Flickr post.
Headache ensuing.
Is it the weather, my allergies, or the simple fact that I have been staring at my screen gazing at photographs for way longer than the suggested 15 minutes? So much here; thankfully they have a search the CC area only option because I was having issues figuring out which was what and what I could have.
So I started monkeying around on this while my seniors were working on a presentation due next class period. If they approached my desk and asked me a question, I forced them to help me. It is amazing what you can learn and how much faster you can learn it when someone who knows how to do it demonstrates. I was having all kinds of problems trying to figure out how to download--first victim pointed out the magnifying glass thing (all views), and there was the download large option.
The headache started fading. But then I started reading what I had to do for this entry. I found a theme, learned how to download, and started that process, and then the bell rang. What? Where did the time go? And just before I logged out so I could teach the next class, I found the above picture. I started laughing like a maniac. Why? I don't know; I just love this picture by Archangeli. It makes me terribly happy.
I am already thinking of the millions of things I can use this for in the classroom, including making more mnemonic videos for remembering cool things like the 7 Deadly Sins, etc. I chose Canterbury Cathedral so I can have some visuals for when we do the The Canterbury Tales. Many years back when my husband and I went to England, I had this idea of taking my pictures and using them in a slide show about the Wars of the Roses and Shakespeare, etc. I have some pictures, but now I realize with Flickr I can fill in the gaps I have from places I didn't get to visit on that trip, like Shrewsbury and Towton. Also, how nice that maybe with this knowledge, the power point presentations my students do over various things could be more than text that they read. We've ALL seen that power point, yes? How many staff developments have we sat through that we could have just read?
And just when I think that my headache is vanishing, I realized that a wiki is the best option for a final product format for the class I just finished. No choice, it just is.
So I enter this electronic world with ideas and a lack of patience, and hopefully I will come out a teacher with a wider range of tools at my fingertips.
I think I need a vacation from this "world with ideas and a lack of patience" as I have been visiting way too long.
ReplyDeleteTechnology has so many advantages, but it is almost as if I need a secretary/personal assistant/whatever the politically correct term is to do the work for me. I can come up with the ideas (something I'm good at) and let someone else put it all together (something that makes me crazy).
Finding the advanced search in Flickr did help some. At least I knew that every photo I came across was CC and not C. Even so, while I was sifting through the pictures in Flickr, it occurred to me that it may be just as easy to take my own pictures to fill in the gapes. At least, I'd get some fresh air and my eyes won't be all blurry.
On a more positive note, images work with our kids. We have a large group of visual, tactile learners, and if we can reach them by putting together some sort of slide show with music and bells and whistles, then so be it. I, too, have suffered through many PowerPoint presentations. And the options that Flickr provide will make this more endurable. It would be nice just to have pictures and music and a few verbal comments by the presenters, rather than slide after slide of words that are read to us as we passively sit there wishing we were somewhere else.
I had to leave this comment only because it bothered me that the comment counter said "1 comments". Oy!
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