Who among us does not want
or need
more TIME?
Image Citation: Time. Retrieved November 8, 2011 from http://www.flickr.com/photos/hartlepool_museum/5633910355/sizes/s/in/photostream/
I am not an expert on time management nor do I pretend to be one; however, among the myriad of technology tools out there for educators is a recent new find for me - Flickr! Flickr is described as a Yahoo Photo/Video Sharing Service and according to Wikipedia, hosts more than 6 billion images as of August 2011.
As I searched through the gallery, ideas just started to flow! Talk about saving time and my favorite adage, "work smarter, not harder"! This morning I visited a 6th grade classroom where the teacher provided four project options for her students as a culminating activity to having read the book, The Breadwinner, by Deborah Ellis. One of the options was to create a mind map utilizing pictures! I should have thought of this then, but I want everyone to know that I did just follow through with an email to her with the link to Flickr! What a great resource - not only for the teacher, but for her students, too! Not only will this resource save her TIME, it will provide the students with more options AND 21st Century skills - a win/win
As a professional developer, I can see endless possibilities for encouraging teacher use of this tool from not only the classroom project perspective, as mentioned above, but also for writing prompts and reflections - just think of the possibilities.
One site, the Teachers Network, recommended that teachers create their own Flickr class accounts, making it easier to access class work while also providing the option of keeping all work private. This particular site also provided an example of students who were not able to find some images on flickr, but uploaded Google images to their flickr group page, enabling them to collaborate with each other and to embed comments on the images by using either the notes or description features.
I can't wait to begin using this more!
Being able to instantly fill one of your colleagues in with the information about Flickr is amazing. I'm sure she was very welcoming of the information that you had for her to help her and her class with their current project! It's exciting when we get to implement our newly gained knowledge from our courses!
ReplyDeleteI love that quote, "work smarter, not harder." That is exactly what using technology in the classroom is all about. Using technology and activities that engage the senses (like Flickr) will cause less frustration in getting students to participate and connect with course content. We have to go the students and their interests, they are not going to come to us. Great Post!
ReplyDelete