Post #6- Chapter 7, The Commons on Flickr, The Unexplored Promise of Visual Literacy in American Classrooms

Chapter 7

Even though I personally don’t have a Flickr account, I like the positive attributes it can have in the classroom, and that it seems easy enough to use.  “From a classroom standpoint, think about the ability to capture daily events or highlights and easily share those with parents, community, and colleagues.  Field trips, speakers and visitors, special projects, and much more could become a part of any classroom’s “photo stream” and could be a great way of sharing the teaching and learning experience (pg 102).”  I really like how this can be used in the classroom; if a student is sick or a parent can’t come into class, they can be up to date on what goes on in the classroom and even the school through the Flickr account.  I also like that “the real power of Flickr lies in the ways it can connect people from around the world (pg 105).”  If the students have an event or go somewhere, the pictures can be uploaded to Flickr and the photos can have the tags in them.  Then someone from a different part of the country or the world can search for photos that have a certain tag and see for example a class that went apple picking.  That person can then comment on the photo and can learn more about the field trip or the area.  I didn’t know much about Flickr before this class, but I did know that it was used to upload photos and share with friends.  I didn’t know that it could be used in classrooms, especially to the extent showed in the book.  I think the positive uses of Flickr in the classroom can be summed up in the last sentence on page 110: “Flickr is a great tool for introducing students not only to digital images and publishing, but also to the social conversations and collaborative learning opportunities that the Web now offers.”

Photostreams to the People: The Commons on Flickr

This article was very informative on how to use Flickr, not necessarily in the classroom, but just getting started with the whole process of starting an account.  The Commons part of Flickr is like the driving force, where people can look through different pictures and even change them, which I really like.  One thing that I saw in the article that could be used in the classroom was using Flickr to make collages.  A project that came to mind when I came across this was at the beginning of the school year, the students could use Flickr to look up pictures of things they like to make an “All About Me” collage as a way of introducing themselves to each other; another project that this could be great for is doing heritage appreciation.  Each student could find pictures of food or the architecture in the country they’re from and present it to the rest of the class.  I also liked that the article gave background information about how Flickr came to be; sometimes it’s difficult to find out how a website has gone worldwide in a short period of time or how it was even founded.

Connecting the Dots: The Unexplored Promise of Visual Literacy in American Classrooms

One of the problems nowadays is the large achievement gap in schools.  Another big problem is that some of the schools that have the largest achievement gaps don’t have the technology necessary to use in the classroom.  I definitely agree that having technology in the classroom, with the bright colors and different graphics used in lessons, it captures the students’ attention more instead of just reading from a textbook, as is usually the case in most traditional classrooms.  When I was student teaching in a 6^th grade classroom, I had the opportunity to use a smartboard in my unit.  I loved learning all about it and how to use it, and all the things that could be done on the smartboard really intrigued my students.  They loved the different pictures, videos, and other bells and whistles I incorporated into the presentations.  Using technology, for me, gave everyone a way to learn something new while tapping into their previous knowledge.  I do think that from the experiences I had during my student teaching shows that although technology in the classroom won’t completely close the achievement gap, it will help.  It has to start somewhere.