amandaslearningblog: Flickr

Flickr is a photo and video website that allows users to share personal photographs. Users are able to access and post photos and videos from nearly all camera phones or directly from your computer (Wikipedia, 2009). As well as sharing photos, it can be used as a photo storage website. Flickr is free and easy to upload and use, and as long as you have a camera on you it can be used anywhere at anytime.

First you set up an account, then upload your image which can be on your computer or the web. You are then redirected to a site called Picnik. Picnik enables the user to manipulate and edit the photos with simple tools such as red eye, contrast, colour variation and cropping whilst still been logged into the Flickr account. Bighugelabs was the final program I used, it is a free image accessory website, which has templates for borders and more to complete the photo. I manipulated the photo of my son,Brock by using these three methods. You can see the progress and results below, the first using Flickr to upload, second aided by Picnik and the third framed with Bighugelabs.

Flickr is a wonderful way to store and share images and videos on the internet. As a Learning Manager, I would have to set up and control a class genric site and could upload images for up coming learning experiences. The simplicity of the tools would be great for middle and upper primary students to use as the photos could be sent to multiple sources and as Prensky (2005) noted that engagement is not just about fancy graphics but about good ideas and how to use them. In the classroom Flickr would engage the visual learners whilst they learn and enhance their knowledge about visual, digital and critical literacies.