Thing #8: Flickr Mashups

I used Spell with Flickr to spell out the name of something that I am not getting a lot of lately, what with all the projects due in my education classes and the 23 things to work on.
I thought some of the sites that I checked out were pretty neat, and I can think of many ways to use them in the classroom if I could guarantee that I could protect students from exposure to disturbing or pornographic pictures. Before I would even consider using any of these tools in the classroom, I would need to do some serious checking out of the security features of the sites and how to go about filtering pictures. I would also need to talk with someone much smarter about using computers than I am about that. But let us just say that all the necessary safeguard were in place and the children were protected from images they shouldn't be exposed to. Mappr would be a great site to use with geography lessons. The class could look for pictures from an exact site that they were studying. Clockr could be used to inspire children as they worked on art lessons. Spell with Flickr could be used to help kids practice their spelling words or to devise the biggest lists of nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives and so on. It could even be used to get students to improve their vocabulary by coming up with the longest word or the longest list of synonyms or homophones....the list goes on and on. Same thing with puzzles. The students could practice their spelling words. The students could make their own name tags for their desks. Flickr could be used to share classroom work with families. However, the biggest use of these sites would be the motivating factor. I would use having time on them as motivators for children to do their work and enjoy it!
I think sharing one's own personal photos online is okay as long as one realizes that anything that is put online is not really private or personal-ever. You may think it is, but it isn't. If someone really wants to obtain access to something on line, they can. So if you keep that in mind and use common sense, it should be okay. However, I would not post any pictures of my students online and that goes back to safety reasons.