Flickr

Flickr is the portal of choice for storing images and accessing images made available from individuals located around the world.

Earlier this month, I added some recent images to my existing Flickr account, one of which is included below.

P1310100
Originally uploaded by KazaEK

I also added the below images from Flickr to my blog. There are countless photos available on the site and the search tool makes it easy to find what you are looking for.

fireworks on the willamette river - _MG_8698
Originally uploaded by sean dreilinger

In the past, I've used Flickr as;

A. a repository for my personal photos and

B. a means to search for images of interest.

However, as a pre-service teacher, I now see this site in a different light. In considering how Flickr can be used in classrooms and how the site fits in with the pedagogical frameworks discussed in ICTs for learning design, I've discovered a range of new teaching and learning applications which will now be discussed.

Thus far, my postings have focused on publishing text-based content to the web, but online photo galleries and image repositories such as Flickr present opportunities for teachers and learners to publish images to the web.

Flickr allow teachers and learners alike to create photo albums and multimedia shows to share with their parents, friends, teachers, the community and others around the globe. My EPL class at Yeppoon State School for example takes digital photos throughout the year during class activities and school events. Flickr would be a great space for the class to upload their images in one place - allowing the students and other audiences to access the images and see what has been happening in the class regardless of their location.

Flickr is a great way to document and share teaching and learning experiences - field trips, school camps, practical activities, fetes, functions, guest speakers and more could all become part of a class or school ‘photo stream.’ Furthermore, classes and learners can create separate albums for related pictures. Teachers could even encourage learners to create an online portfolio with digital images of their work. For example, a visual art class or students studying a photography unit could create an online gallery of their work on Flickr. Thus, the site is ideal for facilitating learning through images and catering to the visual learners in your class.

Flickr also affords its users a global audience, other people are able to located images by the tags you add, view descriptions added to your images and comment on those images. Thus, an online dialogue with other Flickr users can be created and learners can become involved in a community that contributes images on particular topic, creating a sense of belonging among students as recommended Kunc (1992).

You can also create an RSS feed in Flickr and be alerted when photos related to a topic you are studying are uploaded onto the site. Flickr is also a fantastic resource for learners to source images for school projects and for teachers to find images to include in lesson materials – as most photos are publicly available and can be used by anyone (provided of course, that you reference the image to Flickr). Hence, Flickr is ideal for introducing your learners to the world of digital images/ online image publishing and encouraging them to engage in social conversations/ collaborative learning with Flickr users and other students from all over the world.

Picnik and Image Manipulation

I really enjoyed using Picnik in this learning activity – who knew there was a far superior version to ‘Paint’ available free of charge on the web?

During this learning activity, I:

1. created a Picnik account,

2. uploaded an image,

3. edited the image using the various tools available (e.g. cropping, resizing, rotating, auto-fixing, sharpening, altering the colours/ contrast),

4. ‘created’ the image (adding further effects and a frame) and

5. saved the image to my computer, uploaded it Flickr and posted it to my blog.

I repeated this process using another image and the results can be seen below.

Original Photo...............................Photo After Editing.

Original Photo................................Photo After Editing.

Images: Personal photos taken and edited by Karlee Kreis

 

As you can see in the 'Coke Bottle Building' photo, the 'Neon' effect in Picnik enabled me to manipulate the image in a way that expressed the coke brand (and colour) and is far different from the original photo I took whilst on a study tour in China (I come from a Marketing background and previously worked for Coca-Cola Amatil).  Note that the image/ title at the top of my Blog (Karlee's e.Journal) was editied in Picnik and I found the process of customising an image for my blog very rewarding,

Picnik would be a great image manipulation tool for students wishing to edit images for class projects, their wiki or blog. Using the site could become a lesson in itself, where students learn how to manipulate digital images and then perhaps post them onto their (or the class) Flickr account.  The hands-on nature of Picnik would also foster creativity and could be used in learning experiences underpinned by engagement theory (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1999). For instance, students could collaborate (relate) to build an online photo gallery of digitally altered images on Flickr on the topic being studied (Create) and make these images available to an outside audience, be it their peers, the teacher or parents (Donate).

For lower primary grades, the images created could be used in special occasion cards (e.g. for Mother’s Day) or compiled and presented in a power point presentation to parents during a parent conference in the classroom. 

In fact, I am so enthusastic about Picnik, that I will be working with the learners in my ELP class next week to edit an image in Picnik for their Mother's Day card (example left).

Picnik is yet another digital tool that enables active, hands-on learning (as students use multiple senses, in an active process to produce a product as per Dale's Cone (Abilene Christian University Adams Center for Teaching Excellence, 2000). Referring to the Learning Pyramid, using Picnik would also enable higher retention of the skills learnt and the learning experience itself through practical experience (Abilene Christian University Adams Center for Teaching Excellence, 2000). Picnik is my new favourite website and I can't wait to share it with the learners I'm currently working with.

Avatar is More Than a Blockbuster Movie!

Official Avatar Movie

When I first heard the term avatar used in the context of teaching and ICT, I couldn’t help but mentally picture the Na'vi - blue alien-like creatures, bounding from tree to tree in the rainforests of Pandora. However, avatars are more than characters in James Cameron’s latest blockbuster movie. In fact, they can be a highly effective and creative digital tool for learning managers. This post discusses the advantages and uses of avatars in teaching, with specific reference to ‘voki’ – an online publishing tool for creating avatars.

So what exactly is a voki and how can they be used in teaching?

A voki is a personalisable cartoon avatar which enables users to create a character/ audio player and express themselves on the web using a customised message (Pearce & Bass, 2008, p. 143). Vokis are one of many ‘plug-ins’ available to learning managers for use on the web (be it on a blog, in an email message, on a site profile, or on an online learning site such as moodle). The voki webiste can be accessed at http://www.voki.com/. Once you sign up to voki, you can begin creating a basic animated voki character for free (or explore other paid options such as 'site pal' - more advanced talking characters for websites).

The capabilities of voki are such, that you can customise a voki to suit your preferences or teaching topic. A voki’s; character style, player 'skin,' facial features, background, skin, hair, makeup, voice, ‘bling,’ clothes, can all be modified (as shown in the screen shot below).

A unique capability of voki, is that you can customise the character’s audio message, using either a microphone (to record up to sixty seconds of your own voice) or the text to speech feature on the voki website. Once the voki character is complete, a HTML code is generated and can be embeded in your webpage for the world to see (and play!).

The customisable and animated nature of vokis appeals to upper primary students and teenagers, who undeniably enjoy experimenting with new technologies. Vokis can be used by students to personalise their work and express themselves, for example by creating a voki reflective of themselves or their personality to their blog as a welcome message. The fun, novel of nature of vokis make them perfect for engaging students through active learning and for motivating them to learn. Given what we know about multiple literacies and learning styles, vokis are also a great way to engage both auditory and visual learners and are thus pedagogically justified.

As my patriotic voki friend from the US Army mentioned above, vokis can also be used by teachers to enhance lessons and engage learners. For instance, teachers could employ vokis on a moodle site or a teacher administered (class or student) blog to introduce; a unit of work, topic or homework assignment.

Please press play on the voki below for an example of how a voki can be customised by learning managers to suit the topic they are teaching and introduce students to online material or a homework assignment. In the example given, Sarah Palin, introduces the topic of misrepresented quotes to an English class, beginning with her (famously misrepresented) statement "I can see Russia from my house." Further instructions and details could then be given in written format on the class site or blog. Students might be asked to research and discuss other quotes throughout history where the meaning intended was lost in translation. From this example, you can see how vokis can be customised to suit a topic and interest students in the topic from the outset with an attention grabbing introduction (or ‘hook’).

RSS & Google Reader - A "Followers" Best Friend

Like me, you may have noticed a bright orange icon (featured right), when visiting blogs or websites, but haven't been sure exactly what it is or what it is used for. It is an RSS icon, and as I have learnt, RSS aggregators and feeds are extremely helpful for online users, teachers and students alike.

RSS is an acronym for 'Really Simple Syndication.' RSS enables users to easily follow frequently viewed blogs, podcasts and websites using an RSS aggregator. Prior to RSS, web users needed to firstly remember, and then visit each website or blog of interest to check for new information. However, thanks to RSS feeds (a ‘behind the scenes’ code generated by blogs and websites), updates can be brought directly to your computer and accessed via an RSS aggregator (Pearce & Bass, 2008, p. 2).

In my ICTs course, I set up an RSS aggregator in Google Reader to follow the blog postings by my colleagues, education professionals and websites related to the course content in ICTs. The process of setting up an RSS aggregator is user friendly and would be easy for both upper primary and secondary school students to use. To follow the RSS feeds/ postings of my peers, it was simply a matter of creating a Google account for my blog, accessing the Google Reader website, logging into my Google account and copying and pasting the feed URL of blogs I chose to follow into the “Add a subscription” field in the top left corner of the Google Reader page (as show in the image below) and then clicking “Add.”

With a list of subscriptions in place, I have since been able to monitor, link to, and comment on the blog postings of my peers, all from one point – my Google Reader page. Without RSS and an RSS aggregator, I would have needed to record my peers URLs separately and continually check their blogs to see if new postings had been made. Thus, RSS has made the process of following blogs much more efficient.

Using RSS and an RSS aggregator in this course has prompted me to consider how RSS technology can be utilised by teachers for their own professional use and in the classroom with their learners (and other stakeholders in learning process such as parents).

Professional Applications

Firstly, RSS is an invaluable aid for professional development online. An aggregator such as Google Reader allows teachers to keep abreast of the latest in pedagogical practices and technologies world-wide by following the blogs of other professionals and leading technology/ education websites. RSS can also be used to monitor sites for upcoming professional development opportunities, as many presentations and conferences are now conducted or available online. Google Reader is ideal for this purpose as it can be accessed from any computer and allows you to sort sites you are following into categories, and view a list of updates or an expanded plain text summary. RSS aggregators also make the process of following the reflective blogs of colleagues and other professionals simple, and aids in the establishment and maintenance of a ‘community of practice’ for teachers.

Classroom Applications

RSS aggregators can be used in much the same way to keep up to date with student work and their progress. The process of tracking a set of class blogs or wikis can be done via an RSS aggregator and teachers can easily link to a student or groups work to read further or leave a comment. Imagine how difficult the task of tracking your learners posts would be, if each student in your class (or classes), had a blog as a part of their assessment. RSS aggregators would also be of benefit to staff, students, parents and the community following a school of class webspace. Parents for example, could subscribe to your class’ RSS feed and easily keep track of class activities, daily updates and timetables.

Many students already use RSS in their everyday life (for example through Facebook) and some will use RSS feeds when they enter the workforce. It is therefore essential that students are given the opportunity to apply RSS technology in their school work. This is also important since understanding and using a web application like RSS is great for learners to enhance their digital literacy skills as they discriminate, monitor and manage feeds in an RSS Reader. On a practical level, RSS could be used by students as they engage in collaborative activities such as developing a wiki space or to follow the learning blogs of their peers. Teachers could also use RSS with their learners to ‘feed’ information about homework task, timetable changes or due dates.

Plug-ins & Gadgets - Enhancing the Learning Experience

Over the past few days I've been customising my e.journal.  Today I added a 'gadget' in the form of a Sudoku game. You will find the game towards the bottom of my sidebar on the right, so please feel free to give it whirl and break up your blog following!

After discovering the various gadgets available online, I started considering how various ICTs, gadgets (be it a Sudoku game or a virtual pet) and plug-ins (such ‘voki’), can be used by students to express themselves and feel a sense of ownership.

The ability for students to personalise their blog or wiki for example (with different 'gadgets,' layouts, colours and the like), enables them to be creative and inject some of their own personality into their work, which would in-turn foster a sense of ownership. Moreover, the hands-on and customisable nature of digital tools such as blogs, enables students to become more invested in the learning process through active participation.

As I will discuss in a future post, vokis are one plug-in available to students to personalise web pages or emails, stamping their own personality on their work.

The video below explains how blogger account users can add gadgets.

A Blog on Blogs...

The World Wide Web and the Internet first came onto the scene in the late 1980’s. However, there were, as with most new technologies, only a handful of internet users when the web first emerged, namely researchers and governments sharing data via HTML code (Richardson, 2006, p. 1). The way we use the internet today is vastly different. The advent of web browsers and user friendly publishing tools, coupled with the mass adoption of internet technology, faster bandwidths and computer ownership, now means that virtually any literate person with basic computer and internet skills, can publish to the web. From its beginning as a means of data and information transfer for the few, the internet is now a communication tool (among many other things) for the masses.

The term blog is short for Web Logs. Blogs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog are essentially a web page used to record regular commentary (via ‘posts’). They can also include other  non-text based elements such as; graphics, audio, music and videos. Blogs are most frequently used as an online personal journal by individuals. For an introduction to how blogs work, click here or view the video "Blogs In Plain English" below.

Blogs have been widely adopted by various groups of internet users (including journalists, businesses, school students, professionals and other individuals) and the number of blogs online has grown exponentially over the past decade. This is due in part, to the fact that blogs are easy to use (no knowledge of complex HTLM language is required) and are most often available free through sites such as blogger and wordpress. An internet Search Engine for blogs - Technorati (a clever play on words, combining Technology and Literati), has chronicled growth and trends in the Blogosphere since 2004 and has some great articles and blog links for those interested.

The important questions for teachers and pre-service teachers are: What do blogs mean for education? Why should teachers consider designing learning experiences that include blogs? How can teachers utilise this technology in the classroom?

Blogs have gone “mainstream.” With so many children and young adults either familiar with the technology, or using blogs outside of school, they present an incredible opportunity for teachers. There are numerous reasons why teachers should include blogs and blogging activities in their learning design. Firstly, blogging promotes the cultivation of independent learning skills as students become active participants in their own learning (Ahrenfelt & Watkin, 2008, p. 64). This is a key tenant of active learning theory, Dale's Cone and the Learning pyramid.

A reflective blog (or learning journal) for example, develops students’ abilities to review, record and reflect on their learning. Secondly, as blogs can be personalised (e.g. via layout changes, vokis, images and ‘gadget’ additions), they promote a sense of student ownership. Thirdly, as blogs are potentially read (and commented on) by a world wide audience, they motivate students to produce their best work and to be critical of the work they are producing - promoting higher order thinking among students as they critique and evaluate their posts and the posts of others.  Overall, students are likely to be interested in the technology, more engaged in the learning experience and further motivated to learn, read and write.

It is also important to note that ‘digital literacy’ is becoming a fundamental component of the literacy curriculum and indeed, within society today (Pearce & Bass, 2008, pp. 21-22; Winch et al., 2009). Authoring your blog and reading and commenting on others’ blogs, can only serve to enhance student’s digital literacy skills.

So how can we use blogs in education and the classroom?

There are several ways in which teachers can include blogs in their pedagogical approaches. Blogs can be used for creative writing, to document and present class/ assignment work or as a tutorial or homework space. The course co-ordinator in ICTs for Learning Design at CQ University (Scot Aldred), offered an excellent example of how blogs can be used for tutoring individual students outside of school hours, from any internet enabled location.  The example given, related to a blog created for tutoring ‘Natalie’ who was requiring assistance with her high-school mathematics content. Scot Aldred, her tutor, posted a question on a blog he had set up for Natalie, where she recorded her answers and Scot replied with feedback using the comment function. Pearce and Bass (2008) offer ten practical applications for blogs in education which I found to be a great summary of the various uses for blogs in teaching and learning.

The ten applications are outlined below:

1. BLOGS AS A CLASS SPACE

A web space where teachers and/ or students record and present information about activities and events happening within the classroom and school (for example, a school camp). Individual students post to the class blog (each student can have their own ‘category’/ sub-listing on the blog) and classmates read & respond to them. The blog entries could then be displayed on an interactive white board and used to stimulate discussion in class.  Using blogs as a class space would promote a sense of belonging (Kunc, 1992).

2. BLOGS AS A WRITING SPACE

Blogs can be used by students as space for writing drafts of their work (accessing them at home or school) and teachers can comment on student posts, offering feedback before ‘good copies’ or final assignments are submitted. Blogs are also ideal as a space for sharing creative writing, for example poetry or stories.

3. BLOGS AS A REPOSITORY

A place to embed content such as slideshows, audio and video (e.g. by using slideshare or teachertube) for others to explore and comment on.

4. BLOGS AS A REFLECTIVE SPACE

Blogs are an ideal platform for recording one’s thoughts and feelings through writing and promoting personal development. Student journals are one use of blogs 'as a reflective space.'  Blogs are ideal for; encouraging children to write, developing their literacy skills and teaching students about the ethics and responsibilities of publishing online.  These activities require higher order thinking by students as they analyse and critically evaluate the information they are sharing and reading.  Using blogs as a reflective space also inspires life long learning in children as they come to realise (by reflecting on their own learning and reading the blogs of others) that learning is an ongoing, lifelong process. 

5. BLOGS AS A PERSONAL PROJECT

A space to compile and present a project – either the whole project or just a portion of the project (i.e. to store artefacts). Plug-ins and applications such as Google Docs and Spreadsheets can be used to enhance the presentation of the project. The comment functionality also means that the teacher or peers can offer feedback as the project is developed.

6. BLOGS AS A COLLABORATIVE PROJECT SPACE

Geographically distant classes can collaborate on a project (promoting global awareness among students). Groups within a class could also collaborate on a blog site to produce and present a project.  Considering engagement theory, blogs as a collaborative space demonstrates the 'Relate' component as students collaborate with a group and the 'Create' component as students are working on creating a product (depending on the intended audience, the 'Donate' component may also exist).

 

7. BLOGS AS A COMMUNICATION SPACE

Student work (e.g. artworks) can be added or imported to a blog – serving as a means of communication between the teacher and class or community.

8. BLOGS AS A DISCUSSION SPACE

Blogs can be used as a makeshift discussion forum. Teachers can poll their class to gauge their opinions on a topic, post questions (to which their students comment on and discuss) or insert links to other sites or relevant information.

9. BLOGS FOR RESEARCH

Blogs can be used to record qualitative research findings. A student or teacher could gain insights from a group of people (for instance, members of the class or school) by asking them to share their thoughts on a blog or respond to a poll or question/s on a blog. This would be particularly useful for TAFE or secondary students undertaking primary research for an assignment. As an example, a student could create a blog for a SOSE assignment on how teens use the internet, publicise the address within their school and record postings and comments from their peers relating to a discussion question.

10. BLOGS FOR THE TEACHER

Blogs can also be a powerful tool for teachers. Increasingly, educators are utilising blogs for their own reflection and professional development - interacting with other education professionals on a global scale and thus becoming involved in a ‘community of practice.’  My learning journey in this course (ICTs for Learning Design) has seen me become a member of a online community of practice - consisting primarily of my peers in the GDLT.

The uses for blogs in the classroom are limited only by the imagination of teachers and given the opportunity, the students they teach. By and large, children are inherently eager to learn, and they want to learn with the technologies that they use in their everyday lives. Blogs are one such tool that teachers can employ in their classrooms (and in their own professional development) to support and enhance the learning experiences of their students.

I have entered… The BLOGOSPHERE!!

Do, do, do, do, do… well, that sounds very sci-fi, doesn’t it?

A term you might encounter while watching; Star Wars, Star Trek, Star Gate or come to think of it, practically any show with the word ‘star’ in the title!.

This is my first ever blog, and this year is sure to be a year of ‘firsts’ for me. You see, I have embarked on a new and exciting journey into the world of a pre-service teacher. My teaching focus is Primary, and this time next year, I hope to be teaching students in the early years of learning (ideally Year 2 or 3), within a Central Queensland school.

My employment and tertiary background is in advertising and marketing; having completed a Bachelor of Business (Advertising/ Marketing) and an Honours Degree in Marketing at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, in 2006. Employment wise, I’ve worked as; a market researcher, marketing assistant, a university tutor at QUT, an advertising account manager with APN News & Media and most recently as an advertising representative and administrator at The Rockhampton Morning Bulletin.

However, I have always been attracted to a career in the teaching profession. Even when I was studying at university, I found myself tutoring other students and undergraduate classes! After being in the workforce for a couple of years, I’ve come to the realisation that, I need to follow my heart, and become a teacher or as I’ve recently come to know it, a 'Learning Manager.' Consequently, I'm now enrolled in a Graduate Diploma of Learning and Teaching at CQUniversity Australia.

I look forward to exploring the digital tools and learning design and pedagogical theories in the course ‘Information Communication Technologies for Learning Design’ - discovering how ICTs are being harnessed in classrooms, and sharing my thoughts with fellow GDLT’ers (and anyone else who happens to read my blog). Most of all though, I’m keen to engage with students during my EPL days (which is in just 2 weeks time now), as I’ll most likely be learning more from them, than they will from me!

Thank you for visiting this weblog, I hope you find the postings here of interest. Please feel free to share any comments you may have. I’d love to read your thoughts and feedback, and inturn visit your blog.

Best regards,

Karlee

(Image above courtesy of Flickr)