Thing #5

Flickr is Quickr! I spent the first week of the summer in a College Board Pre-AP training. Many of the strategies were taught using images to get to the heart of disscussions on subject matter, mood, tone, and theme. Last week I attended a Promethean workshop in Fort Worth where the use of images to get to the heart of content were highlighted. My favorite recreational blog uses images very effectively to get its point across. I see the Flickr as a very effective and efficient tool to find quality images on the fly. The creative common aspect is not only a relief from copyright concerns, but offers a real-world segue into that otherwise, eye-rolling and sigh inducing subject. I can see using Flickr in a number of ways in Language Arts. One way is through the 4 image story - here the students would create, organize, manage, select, edit and assemble images to tell a story(ies) according to selected or assigned theme(s). Flickr provides an easily accessible and a manageable storage tools for individual students, student groups within and across classrooms and content areas. Images are not only a great enhancement to student writing, but can be inspiring nudges for reluctant and/or struggling writers. Lastly, I see numerous possibilities for inter-disciplinary units using image tags.