I found this photo on Flickr when I typed in Tornado
OH NO! I typed out a big reflection on this and then my computer crashed and the auto save on my blog must not have been working:-( Just as I was really getting excited about all this technology this has happened... goodbye last hour of my life! Another lesson learnt. Very frustrating though and I would be very upset if this happened to my students.
Ok so here we go...
I accessed Flickr and opened my account which was very simple. That was last week and today I decided to do a specific search. I searched for Tornadoes and found this image. I think it is AMAZING! In the short time I have been using this program I have loved the authenticity of it all. Obviously images as incredible as this are available in books, etc but I love the idea that a real person spontaneously took this shot while being amongst the action! Of course, this may not be the case - he may have intentionally set up the shot, he may be a 'storm chaser' or the like, but the way accounts are set up on Flickr, you feel as though you are getting sneak peeks into parts of peoples lives that they find special enough to share rather than just random images.
As soon as I saw this image I instantly thought of the See, Think, Wonder thinking routine that was mentioned in our course readings. Here is my reflection:
I see a Tornado roaring through farmland
I think about how powerful the tornado looks and how scary mother nature can be. I think about how I hope I never encounter a tornado in my whole life and I also think about how close the photographer must have been to the tornado to get a photo like this.
I wonder about how Tornadoes start and in what cities they occur most. I wonder about how people stay safe during a tornado and if the photographer was hurt or had his possessions damaged in any way. I also wonder about the cows and if they were ok!
I think that Flickr could be a great tool in the classroom because it is simple to use and the quality of images is incredible. Images are a great supplement to lessons and discussions and being able to access photos on nearly every subject makes this a fantastic program for projects, etc. When I wanted to use this photo in my blog I discovered that I could set up a direct link so that any photos I chose could be added to my blog without any copy and paste. This is a very helpful tool that students could use if they had blogs as well.
I had quick look at Tag Galaxy too. My first impression was that the layout and graphics were really cool. I love the idea of using tags and can see how this could foster class discussions on which key words are useful in finding a certain image as well as labelling any images added by the students. The downsides to this program that I have found though are as follows:
- If there are a lot of images it took a long time to load them on my computer
- The images are small and sometimes hard to make out
- In some instances I saw inappropriate images so that is an issue for classroom teaching
- Sometimes the narrowing down of tags went on and on.
- On Flickr I also saw some comments that were not appropriate for students to read.
Here is a snapshot of Tag Galaxy. I looked up "painting abstract".
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