I already knew about Flickr, but only thought of it as a place to find a picture to add interest or illustrate something in one of my lessons. I did not realize that I could scan my pictures and load them onto Flickr for others to see. That would be better than having them just sit on the shelf.
I looked for pictures of Sevastopol, Crimea in the Ukraine. That is one of the places where the Crimean War (1853-1856) was fought. Most students don't know much about that war, but it had big effects on European history and diplomacy and is a topic I cover in class. It was interesting looking at the pictures of Sevastopol. I knew it was a port on the Black Sea, but did not know what the town looked like. There were 129 pictures of Sevastopol and the surrounding area on Attribution part of Flickr. There were street scenes, monuments, a few of battle places... I think they were from the Crimean War. It is neat to have an idea of what the place I teach about actually looks like. I think the students would like it, too.
Balaklava Bay, Crimea
Sevastopol, Crimea
There are some drawbacks to using Flickr. Not all pictures are labeled as to what they are. I wouldn't want to use something without knowing for sure the name of what I was looking for. I also looked at pictures of Vienna, Austria. There were a TON of them, many not labeled. It could be really time consuming if one were looking for a specific site among all of the pictures.
My last problem is getting the picture where I want it in the document! I was hoping the Balaklava Bay and Sevastopol pictures could be side by side, but that did not work out well. The label for Sevastopol is not with its picture and I don't know how to get it to stay where I typed it. That would drive me nuts, because if I am going to create something to use in class, I want it to look good. I don't want to distract from my purpose by having a product with mistakes or editing problems.
In spite of the problems, there are some neat things I could do with Flickr in my history class.
i loved seeing your pictures. I think it would be cool to load them into flickr and be able to use them from there,
ReplyDeleteI would need to have someone show me how to do that. Looking at the pictures of Sevastopol was actually pretty neat. There were some pictures showing it as a naval port. For me, I think it would be easier to save the pictures and put them in a powerpoint.
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