copyright hassles. Pictures can be used to help support learning, or branching off from my travel photos idea could possibly be used as stimulus to learn more about another culture.
Flickr also provides students with a wealth of pictures that can be used for different tasks. In terms of presenting pictures within a task that will be posted on the web, students may find (as I did) that they are more inclined to create something of a high stadard as they are aware that their work will be seen by their peers (Kearsley & Shneiderman).

Photos
Night View Eiffel Tower, Paris, France by eustaquio santimanos
Gelativa Brivido by amstrks
Santorini Greece by billandcathy
St. Basil's Catherdral by itsray