Visual Literacies

     Flickr is something that I have heard about many times and have been led to from a Facebook post, but it is something I have never personally used.  I did not know that Flickr allowed users to add annotations to their photos in different areas.  It also gives others a chance to comment on the photos you have added to your album.  I love the idea of students taking photos with their own digital camera to interpret certain subjects and topics taught in class and then annotating them as to why they chose to have that picture represent something they were learning.  How creative is that?  And it is a higher order of thinking!  Again we have the problem posed that most schools block Flickr from school website, and they make it hard to use this program educationally.  Also we have to be careful to protect ourselves and our students from breaking copyright laws.  The book suggests using New York Public Library’s extensive photo archive as a source for images other that your own.  To be safe you can just have students take their own original photos for projects.  I love the idea of having students create an “online portfolio with digital images of their work that are annotated with reflective descriptions and commented on by peers or mentors.” (Richardson, p.107)  That is such gratification for students to display their proudest work, and then read what others have posted about it.  Flickr seems like it would be very fun and easy to begin exploring for myself and my classroom. (If only I can get my school to see the BENEFITS of using it!) - Chapter 7: Fun with Flickr

     I was glad to read this article because it seems like a good resource for history teachers.  It would be a different experience for students to see pictures, but to also be able to hover their mouse over the picture to read the captions.  I am still a little confused to whether the institutions are the only ones that can upload to the Commons and add captions, or if the public can also contribute to the photo if they know something about it.  If the audience can comment on these “private” photos this would be a great way for students to interact with pictures of the past without just reading a boring textbook.  The only problem I see with this is that the website is blocked in many districts and the students would only be able to do this assignment from home, and not every student has a computer or the internet at home.

- “The Commons of Flickr”

     This article really focused on the reasons we need to dedicate ourselves, as effective educators, to teaching students through new technologies.  “"Please listen, class." "Pay attention, now." "Follow along with me, I'm on page three." "Will someone read for us?" - students tell us with their body language, their passive disinterest, or their distracting behavior that they are struggling to be successful in our text-driven classrooms.” (Myatt, p.187)  I totally agree with this statement because students are not supposed to learn the way students learned in the past.  The world is changing, so technology should be changing in the classroom as well.  Teachers can’t be afraid to experiment with new technology because it is the present and will only increase in the future.  Students need this visual stimulation in order to be active in their learning.  If they are just sitting there listening to lectures and writing down notes they are not really learning anything, and in most cases they will just memorize what they are given, spit it back up for a test, and then forget it.  Visual Literacy will paint pictures in the students’ minds and have a more lasting effect on them, especially if THEY are the ones creating it.

- “Connecting the Dots: The Unexplored Promise of Visual Literacy in American Classrooms”