Using Flickr as an educational platform and solution

This blog was originally an assigned aspect of the grad class I was taking at the U. Perhaps I have a few people that might see my post from that class, but in general I just wanted to keep logging the ways that I am incorporating internet based technologies in my high school art classroom.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/southwestadvanced/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/southwestdigital/
My personal Flickr site: wonderpete

TWO BIG PROBLEMS
This semester marks the fourth round of me teaching Digital Photography. If anyone has taught Digital, you know that on the upside there is a very high interest level from the kids.
On the downside there is a high occurrence of technical difficulties, printers, computers, networks, Adobe scratch disks, cameras, jump drives, "I forgot my cord," "I forgot my camera." I could go on, but you get the idea. Any difficulty can put a damper on a student's motivation and energy, and this is not something as teachers that we ever like to see happen.

Another issue that has been a frustration, is that sometimes as a result of technical difficulties, or sometimes as a result of different work paces, it is really hard to have critiques because students either aren't done, or they are done, but they can't get their stuff all printed. When we finally do have critiques, some students have been done for ages, and some aren't really done. Then you have the age old problem of students that don't like to talk in front of a group, and students that dominate any conversation... Add to that the fact that their 8 x 10's are not always very visible across the room, and the chances for a quality discussion seem to have plummeted. As a student, I really appreciated not only the deadline aspect of the critique, but especially the chance for quality feedback... from my professor, but also from my peers.

ENTER FLICKR
I was first introduced to Flickr a year ago in a class on internet based tools that could be used in the classroom. I was so behind on the emerging technologies that have appeared since my 2001 under grad completion, that I really hadn't taken a close look or really comprehended its capacity until a class this fall on video.

In my opinion, Flickr has quickly become an important backbone to my class. Not that there is a lot of instruction available on Flickr... that is still what I'm being paid a salary for, hopefully. But, the amazing thing about internet based technologies, especially the free ones, is that if kids "get" how to use them, they can not only use them from home and school, but post class, they can continue to access and add to their knowledge.

Following are 10 reasons I love Flickr, and links to the "groups" that my classes are using, so that you can take a look at our discussions, photos, etc. Even if you aren't a teacher, it is an amazing thing to get a compliment from someone across the globe about your composition, or to have your photo become one of their "favorites."

In no particular order...

1. Flickr is a free way to back up your photos to the web.

If you've ever lost your jump drive, or had it fail on you, you know the sinking feeling of permanently losing your beloved handiworks. Even backing up to a home computer isn't a guarantee against future problems. Having your photos in one place on the web means that even while traveling or at a friends house, you have access to your original photos. There is a 10 MB limit per month, but for most this is plenty of space. If not, for a mere $25 per year, you can upload unlimited amounts of photos.

2. Tags

If you are wanting to get your photos looked at and appreciated, tagging your photos with words that can be picked up by external search engines like google is a great way to get exposure and feedback from the outer world. Flickr has a massive world map, and you can also tag your photos to a specific location, so that people can go to that location and then be linked to photos from that country, city, or neighborhood.

3. Quality

Because Flickr is a massive community of photographers, you end up with some low quality images, but for the most part the photos you get in a search are of a much higher quality than you'll find on the typical google image search. Then you can also link from those photos to a photographers other pictures, or find a group that is focused on that topic or subject matter. As a teacher, I like that my students are being exposed to a very high quantity of interesting and diverse photos, and they can quickly find photos that are of interest to them, whether in technique or subject matter. This is a huge motivator, and I rarely have to redirect students back to Flickr from other websites. They go there as soon as they arrive for the day, and they refer to it throughout the class period.

4. Connecting to the real world and to other photographers

The best way to connect, once you have photos up, is to start joining groups. Often the admins (the people who began or are organizing the groups) will look at your photos and comment, or invite you to send your photos to the group's "pool." If there is a type of photography that you are interested in, but you don't know much about, this is an easy way to learn more, and get tips. Selfishly, though it has been practically useful, Flickr has been a neat way to show students my own photos, and to model how I am using Flickr personally. I think that this is one more way to get them to buy into it. "My teacher is using this in interesting ways and getting interesting feedback, I can too."

5. Discussions

Once you are in a few groups, you can start to read along in their discussions. Some groups do more or less discussing, but it is a way for members to communicate with each other. So, in the classroom setting, I use discussions as a way to give assignments, and the students can either discuss with me, or ask questions about what is expected. My answer can be posted once, eliminating some of the usual repetition of explanations that goes on. Look at some of our discussions for examples of both photo assignment posts, and discussions. In discussions, I get more and deeper responses from a higher percentage of the class. They all need to participate, but rather than tallying that on a sheet, I can take part too, and count later. Taking away the verbal, large group presentation element levels the playing field for a lot of students.

6. Posting Assignments

Once students get over the hump of understanding how to do basic posts and uploads to Flickr, they can post their assignments from school or home and then send them to the group. As the teacher, if you make all your students into your "contacts" you can easily track how many people are actually uploading photos and in what order. I hate to admit it, but the night before a deadline, I was quite entertained to watch who did the assignment days in advance, and who uploaded in early evening, late evening, early morning, or during lunch the next day. This takes training, so that kids know how to do what needs to be done, but once understood there is now a web-based infrastructure to the class that is not only accessible to the kids from home, but is accessible to you from home. My days of bringing stacks of photos in page protectors sliding all over the place are over. I simply check the group posts from my arm chair with my lap top, or go to their individual profiles.

7. Comments

This brings me to the beauty of comments. As I am grading, I can post constructive comments right then, that are linked to the photo for everyone. (I can also use Flickr mail if I have comments that aren't for the other students to see.) This is also a way to help the kids get engaged with each others work. For example, "Everyone get on Flickr, look at the new photos, find three you like and leave a comment that tells why." Immediately, everyone is on task flipping through the new work, and giving and receiving immediate feedback. This can turn into a popularity thing, but some kids use pretty obscure names for themselves, so that kids aren't necessarily sure whose work they are looking at... and I constantly remind them that they need to be specific, not just "I like that."

8. Favorites

Favorites are a way of keeping a link to a photo you really like, so that you can find your way back to it. Favorites are also a way of making the photo more "popular" or "interesting" according to Flickr sorting mechanisms. This means that the more people favorite or comment on your picture, the higher Flickr or google searches will rank that picture if its tags come up on a search, which results in more exposure, which can result in more comments and feedback. Again, getting a random person you don't know to pick one of your photos out of the thousands on Flickr is flattering and motivating. Motivating to add tags, but motivating to take good pictures and get them in groups that apply, and get more recognition.


9. Flickrmail

As a teacher this is a handy way to reprimand a student for an inappropriate comment, but it is also a way that students can turn in assignments or ask questions that they don't want to ask in front of the group. Instead of the student coming up with a question at home, and not asking because they forgot or can't find your email, they can go to Flickr, send a Flickrmail, and wait for a response. I am online enough, that I often see those the same night, and can get back to them with an answer (same with questions on group posts).

10. Administrative Power

As an admin of my own group, if I don't like the tone of a discussion post, I can edit it, or delete it completely. This sends a message to the student who made it, but it also sends a message to the group that is a silent reprimand. "We don't talk like that here, and they got deleted and marked down for doing it." Or, seeing an editted post can mean that students were asked to censor themselves. The group pool also becomes something that you can monitor and control if you set it up that way. I set my groups up so that I approve everything before it posts to the group. If anything inappropriate were being sent to the group, I can reject it and then deal with that student, rather than not noticing until someone notices or I look closely at what's there.

Well, that's my plug for Flickr. Go visit my groups and check back for the next few months as more interesting discussions are had, and more interesting photos are posted... Or just get on Flickr. It's addicting. If you have feedback, you can comment here, or contact me on Flickr (username: wonpet)

http://www.flickr.com/groups/southwestadvanced/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/southwestdigital/
My personal Flickr site: wonderpete

Teaching Satire on PB Wiki

My PB Wiki site on teaching satire is now launched. Contents include resources on literary, film, and artworks of satire, as well as explication of satirical structures. Check it out!

Teaching Satire

Critical analysis of film -- American Gangster

Above is the trailer to American Gangster... I will analyze the trailer as a representation of the film, which I did see.

I'd like to analyze this film from a critical discourse perspective, specifically the perspective of race... and then from an audience perspective. I am assuming you've seen the film, and if you haven't you may want to pass and return, once you have...

We'll start with an audience perspective. Three things I look for in a film that I am paying full price for at the theater: 1. Bigness... If I am seeing this film at the theater, something about this film should need to be big. Big sound, sweeping landscapes, action. Quiet dramas, and chick flicks do not need to be viewed on the big screen. 2. Good acting / script. I don't like to have my intelligence insulted by films with bad acting or cheesy scripts. Some comedies get exempted from this rule... but I am looking for some quality, otherwise it can wait for dvd viewing. 3. thought provoking ideas. despite genre, there should be something about this film that I could take away to think further about or discuss with someone else. If I come out of a movie, and there is nothing to really say, I will feel like I've wasted money...

On to the movie at hand:

Bigness: This movie was big in its cast... with both Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe as Best Actor Oscar winners, a soundtrack with latest rappers like Jay Z, and a volatile and sometimes violent setting. 1968, Harlem, based on true story. 2. Acting was great in this film. Crowe plays an intelligent and honest, but kind of dumpy Jersey cop. Washington is a totally polished, yet subtle and rising drug lord. 3. Thought provoking. There are a lot of trains of discussion one could take on this movie. It was very well done, and the social, racial implications are very interesting... as well as a historical piece... I'll talk more about those things below. So, as far as audience is concerned, I found this to be a film that stands to my criticism.

more to come...

Adult cartoon presentation

Here's the link to the adult cartoon presentation:

http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=ddf65hks_7444tb

the best band ever...

So, click for the link to my class presentation.

Here's the band website: www.theframes.ie

Here is the link to my youtube playlist... because the embeddable player wasn't doing sound.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=2217C3D2E508A628

In the link above, there are two Frames videos and a Rocketboom episode on pandora radio.

5 gum

For my analysis of filming techniques, I am using Wrigley's 5 Gum ad - rain.

In a 47 second clip, there are 28 cuts, so an average of less than a half second per shot. The ad begins with the taps of buttons and a low whirring sound, which builds as clips of an observation deck and various buttons and knobs are pressed and turned, a bass beat starts as a man walks into a raised pool of silver marbles and eventually lies down in them. The beat continues and the marbles begin to roll off the pool and over the man. One of the last cuts is off the man's mesmerized face as he lies in the marbles and listens to the beat. Eventually it clips to a slide that says "That's the spearmint tingle of 5 gum." The lighting of both the clips of the observations deck and the pool is largely dark and mysterious with dim lighting. The technical gizmos juxtaposed with the spare trappings of the room with the pool of marbles offers a sort of contrast of complex and simple, but is consistently a cold, metallic, distant feeling. The serious looks on the observers faces, and slow movements of the man walking into the pool combined with all the fast cuts create a feeling of anticipation and mystery as you are unsure of where the shots will take you next. There are a lot of shots of close ups of hands which creates a sense of proximity without intimacy. The man in the pool is only wearing shorts, so the imagery of skin as an organic substance with the metallic marbles makes you imagine a cool sensation.

The shots are mostly close ups and head/shoulders shots, but there are a couple views of the large auditorium area from far away that give a sense of place to the close ups. Overall, the audience is unsure of what will happen, like the scientists, but the positioning is definitely with the man in the pool. The shots where you can see the faces of the scientists are largely behind glass, whereas you see the hands, body, face of the man in the pool close up and for longer periods of time than the scientists. Overall, you are impressed with the abstractly cool feel of the place created, and you have a tendency to imagine what it would feel like to lie in a pool of metal marbles while listening to bass beats... and that the mindlessness of that might be desirable compared with whatever you might be doing. You probably should get some 5 gum, you are hypnotized and you are going to buy it right now. 5 packs probably.

Parody of an Ad

So, we're on the way out of a staff meeting convo about classroom management. We have largely decided that success often becomes about entertainment, since you can't actually force inner change on students, and it's hard to intrinsically motivate students to learn things that they aren't interested in or won't move them towards their goals. A colleague says, "It is basically just about building a better mouse trap." Or, in other words, if we can trick them into thinking we're giving them something useful, then we can get them. He was being sarcastic, but it was a phrase I hadn't heard before... I guess it is somewhat common in business circles as "If you can build a better mouse trap, they will beat a path to your door." It turns out the original quote is from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap, than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door." The big question: What if you don't actually need a mouse trap? What if the mouse doesn't actually need cheese? So, much of marketing and ads isn't about promoting things that meet needs, but about creating needs alongside products to fill them.

I chose to apply this idea to education, but in the ways education gets manipulated by the government as a sort of business idea. We are looking for a certain product, so we offer certain rewards. The poster that I manipulated is from the American Competitiveness Initiative. Check out the link below for the Information from the Department of Education and the whole report. The Initiative was introduced in the President's 2006 State of the Union address. (Where else would we get the word "competitiveness.")
http://www.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/competitiveness/index.html

This is the cover of the 17 page initiative that offers college money to students if they take extra math and science classes. The report is full of the same old research about how we are getting beat by other countries with smart kids... About how China is producing half of the future scientists of the world (or something like that) This is all well and good. I am all about kids getting free money for school, but the sentiment from the original poster smacks of the old space race promotions... except denying that the real reason we are pushing "competitiveness" is for the purposes of defensive (and more honestly) offensive military technologies. If we were to just spend less on these technologies, how much more fundage would be available to put right into education, instead of having to let it trickle down... What if kids could then take not only higher mathematics, and sciences, but vocational classes? What if we could provide a wider variety of intrinsically motivating choices in all academic areas?

...they'd beat a path to our door.