I got my first introduction to Flickr on a personal level. My daughter lives in Chicago and regularly posts pictures on Flickr for family and friends to view. When I visited her this summer and took way too many pictures (!), she kept asking when I was going to put them on Flickr. I finally did and spent hours trying out the web site by uploading, editing, and naming my slide show of 70+ photos. The attached picture is of the Chicago’s Cloud Gate (or as it is most commonly called “The Bean”) in Millennium Park, a 110-ton, highly polished steel monolith shaped like a kidney bean. It’s a fascinating marvel that reflects not only the people close to it, but also the entire skyline. I was able to upload my photo directly from Flickr to my blog. How cool is that?!
I can see many applications for Flickr to the classroom. A teacher could create a private classroom group and post student-generated pictures and videos. Also, a Flickr group could have pictures of students taken at school for the “author page” of a Power Point or Photo Story or for students to create a personalized trading card or an “All About Me” magazine cover. It’s a perfect resource for students to find public commons pictures for their multimedia and Big Huge Labs projects. Great tool for photo needs of any kind!
