Image Manipulation and Storage - Picnik and Flickr

Hello Bloggers!!

THINK PICTURES NOT WORDS!!! I have just been playing around with the Flickr and Picnik sites and I am very impressed!

Flickr
Flickr is an online storage site for images. These images can be uploaded by anyone who has an account with flickr. This is a great resource for students as it also provides a number of pictures which can be borrowed for use by the students. It could easily be used to upload important images taken of the students work during the span of a unit to be used in a final assessment peice. This kind of use could be especially useful for science based units of work which involve collecting pictorial data over a period of time, for seed germinating etc. The site is easily accessible and easy to use for most students without the need for excessive amounts of teacher input.
Students would however need to be taught about copyright laws and protection which may inhibit them from using images that are not their own.
I think this could be a great site for storing images for students to access not only at school, but also at home. This is a valuable resource for students and would also allow groups to see things from different perspectives as other groups post different pictures on the site (Oliver, 1999).


Picnik
Picnik is an image manipulation tool which can be used to change sizes, colours and effects of existing pictures. Simply upload an image and edit until you're happy. I think this would be a great engaging tool in students learning as it allows for student selection and interpretation of images and how they should be manipulated to highlight a particular meaning. Keirsley and Schneiderman's Engagement Theory states the need for personally relevant student chosen projects, and i think this site is an excellent tool for students to select and edit their inidividual images to show their thoughts about a picture or topic. This tool is engaging and also encourages the use of complex thinking in order to express a particular meaning through a picture.


I had a play around with this image and this is what happenend. I encourgae you to jump on this resource and give it a try yourself.


Before







After





If you would like to go to Flickr click here.
If you would like to go to Picnik click here.


Hope you enjoy!!!


Cheers, Pete