KCLS Learning 2.0
 
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Discover Flickr

This lesson focuses on photos and Flickr. Photo sharing websites have been around for several years. Flickr is different - it's half photo sharing and half online community. How so? Flickr makes incredibly intelligent use of linking keyword 'tags' to create associations between photos and between users.

Take a look at a photo on the Learning 2.0 Flickr profile (this link will open in a new window). Look to the right side of the page and scroll down until you see the label 'Tags.' Click on the 'library architecture' tag - this will quickly display all other photos with the same tag in our Learning 2.0 Flickr account. Quickly, you have linked to all similarly tagged photos in our account - this works the same whether you have three photos with the same tag or 3,000.

Now click on the link that says 'see all public photos tagged with 'libraryarchitecture.' This is where we get into the online community part of Flickr - just as quickly as we saw other library architecture photos in the Learning 2.0 account, we're now seeing similarly themed photos from other Flickr members.

Let's have Flickr fill in some of the blanks - take a look at their FAQ page on tags. Also, take a look at the image below (posted by Flickr user cambodia4kidsorg), whcih illustrates the beauty of tags. There are many many ways to describe whatever it is you are looking at in a photo (in this case: Pen, Marker, Sharpie, Purple). Why not include them all as tags?

Flickr also makes use of groups. Groups are communities of like minded photo posters. And, yes, there are quite a few groups with a library theme. Let Flickr fill in the rest of the blanks - take a look at their FAQ page on groups.

And inside the library world? A growing number of public libraries are starting to use Flickr for many of the functions mentioned in today's podcast. Take a look at some of the links contained on Library Stuff and see what's out there.

Discovery Exercise
 
Scenario 1
  1. Take a good look around Flickr and discover an interesting image that you want to blog about.
  2. Blog about it and be sure to include either a link to the image or a copy of the image itself in your blog posting. For the later, you can either use Blogger's photo upload tool or Flickr's blogging tool (you'll need to set up a Flickr account for this).
Scenario 2
  1. Create a free Flickr account.
  2. Use a digital camera to capture a few photos.
  3. Upload these to your Flickr account and tag at least one of the images “kcls27things” and mark it public.
  4. Create a blog post in your blog about your photo and the experience of getting it loaded to Flickr (be sure to include the image in your post - use Flickr's blogging tool or Blogger's photo upload feature.)
And before you get started, a quick word about photo posting etiquette. When posting identifiable photos of other people (especially minors) is it advisable to get the person's permission before posting their photo in a publicly accessible place like Flickr. Never upload pictures that weren't taken by you unless you have the photographer's consent and always give credit when you include photos taken by someone else in your blog (as I have above in the case of cambodia4kidsorg).

If you want still more, feel free to take a look at these tutorials:

- Flickr's 'What Is Flickr' tour
- Mediamazine Flickr Tutorials
- Flickr's popular tags